PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Brain function linked to birth size in groundbreaking new study

2011-02-20
(Press-News.org) Scientists have discovered the first evidence linking brain function variations between the left and right sides of the brain to size at birth and the weight of the placenta. The finding could shed new light on the causes of mental health problems in later life.

The research, conducted at the University of Southampton and the Medical Research Council (MRC) Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit at Southampton General Hospital, reveals that children who were born small, with relatively large placentas, showed more activity on the right side of their brains than the left. It is this pattern of brain activity that has been linked with mood disorders such as depression.

The study adds to a growing body of evidence showing that adverse environments experienced by fetuses during pregnancy (indicated by smaller birth size and larger placental size) can cause long-term changes in the function of the brain.

"The way we grow before birth is influenced by many things including what our mothers eat during pregnancy and how much stress they are experiencing. This can have long-lasting implications for our mental and physical health in later life," explains Dr Alexander Jones, an epidemiologist, who led the study at the University of Southampton.

"This is the first time we've been able to link growth before birth to brain activity many years later. We hope this research can begin to shed new light on why certain people are more prone to diseases such as depression."

The neurological responses of 140 children from Southampton, aged between eight and nine, were monitored for the study. Tests evaluated blood flow to the brain in response to increased brain activity, exposing differences in the activity of the two sides. Dr Jones measured tiny fluctuations in the temperature of the tympanic membrane in each ear, which indicate blood flow into different parts of the brain.

Disproportionate growth of the placenta and the fetus is thought to occur in pregnancies where the mother has been experiencing stress or where there have been problems with the availability of nutrients. Previous research has linked this pattern of growth to other diseases such as hypertension and greater physical responses to stress in later life.

The research by Dr Jones and colleagues, has been published in the online science journal, PLoS ONE.

###

Notes to Editors:

1. Dr Alexander Jones was a clinical research fellow at the Medical Research Council's Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit at the University of Southampton and Southampton General Hospital, UK, at the time of the research. He is now a clinician scientist at the University College London Institute of Child Health.

2. A pdf of the full paper is freely available at: http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObjectAttachment.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0017071&representation=PDF

3. The University of Southampton is a leading UK teaching and research institution with a global reputation for leading-edge research and scholarship across a wide range of subjects in engineering, science, social sciences, health and humanities.

With over 22,000 students, around 5000 staff, and an annual turnover well in excess of £400 million, the University of Southampton is acknowledged as one of the country's top institutions for engineering, computer science and medicine. We combine academic excellence with an innovative and entrepreneurial approach to research, supporting a culture that engages and challenges students and staff in their pursuit of learning. www.soton.ac.uk

4. For almost 100 years the Medical Research Council has improved the health of people in the UK and around the world by supporting the highest quality science. The MRC invests in world-class scientists. It has produced 29 Nobel Prize winners and sustains a flourishing environment for internationally recognised research. The MRC focuses on making an impact and provides the financial muscle and scientific expertise behind medical breakthroughs, including one of the first antibiotics penicillin, the structure of DNA and the lethal link between smoking and cancer. Today MRC funded scientists tackle research into the major health challenges of the 21st century. www.mrc.ac.uk

For further information contact:

Sophie Docker, Media Relations, University of Southampton, Tel: 023 8059 8933, email: S.Docker@soton.ac.uk

Emma Knight, Senior Press Officer, Medical Research Council. Tel: 020 7395 2345, email: emma.knight@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Efficacy of tuberculosis vaccine enhanced

2011-02-20
Nele Festjens and Nico Callewaert of VIB and Ghent University have improved the efficacy of the vaccine for tuberculosis. The new vaccine affords - as already proven in mice - better protection against the disease. The development of a new tuberculosis vaccine is a priority in the fight against the disease which claims the lives of 1.7 million people each year. The current vaccine provides only partial protection. Nico Callewaert: "Our vaccine is more effective because it is more quickly recognized by the immune system of the vaccinated person. We have, as it were, ...

New study finds 9,500 ED visits related to cribs, playpens and bassinets each year in US

2011-02-20
Parents and caregivers have traditionally relied on cribs, playpens and bassinets to protect children while they sleep. The massive crib recalls followed by the announcement in December 2010 by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to ban drop-side cribs have caused many families to question the safety of these products. A new study conducted by researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital examined injuries associated with cribs, playpens and bassinets among children younger than ...

Scheduled deliveries raise risks for mothers, do not benefit newborns

2011-02-20
Inducing labor without a medical reason is associated with negative outcomes for the mother, including increased rates of cesarean delivery, greater blood loss and an extended length of stay in the hospital, and does not provide any benefit for the newborn. As the number of scheduled deliveries continues to climb, it is important for physicians and mothers-to-be to understand the risks associated with elective induction. The new findings, published in the February issue of the Journal of Reproductive Medicine, only apply to women having their first child, and may not ...

High-caffeine-consuming boys get greater rush from caffeine than girls

2011-02-20
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Among the many differences between girls and boys, add the effects from caffeine -- physiological, behavioral and subjective -- to the list. Results of a double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose-response study of the response of youth to caffeine found that, in general, boys get a greater rush and more energy from caffeine than girls. Boys also reported they felt that caffeine had a positive effect on their athletic performance. Girls didn't report on this issue. The study, conducted by Jennifer L. Temple, PhD, a neurobiologist and assistant professor ...

Depression symptoms increase over time for addiction-prone women

2011-02-20
Unlike alcohol problems and antisocial behavior, depression doesn’t decline with age in addiction-prone women in their 30s and 40s – it continues to increase, a new study led by University of Michigan Health System researchers found. The longitudinal analysis examined the influences of the women’s histories, family life and neighborhood instability on their alcoholism symptoms, antisocial behavior and depression over a 12-year period covering the earlier years of marriage and motherhood. The research, published in Development and Psychopathology, is part of an ...

Mayo Clinic researchers confirm value of therapeutic hypothermia after cardiac arrest

2011-02-20
ROCHESTER, Minn. - Mayo Clinic researchers confirmed that patients who receive therapeutic hypothermia after resuscitation from cardiac arrest have favorable chances of surviving the event and recovering good functional status. In therapeutic hypothermia, a patient's body temperature is cooled to 33 degrees Celsius following resuscitation from cardiac arrest, in order to slow the brain's metabolism and protect the brain against the damage initiated by the lack of blood flow and oxygenation. This study was published in the December 2010 issue of Annals of Neurology. "Therapeutic ...

Iowa State study examines why innocent suspects may confess to a crime

Iowa State study examines why innocent suspects may confess to a crime
2011-02-20
AMES, Iowa -- Why would anyone falsely confess to a crime they didn't commit? It seems illogical, but according to The Innocence Project, there have been 266 post-conviction DNA exonerations since 1989 -- 25 percent of which involved a false confession. A new Iowa State University study may shed light on one reason for those false confessions. In two experiments simulating choices suspects face in police interrogations, undergraduate subjects altered their behavior to confess to illegal activities in order to relieve short-term distress (the proximal consequence) while ...

Study links hypoxia and inflammation in many diseases

2011-02-20
Yet some athletes deliberately train at high altitude, with less oxygen, so they can perform better. Their bodies adapt to the reduced oxygen. Now a doctor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine has explored the relationship between lack of oxygen, called hypoxia, and the inflammation that can injure or kill some patients who undergo surgery. In a liver transplant, for example, the surgery and anesthesiology can go perfectly yet the new liver will fail because of hypoxia. "Understanding how hypoxia is linked to inflammation may help save lives of people who ...

Space weather disrupts communications, threatens other technologies

Space weather disrupts communications, threatens other technologies
2011-02-20
A powerful solar flare has ushered in the largest space weather storm in atleast four years and has already disrupted some ground communications on Earth, said University of Colorado Boulder Professor Daniel Baker, an internationally known space weather expert. Classified as a Class X flare, the Feb. 15 event also spewed billions of tons of charged particles toward Earth in what are called coronal mass ejections and ignited a geomagnetic storm in Earth's magnetic field, said Baker, director of CU-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. Such powerful ejections ...

How couples recover after an argument stems from their infant relationships

2011-02-20
When studying relationships, psychological scientists have often focused on how couples fight. But how they recover from a fight is important, too. According to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, couples' abilities to bounce back from conflict may depend on what both partners were like as infants. Researchers at the University of Minnesota have been following a cohort of people since before they were born, in the mid-1970s. When the subjects were about 20 years old, they visited the lab with their romantic ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Oil rig study reveals vital role of tiny hoverflies

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia researchers boost widespread use of dental varnish across pediatric network

iRECODE: A new computational method that brings clarity to single-cell analysis

New NUS-MOH study: Singapore’s healthcare sector carbon emissions 18% lower than expected, a milestone in the city-state’s net zero journey

QUT scientists create material to turn waste heat into clean power

Major new report sets out how to tackle the ‘profound and lasting impact’ of COVID-19 on cardiovascular health

Cosmic crime scene: White dwarf found devouring Pluto-like icy world

Major report tackles Covid’s cardiovascular crisis head-on

A third of licensed GPs in England not working in NHS general practice

ChatGPT “thought on the fly” when put through Ancient Greek maths puzzle

Engineers uncover why tiny particles form clusters in turbulent air

GLP-1RA drugs dramatically reduce death and cardiovascular risk in psoriasis patients

Psoriasis linked to increased risk of vision-threatening eye disease, study finds

Reprogramming obesity: New drug from Italian biotech aims to treat the underlying causes of obesity

Type 2 diabetes may accelerate development of multiple chronic diseases, particularly in the early stages, UK Biobank study suggests

Resistance training may improve nerve health, slow aging process, study shows

Common and inexpensive medicine halves the risk of recurrence in patients with colorectal cancer

SwRI-built instruments to monitor, provide advanced warning of space weather events

Breakthrough advances sodium-based battery design

New targeted radiation therapy shows near-complete response in rare sarcoma patients

Does physical frailty contribute to dementia?

Soccer headers and brain health: Study finds changes within folds of the brain

Decoding plants’ language of light

UNC Greensboro study finds ticks carrying Lyme disease moving into western NC

New implant restores blood pressure balance after spinal cord injury

New York City's medical specialist advantage may be an illusion, new NYU Tandon research shows

Could a local anesthetic that doesn’t impair motor function be within reach?

1 in 8 Italian cetacean strandings show evidence of fishery interactions, with bottlenose and striped dolphins most commonly affected, according to analysis across four decades of data and more than 5

In the wild, chimpanzees likely ingest the equivalent of several alcoholic drinks every day

Warming of 2°C intensifies Arctic carbon sink but weakens Alpine sink, study finds

[Press-News.org] Brain function linked to birth size in groundbreaking new study