From birth to age 1, children should remain in rear-facing safety seats. Rear-facing seats provide greater protection against back or spinal cord injury in case of a frontal crash. A child who is at least 1 year of age may graduate to a forward-facing seat at 20 pounds, but experts recommend waiting as long as 30 or 35 pounds.
TODDLERS&PRE-SCHOOLERS
When children graduate to the
forward-facing seat, usually at age 1-4 or when they weigh 20-40 pounds, the
preferred model of safety seat for toddlers is the convertible or the
combination seat. These seats protect taller, heavier children who have
outgrown their booster seats but are too small for an adult or booster seat.
CHILDREN
The final stage of safety seat
before the lone seatbelt is the booster seat. Booster seats are great for
children between the ages of 4 and 8, and who weigh between 40 and 80 pounds.
Booster seats help seatbelts fit appropriately—straps should cross over the
chest, and the lap belt should lay over the upper thighs.
LATCH
In any case, remember to use your
car’s LATCH (Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children) feature. This federally mandated
safety feature is found in most cars manufactured
after September 2002. The system makes proper installation easier with
“child-size” safety seat straps and anchor attachments that can help prevent
seatbelt strangulation.
When in
doubt, refer to the user’s manual or consult a professional to check the safety
of your car seat. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
will locate the inspector nearest you.
Visit the
NHTSA site for safety seat guidelines, and don’t forget about Child Passenger
Safety Week in September.
Dr.
Mark George and colleagues from the Medical University of South Carolina
recruited 190 adults to participate in the study. Participants had been
depressed anywhere from 3 months to 5 years, and all had been unresponsive to
treatment with antidepressants.
Half
of the participants received a simulated placebo treatment, while the other
half were treated using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a form of
magnetic therapy in which electric pulses are used to stimulate the brain. TMS
is currently being used treat depression, as well as chronic pain, migraines
and Parkinson’s disease.
After
three weeks, 13 of the 92 patients (14 percent) who underwent TMS treatment
reported no depressive symptoms, compared to 5 percent of people in the simulation.
"This
study should help settle the debate about whether rTMS works for
depression," said George, who led the research team. "We can now
follow up clues suggesting ways to improve its effectiveness, and hopefully
further develop a potential new class of stimulation treatments for other brain
disorders."
Remission
more than doubled in another similar study in which all participants underwent
TMS. Although these results may seem meager, this could spell relief for many
of the 17.5 million Americans who suffer from depression. Further studies will
provide more concrete information on the long-term effects of TMS.
“We
have settled a fundamental question about (TMS) therapy, which is: ‘Does it
work?’” George told Health Day. “The answer,” he said, “ is ‘yes’.”
Learn
more about the results of this study from the National Institute of Health, or
visit the Archives of General Psychiatry to view the study’s abstract.
Researchers
from the University of California monitored the diets of 931 men and women,
focusing on chocolate consumption. None of the participants were taking
antidepressants, and they had their moods assessed routinely.
Those with depression consumed 8.4 servings of chocolate (1 ounce is one serving) per month, while those with major depression ate an average of 11.4 servings per month. Their counterparts who showed no signs of depression ate an average of 5.4 servings per month.
Chocolate
sends signals to the brain to release serotonin and endorphins, two “feel
happy” opioids. Endorphins are responsible for that satisfied buzz you get
after exercise, while serotonin is believed to produce feelings of love and
happiness.
This
study is the first to examine the chocolate-mood link for both men and women,
and, based off their findings, Doctors Natalie Rose (U.C., Davis) and Beatrice
Golomb (U.C., San Diego) believe there may be a direct link between depression
and chocolate cravings.
"The
findings did not appear to be explained by a general increase in caffeine, fat,
carbohydrate or energy intake, suggesting that our findings are specific to
chocolate," Golomb said in a press release. “Our study confirms long-held
suspicions that eating chocolate is something that people (including men) do
when they are feeling down."
One
speculation is that when a person is down in the dumps, he or she will reach
for this “comfort food” to boost his/her mood. Another possibility, however, is
that eating chocolate (which is often high in fat and sugar) causes a person’s
moods to spike for a short period of time only to crash later.
"Because
it was a cross sectional study, meaning a slice in time,” Golomb explained, “it
did not tell us whether the chocolate decreased or intensified the
depression."
The
research team plans to conduct further research investigating the effects of
chocolate on mood to gain more insight into this relationship. “Whether there
is a causal connection, and if so in which direction, is a matter
for future prospective study,” they concluded in their report.
Read the study’s abstract
at the Archives of Internal Medicine, or check out the University of
California’s press release for more information.
You can test your blood sugar, you can test your blood pressure, but did you know you can test your risk of falling? You can now thanks to a screening tool developed by the University of Missouri School of Health Professions.
University of
Missouri associate professor Carmen Abbott created the test to help
predict an
individual’s risk
of falling, which they hope will help reduce the risk of
injuries.
“It’s very
important for adults to understand their won fall-risk
factors,” Abbott said in
a press release. “This test can become a primary prevention strategy
that can
be used in regular screenings.”
The test is made
up of 16 parts, including a questionnaire and physical tests. It
includes
questions about fall history, what types of medication an individual
takes, and
whether he or she experiences dizziness. The physical tests include
strengthen
balance and range of motion exercises.
Testing each
person allowed researchers to develop a customized risk prevention plan.
“Personalizing the risk exercise prescription palatable to an individual
that
has not taken physical activity or the idea of decreased physical
function
seriously,” authors wrote.
In the University
of Missouri press
release, Abbott offers tips for people who wish to improve
their coordination and reduce their risk of falls.
“It’s very important
for adults to understand their own fall-risk factors,” she says. “What’s
more
important is for adults to know their risk and stay as active as
possible.”
Exploding
head syndrome is more common in women than men, and people with the disorder
are usually in their 50s or older. Once a person has had an incident, sometimes
called an auditory sleep start, he or she may not experience one again for long
periods of time, if at all.
What’s
unusual about the disturbance is it’s only heard inside the mind. It has been
compared to thunder or an explosion that lasts just moments before the
person wakes up. Episode-induced anxiety sometimes causes heavy breathing,
rapid heartbeat and cold sweats.
Exploding
head syndrome doesn’t cause swelling or damage, but on occasion the episode may
be described as a headache. In some instances, people with the disorder may
also see flashes of light. This is called a visual sleep start.
According
to the American Sleep Association (ASA), the disorder has been linked with
stress and fatigue. Episodes often come in clusters and are relatively erratic.
The
ASA does caution people who think they might have the disorder to speak with
their doctors. Similar experiences may be the result of medication or other
conditions. Distress over episodes also could lead to insomnia.
Although
the exact cause isn’t known, the ASA says that a regular sleep routine and
calming activities before bed may help prevent incidents.
Fourteen
men and women were asked to describe their social roles and support levels.
Each was injected with a small amount of radiotracer, used to show how
different tissues function in PET scans. Researchers, meanwhile, monitored
dopamine activity in the brain.
"Low
levels of dopamine receptors were associated with low social status and that
high levels of dopamine receptors were associated with higher social status,”
study leader Dr. Diana Martinez of the New York Psychiatric Institute said in a
press release. “The same type of association was seen with the volunteer's
reports of social support they experience from their friends, family or
significant other."
Although
human testing is still in its early stages, a similar correlation between
dopamine receptors and social status has been identified in primates. This link
may have something to do with the perks of being higher up on the social
ladder.
“In
monkeys, dominant and subordinate social rank are determined by physical and
social triumph and defeat,” authors explain. Dopamine is partly responsible for
motivation and reward. It is also thought to be a precursor to the release of
adrenaline.
“In
humans, social hierarchy is a more subtle phenomenon that can be approximated
by measuring social status and social support,” they write.
While
high social status was correlated with a higher number of dopamine receptors,
healthy participants with social phobias had fewer receptors. This information
could explain why some people are more anxious or socially detached than others.
It could also pave the way toward a greater understanding of conditions such as
social anxiety disorder.
While
this study is merely suggestive, results support the idea that social status
and encouragement from peers and loved ones may be related to dopamine
receptors. Further research could provide insight to the complexity of
dopamine’s role in social structure.
Read
more on the study in February’s issue of Biological Psychiatry.
Information
comes from a study by NYU assistant professor of psychology Lila Davachi and
doctoral candidate Arielle Tambini. The study’s purpose was to examine the
relationship between two parts of the brain related to memory—the hippocampus
and neocortex—and the long-term storage of memory following rest.
Resting
after gaining new information allows the mind to process that information, and
store it into long-term episodic memory. While former studies have shown that
this process is highly effective in sleep, this experiment tested the effects
of “awake rest”--rest without sleeping.
The
hippocampus is responsible for regulating emotion and memory; the neocortex for
language, conscious thought and emotional response. Researchers used object-face
and scene-face encoding, the brain’s process of changing information from one
form to another, to determine how these two areas of the brain reacted to form
memories.
Participants
were shown images of people coupled with either objects or scenery (called
encoding tasks), and asked how likely these images were to go together. Testing
began 40–50 minutes after the first encoding task and 70–80 minutes after the
second.
According
to Davachi, brain regions remained active during rest, which suggests that
memories were being replayed and reinforced. Participants with stronger
relationships between the hippocampus and neocortex had better memory,
especially of the face-object pairing.
“It
will be essential for future studies to assess how connectivity during
post-task offline periods (rest) relates to more extended measures of long-term
memory consolidation,” authors wrote. “It will be interesting to explore the
relationship between longitudinal measurements of enhanced connectivity and
behavioral measures of memory consolidation.”
Take a short-term memory test or read
the full study in the January issue of Neuron.
The two-part
study asked university students to rate themselves against peers on positive
and negative qualities that were meant to indicate desirability. Traits such as
maturity, modesty, discipline, wit, and being well-spoken were considered
positive, while traits such as rigidity, aggressiveness, messiness, and being
materialistic, narrow-minded or boastful were undesirable.
For the first test, 20 students evaluated themselves on these characteristics during two timed sessions that required participants to make decisions quickly. Fifty-six students participating in the second test were asked to take the same test, but they were given an unlimited amount of time for evaluation.
“The extent to which participants viewed themselves as ‘above average’ was negatively correlated with orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and, to a lesser extent, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activation,” authors of the study wrote. “The majority of people judge their personality to be more desirable than their peers' personalities.”
The OFC and dACC are both involved in evaluation and planning. According to the authors, these regions of the brain are involved in deep thought and may be partly responsible for keeping the ego in check. They may also, in part, be responsible for recalling self-serving examples of specific traits. Judging broader traits, they say, would require less effort.
"In healthy people, the more you activate a portion of your frontal lobes, the more accurate your view of yourself is,” said lead author Jennifer Beer in a press release. Beer is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. “The more you view yourself as desirable or better than your peers, the less you use those lobes."
The study is the first to examine the brain’s role in self-bias in social judgment. Authors say it implies a relationship between poor insight and frontal lobe dysfunction. This information could be used to further study other relationships the frontal lobe might have with poor insight.
“For example, mood disorders and substance abuse may compromise function and/or volume in frontal lobe regions,” authors write. “Understanding these functional and structural changes in relation to self-judgment bias may be helpful for designing therapeutic interventions for various disorders.”
The study appears online in NeuroImage.
Communicating
can be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for someone left mute by
paralysis. Although there are existing devices that help paralyzed individuals
speak, they are often inefficient for communication and tiresome for the user.
This is the first to translate brain waves at the rate of natural speech.
"The
most significant thing is that this shows it would be possible for someone who
is paralyzed to speak in real-time rather than going through a painful typing
process," lead researcher Frank Guenther said in an interview with MSNBC.
"This communication is very important because these people are completely
locked out from the rest of the world."
Guenther
and his team tested the electrode on a 26 year-old male volunteer with
locked-in syndrome, the result of a brain stem stroke. Individuals with this
disorder are aware of their surroundings and can understand and react mentally,
but are physically unable to respond.
The device, designed for permanent implantation without the risk
of infection, is
a neurotrophic electrode. The electrode is implanted in the speech-related motor cortex, an area of the
brain responsible for speech planning and synthesis. After 3—4 months neurites
attach to a portion of the device, allowing signals to be transmitted from
the brain into the electrode. These signals are then transmitted to a
computer that translate brain waves into recognizable, audible speech.
Because it
is extremely difficult to differentiate the neural fluff from intentional
cognition, determining which frequencies represent which sounds is a very
timely process. As of now, only vowel sounds have been quickly and accurately
produced. The device used for the trial had just three wires, however, and
researchers believe additional wires may result in greater speech recognition
capabilities.
“Our results support the feasibility of neural prostheses that may have the potential to provide near-conversational synthetic speech output for individuals with severely impaired speech motor control. They also provide an initial glimpse into the functional properties of neurons in speech motor cortical areas.”
The purpose of the study, which appears in Neurology, was to discover whether or not cancer was linked
with Alzheimer’s and types of vascular dementia, such as Parkinson’s disease. There was
no significant relationship between Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, but they
were able to link cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers made adjustments for factors such as smoking, obesity, and physical activity. They also adjusted for hypertension, diabetes, and coronary heart disease. Researchers monitored 3,020 people, age 65 or older, for dementia and cancer, for roughly five and eight years respectively.
“Prevalent cancer was associated with reduced risk of any Alzheimer's disease and pure Alzheimer's disease among white subjects after adjustment for demographics,” authors wrote. “The opposite association was found among minorities, but the sample size was too small to provide stable estimates.”
White participants who’d had cancer before or at the
beginning of the study were 43 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s
disease. In turn, those with Alzheimer’s had a 69 percent decreased risk of
developing cancer.
Despite not finding a direct link between Alzheimer’s and
vascular dementia, the study does provide implications on its relationship to
cancer.
“Together with other work showing associations
between cancer and Parkinson disease, these findings suggest the
possibility that cancer is linked to neurodegeneration,” authors concluded.
View the study’s abstract in the online version of Neurology.
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