Head injuries can make children loners

Study also suggests potential treatment

2014-04-10

(Press-News.org) New research has found that a child's relationships may be a hidden casualty long after a head injury.

Neuroscientists at Brigham Young University studied a group of children three years after each had suffered a traumatic brain injury – most commonly from car accidents. The researchers found that lingering injury in a specific region of the brain predicted the health of the children's social lives.

"The thing that's hardest about brain injury is that someone can have significant difficulties but they still look okay," said Shawn Gale, a neuropsychologist at BYU. "But they have a harder time remembering things and focusing on things as well and that affects the way they interact with other people. Since they look fine, people don't cut them as much slack as they ought to."

Gale and Ph.D. student Ashley Levan authored a study to be published April 10 by the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, the leading publication in the field of rehabilitation. The study compared the children's social lives and thinking skills with the thickness of the brain's outer layer in the frontal lobe. The brain measurements came from MRI scans and the social information was gathered from parents on a variety of dimensions, such as their children's participation in groups, number of friends and amount of time spent with friends.

A second finding from the new study suggests one potential way to help. The BYU scholars found that physical injury and social withdrawal are connected through something called "cognitive proficiency." Cognitive proficiency is the combination of short-term memory and the brain's processing speed.

"In social interactions we need to process the content of what a person is saying in addition to simultaneously processing nonverbal cues," Levan said. "We then have to hold that information in our working memory to be able to respond appropriately. If you disrupt working memory or processing speed it can result in difficulty with social interactions."

Separate studies on children with ADHD, which also affects the frontal lobes, show that therapy can improve working memory. Gale would like to explore in future research with BYU's MRI facility if improvements in working memory could "treat" the social difficulties brought on by head injuries.

"This is a preliminary study but we want to go into more of the details about why working memory and processing speed are associated with social functioning and how specific brain structures might be related to improve outcome," Gale said.

INFORMATION: END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

There's no faking it -- your sexual partner knows if you're really satisfied

2014-04-10

There is no point faking it in bed because chances are your sexual partner will be able to tell. A study by researchers at the University of Waterloo found that men and women are equally perceptive of their partners' levels of sexual satisfaction. The study by Erin Fallis, PhD candidate, and co-authors Professor Uzma S. Rehman and Professor Christine Purdon in the Department of Psychology at Waterloo, identified sexual communication and ability to recognize emotions as important factors that predict accuracy in gauging one partner's sexual satisfaction. The study ...

Researchers discover how the kissing disease virus hijacks human cells

2014-04-10

This news release is available in French. University of Montreal researchers have discovered how a component of the Epstein Barr (EBV) virus takes over our cells gene regulating machinery, allowing the virus to replicate itself. The EBV virus causes a variety of diseases such as Hodgkin's lymphoma and Burkitt's lymphoma, with the most prevalent disease being infectious mononucleosis commonly known as "kissing disease" because of its mode of transmission between humans. It turns out that the diseases begin with kiss of a molecular sort; a viral protein contacting the ...

Periodontal disease associated with cardiovascular risk in large multicenter study

2014-04-10

Sophia Antipolis, 10 April 2014. Periodontal disorders such as tooth loss and gingivitis have been identified as a potential risk marker for cardiovascular disease in a large study reported today.(1) More than 15,000 patients with chronic coronary heart disease provided information on their dental health, with results showing that indicators of periodontal disease (fewer remaining teeth, gum bleeding) were common in this patient group and associated with numerous cardiovascular and socioeconomic risk factors. Conversely, a lower prevalence of tooth loss was associated ...

Breastfeeding and infant sleep

2014-04-10

In a new article published online today in the journal Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, Professor David Haig argues that infants that wake frequently at night to breastfeed are delaying the resumption of the mother's ovulation and therefore preventing the birth of a sibling with whom they would have to compete. It has already been documented that smaller gaps between the births of siblings are associated with increased mortality of infants and toddlers, especially in environments where resources are scarce and where infectious disease rates are high, and Professor ...

Extinct carnivorous marsupial may have hunted prey larger than itself

2014-04-10

The reconstruction of an extinct meat-eating marsupial's skull, Nimbacinus dicksoni, suggests that it may have had the ability to hunt vertebrate prey exceeding its own body size, according to results published April 9, 2014, in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Marie Attard from the University of New England together with colleagues from the University of New South Wales. Nimbacinus dicksoni is a member of an extinct family of Australian and New Guinean marsupial carnivores, Thylacinidae. Aside from one recently extinct species, the majority of information known about ...

Rare leafcutter bee fossils reveal Ice Age environment at the La Brea Tar Pits

2014-04-10

VIDEO: This is a spinning animation of fossil of male pupa and its position within the nest cell. Click here for more information. LOS ANGELES — The La Brea Tar Pits, the world's richest and most important Ice Age fossil locality, is most celebrated for it collection of saber-toothed cats and mammoths. The site's lesser known, but equally vast insect collection, is also of great significance. Recent examination of fossil leafcutter bee nest cells containing pupae, led by Anna R. ...

Spironolactone not reduce primary outcome, did reduce hospitalizations for heart failure

2014-04-10

Boston, MA – Findings from the Treatment of Preserved Cardiac Function Heart Failure with an Aldosterone Antagonist (TOPCAT) trial, have revealed that adding the medication known as spironolactone (Aldactone) to existing therapy did not significantly reduce the composite time to either death from cardiovascular causes, surviving a cardiac arrest, or hospitaliization to manage heart failure in patients with heart failure and a preserved ejection fraction in a study funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health. The study will be ...

Study confirms impact of clinician-patient relationship on health outcomes

2014-04-10

A meta-analysis of studies that investigated measures designed to improve health professionals' interactions with patients confirms that such efforts can produce health effects just as beneficial as taking a daily aspirin to prevent heart attack. In contrast to previous such reviews, the current report from the Empathy and Relational Science Program at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) only included randomized, controlled trials with more reliable results than those included in earlier studies. While it has long been believed that a good patient-clinician relationship ...

Water users can reduce the risk of spreading invasive species

2014-04-10

Foreign species that are devastating water ecosystems could be "hitchhiking" around Britain on canoeists' and anglers' kit, according to a new study. Invaders like the killer shrimp, zebra mussel and American signal crayfish have already caused extensive environmental damage and millions of pounds of economic costs. The new research, led by the University of Leeds and the Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), found that the cleaning habits of anglers and canoeists could be a key part of the problem. The study, based on a survey of more ...

Butterfly larvae mimic queen ant to avoid detection

2014-04-10

Parasitic butterfly larvae may mimic ants' acoustic signals to aid in the infiltration of their host colonies, according to results published April 9, 2014, in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Marco Sala from University of Turin, Italy, and colleagues. Ants aggressively defend their colonies and nests, so successfully that these locations make a perfect shelter for another similar species to live in. However, ants have evolved a complex set of signals that allow colony members to distinguish between residents and intruders. The social parasitic Maculinea butterfly uses ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Study shows psychedelic drug psilocybin gives comparable long-term antidepressant effects to standard antidepressants, but may offer additional benefits

Study finds symptoms of depression during pregnancy linked to specific brain activity: scientists hope to develop test for “baby blues” risk

UK study shows there is less stigma against LGBTQ people than you might think, but people with mental health problems continue to experience higher levels of stigma