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+---- Thread: There is no A.D. in Children.Adult Brain Can Change Within Seconds (/Thread-There-is-no-A-D-in-Children-Adult-Brain-Can-Change-Within-Seconds)
There is no A.D. in Children.Adult Brain Can Change Within Seconds - John Nicholson - 22-10-2010
[SIZE="7"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Adult Brain Can Change Within Seconds
ScienceDaily (July 30, 2009) —[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE="6"]The human brain can adapt to changing demands even in adulthood, but MIT neuroscientists have now found evidence of it changing with unsuspected speed. Their findings suggest that the brain has a network of silent connections that underlie its plasticity.[/SIZE]
[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="5"]The brain’s tendency to call upon these connections could help explain the curious phenomenon of “referred sensations,†in which a person with an amputated arm “feels†sensations in the missing limb when he or she is touched on the face. Scientists believe this happens because the part of the brain that normally receives input from the arm begins “referring†to signals coming from a nearby brain region that receives information from the face.
“We found these referred sensations in the visual cortex, too,†said senior author Nancy Kanwisher of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, referring to the findings of a paper being published in the July 15 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. “When we temporarily deprived part of the visual cortex from receiving input, subjects reported seeing squares distorted as rectangles. We were surprised to find these referred visual sensations happening as fast as we could measure, within two seconds.â€
Many scientists think that this kind of reorganized response to sensory information reflects a rewiring in the brain, or a growth of new connections.
“But these distortions happened too quickly to result from structural changes in the cortex,†Kanwisher explained. “So we think the connections were already there but were silent, and that the brain is constantly recalibrating the connections through short-term plasticity mechanisms.â€
First author Daniel Dilks, a postdoctoral researcher in Kanwisher’s lab, first found the square-to-rectangle distortion in a patient who suffered a stroke that deprived a portion of his visual cortex from receiving input. The stroke created a blind region in his field of vision. When a square object was placed outside this blind region, the patient perceived it as a rectangle stretching into the blind area — a result of the the deprived neurons now responding to a neighboring part of the visual field.
“But the patient’s cortex had been deprived of visual information for a long time, so we did not know how quickly the adult visual cortex could change following deprivation,†Dilks said. “To find out, we took advantage of the natural blind spot in each eye, using a simple perceptual test in healthy volunteers with normal vision.â€
Blind spots occur because the retina has no photoreceptors where the optic nerve exits the eye, so the visual cortex receives no stimulation from that point. We do not perceive our blind spots because the left eye sees what is in the right eye’s blind area, and vice versa. Even when one eye is closed, we are not normally aware of a gap in our visual field.
It takes a perceptual test to reveal the blind spot, which involves covering one eye and moving an object towards the blind spot until it “disappears†from view.
[Click here to find your own blind spot: http://web.mit.edu/bcs/nklab/media/blindSpotDemo.shtml].
Dilks and colleagues used this test to see how soon after the cortex is deprived of information that volunteers begin to perceive shape distortions. They presented different-sized rectangles just outside the subjects’ blind spot and asked subjects to judge the height and width at different time points after one eye was patched.
The volunteers perceived the rectangles elongating just two seconds after their eye was covered — much quicker than expected. When the eye patch was removed, the distortions vanished just as fast as they had appeared.
“So the visual cortex changes its response almost immediately to sensory deprivation and to new input,†Kanwisher explained. “Our study shows the stunning ability of the brain to adapt to moment-to-moment changes in experience even in adulthood.â€
Chris Baker (NIH) and Yicong Liu (MIT undergraduate student) contributed to this study, which was supported by the NIH and NIMH.[/SIZE][/COLOR]
[SIZE="7"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Younger Brains Are Easier to Rewire -- Brain Regions Can Switch Functions
ScienceDaily (Oct. 22, 2010) —[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE="5"]A new paper from MIT neuroscientists, in collaboration with Alvaro Pascual-Leone at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, offers evidence that it is easier to rewire the brain early in life. The researchers found that a small part of the brain's visual cortex that processes motion became reorganized only in the brains of subjects who had been born blind, not those who became blind later in life.
The new findings, described in the Oct. 14 issue of the journal Current Biology, shed light on how the brain wires itself during the first few years of life, and could help scientists understand how to optimize the brain's ability to be rewired later in life. That could become increasingly important as medical advances make it possible for congenitally blind people to have their sight restored, said MIT postdoctoral associate Marina Bedny, lead author of the paper.
In the 1950s and '60s, scientists began to think that certain brain functions develop normally only if an individual is exposed to relevant information, such as language or visual information, within a specific time period early in life. After that, they theorized, the brain loses the ability to change in response to new input.
Animal studies supported this theory. For example, cats blindfolded during the first months of life are unable to see normally after the blindfolds are removed. Similar periods of blindfolding in adulthood have no effect on vision.
However, there have been indications in recent years that there is more wiggle room than previously thought, said Bedny, who works in the laboratory of MIT assistant professor Rebecca Saxe, also an author of the Current Biology paper. Many neuroscientists now support the idea of a period early in life after which it is difficult, but not impossible, to rewire the brain.
Bedny, Saxe and their colleagues wanted to determine if a part of the brain known as the middle temporal complex (MT/MST) can be rewired at any time or only early in life. They chose to study MT/MST in part because it is one of the most studied visual areas. In sighted people, the MT region is specialized for motion vision.[/SIZE]
There is no A.D. in Children.Adult Brain Can Change Within Seconds - John Nicholson - 22-10-2010
[SIZE="5"]In the few rare cases where patients have lost MT function in both hemispheres of the brain, they were unable to sense motion in a visual scene. For example, if someone poured water into a glass, they would see only a standing, frozen stream of water.
Previous studies have shown that in blind people, MT is taken over by sound processing, but those studies didn't distinguish between people who became blind early and late in life.
In the new MIT study, the researchers studied three groups of subjects -- sighted, congenitally blind, and those who became blind later in life (age nine or older). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), they tested whether MT in these subjects responded to moving sounds -- for example, approaching footsteps.
The results were clear, said Bedny. MT reacted to moving sounds in congenitally blind people, but not in sighted people or people who became blind at a later age.
This suggests that in late-blind individuals, the visual input they received in early years allowed the MT complex to develop its typical visual function, and it couldn't be remade to process sound after the person lost sight. Congenitally blind people never received any visual input, so the region was taken over by auditory input after birth.
[SIZE="7"]"We need to think of early life as a window of opportunity to shape how the brain works," said Bedny. "That's not to say that later experience can't alter things, but it's easier to get organized early on."[/SIZE]Bedny believes that by better understanding how the brain is wired early in life, scientists may be able to learn how to rewire it later in life. There are now very few cases of sight restoration, but if it becomes more common, scientists will need to figure out how to retrain the patient's brain so it can process the new visual input.
"The unresolved question is whether the brain can relearn, and how that learning differs in an adult brain versus a child's brain," said Bedny.
Bedny hopes to study the behavioral consequences of the MT switch in future studies. Those would include whether blind people have an advantage over sighted people in auditory motion processing, and if they have a disadvantage if sight is restored[/SIZE]
There is no A.D. in Children.Adult Brain Can Change Within Seconds - John Nicholson - 13-12-2010
[SIZE="6"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Computer-Based Program May Help Relieve Some ADHD Symptoms in Children
ScienceDaily (Dec. 11, 2010) — An intensive, five-week working memory training program shows promise in relieving some of the symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children, a new study suggests.
Researchers found significant changes for students who completed the program in areas such as attention, ADHD symptoms, planning and organization, initiating tasks, and working memory.
"This program really seemed to make a difference for many of the children with ADHD," said Steven Beck, co-author of the study an associate professor of psychology at Ohio State University.[/COLOR][/SIZE]"
[SIZE="6"]It is not going to replace medication, but it could be a useful complementary therapy."
Beck conducted the study with Christine Hanson and Synthia Puffenberger, graduate students in psychology at Ohio State. Their findings are published in the November/December 2010 issue of the Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology.
The researchers tested software developed by a Swedish company called Cogmed, in conjunction with the Karolinska Institute, a medical university in Stockholm.
The software is designed to improve one of the major deficiencies found in people with ADHD -- working memory.
Working memory is the ability to hold onto information long enough to achieve a goal. For example, you have to remember a phone number long enough for you to dial it. Students have to remember the passage of a book they just read, in order to understand what they're currently reading.
"Working memory is critical in everyday life, and certainly for academic success, but it is one of the things that is very difficult for children with ADHD," Hanson said.
The study involved 52 students, aged 7 to 17, who attended a private school in Columbus that serves children with learning disabilities, many of whom also have an ADHD diagnoses. All the children used the software in their homes, under the supervision of their parents and the researchers.
The software includes a set of 25 exercises that students had to complete within 5 to 6 weeks. Each session is 30 to 40 minutes long. The exercises are in a computer-game format and are designed to help students improve their working memory. For example, in one exercise a robot will speak numbers in a certain order, and the student has to click on the numbers the robot spoke, on the computer screen, in the opposite order.
"At first the kids love it, because it is like a game," Puffenberger said. "But the software has an algorithm built in that makes the exercises harder as the students get better. So the children are always challenged."
Half the students participated at the beginning of the study. The other half were wait-listed, and completed the software program after the others were finished.
Parents and teachers of the participating students completed measures of the children's ADHD symptoms and working memory before the intervention, one month after treatment, and four months after treatment.
Results showed that parents generally rated their children as improving on inattention, overall number of ADHD symptoms, working memory, planning and organization and in initiating tasks. These changes were evident both immediately after treatment and four months later.
On individual measures, between one-fourth and one-third of the children showed clinically significant progress -- in other words, enough progress to be easily visible to their parents.
The teacher ratings, while pointed in the direction of improvement, were not strong enough to be statistically significant in this study. That's not surprising, Beck said, because very few treatment studies ever find significance among teacher measures.
"Teachers only see the kids for a few hours a day and they are dealing with a lot of other children at the same time. It would be difficult for them to see changes," Beck said.
Beck said this is the first published study they know of testing this software in the United States. One of the strengths of the study is that it used a very typical sample of children with ADHD -- other studies in Sweden had excluded children who were on medication.
"Most kids with ADHD are on some kind of medication, so it helps to know how this intervention works in these cases," he said.
In this sample, 60 percent of the students were on medication. The results showed the program was equally effective regardless of whether they were on medication or not.
"Medication for ADHD does not help directly with working memory, and the training program does, so it can be useful," Beck said.
"One of the encouraging findings is that parents reported even ADHD symptoms improved after the program, and that isn't the focus. This program is focused on improving working memory."
Beck said they can't say for sure how the program works to help kids with ADHD. But it seems that children are learning how to focus and how to use their working memory on everyday tasks, and they are able to use that knowledge at school and home.
One possible criticism of the study could be that it relies on parental reports, and the parents may be biased.
"That's true, but it is also the parents who are observing the kids day in and day out, and they are the ones who would be most likely to observe any changes that occur," Beck said.
The researchers plan on extending the work by using more objective measures of children's progress after using the program.
Two other co-authors of the study were William Benninger, an adjunct assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State, and Kristen Benninger, a medical student at the University of Toledo
Beck, Hanson and Puffenberger have no financial interest in the company that makes the software. William Benninger does have an interest, but was not involved in the collection of the data.
[COLOR="Red"]Meta-Cognitive Therapy More Effective for Adult ADHD Patients
ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2010) — Mount Sinai researchers have learned that meta-cognitive therapy (MCT), a method of skills teaching by use of cognitive-behavioral principles, yielded significantly greater improvements in symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults than those that participate in supportive therapy.[/COLOR]
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[SIZE="7"]TWENTY YEARS TO LATE[/SIZE]
[/SIZE]The study is now published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Mary Solanto, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Director of the Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Center at The Mount Sinai Medical Center examined the effectiveness of a 12-week meta-cognitive therapy group. The intervention was intended to enhance time management, organizational, and planning skills/abilities in adults with ADHD.
"We observed adults with ADHD who were assigned randomly to receive either meta-cognitive therapy or a support group," said Dr. Solanto. "This is the first time we have demonstrated efficacy of a non-medication treatment for adult ADHD in a study that compared the active treatment against a control group that was equivalent in therapist time, attention, and support."
The study observed 88 adults with rigorously diagnosed ADHD, who were selected following structured diagnostic interviews and standardized questionnaires. Participants were randomly assigned to receive meta-cognitive therapy or supportive psychotherapy in a group setting. Groups were equated for ADHD medication use.
Participants were evaluated by an independent (blind) clinician using a standardized interview assessment of core inattentive symptoms and a subset of symptoms related to time-management and organization. After 12 weeks, the MCT group members were significantly more improved than those in the support group. The MCT group was also more improved on self-ratings and observer ratings of these symptoms.
Meta-cognitive therapy uses cognitive-behavioral principles and methods to teach skills and strategies in time management, organization, and planning. Also targeted were depressed and anxious thoughts and ideas that undermine effective self-management. The supportive therapy group matched the MCT group with respect to the nonspecific aspects of treatment, such as providing support for the participants, while avoiding discussion of time management, organization, and planning strategies.[/SIZE]
There is no A.D. in Children.Adult Brain Can Change Within Seconds - John Nicholson - 13-12-2010
[SIZE="6"]Common Genetic Influences for ADHD and Reading Disability
ScienceDaily (Dec. 9, 2010) — Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and developmental reading disability (RD) are complex childhood disorders that frequently occur together; if a child is experiencing trouble with reading, symptoms of ADHD are often also present. However, the reason for this correlation remains unknown.[/SIZE]
[SIZE="6"]EVERY CHILD PROFESSOR WINSTON HAGSTON HAS TAUGHT TO COUNT PERFECTLY WHILE DEVELOPING A BRILLIANT UNDERSTANDING OF ARITHMETIC WITH ABACUS ONE HAS RAPIDLY GAINED NORMAL AGE READING ABILITY WITHIN A FEW MONTHS[/SIZE]
[SIZE="5"]A new study reported in the latest special issue of Cortex, dedicated to "Developmental Dyslexia and Dysgraphia," has suggested that the disorders have common genetic influences, which may also lead to slow processing speed -- the brain taking longer to make sense of the information it receives.
The researchers looked at 457 pairs of twins from the Colorado Learning Disabilities Research Center (CLDRC) twin study -- an ongoing study of the causes of reading disabilities, ADHD, and related disorders. Dr Erik Willcutt and colleagues compared groups of participants with and without RD and ADHD, using a variety of tests to measure general cognitive ability, processing speed, reading and language skills, and then analysed results from pairs of twins within those groups to determine the genetic causes of any correlations. The use of identical twins, who share all their genes, and non-identical twins, who share only half their genes, allowed the researchers to distinguish between genetic and environmental influences on the participants' cognitive abilities.
The findings showed that both RD and ADHD are complex disorders, influenced by many factors; ADHD on its own was associated with a reduced ability to inhibit responses to stimuli, while reading disabilities were associated with various weaknesses in language and memory. However, both disorders were associated with a slow processing speed and the twin-analyses further revealed a significant genetic correlation between RD and ADHD, i.e., a participant with one of the disorders was more likely to show symptoms of the other. The authors of the study suggest that processing efficiency may therefore be a useful marker to look for in future studies of the connection between the two disorders.
Twin Study Helps Scientists Link Relationship Among ADHD, Reading, Math
ScienceDaily (Dec. 10, 2010) — Children with ADHD can sometimes have more difficulties on math and reading tests compared to their peers. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, used identical and fraternal twins to look at the genetic and environmental influences underlying ADHD behaviors, reading, and math skills in children in an attempt to better understand the relationship among them.
Sara Hart, of the Florida State University, and her colleagues used twins enrolled in a long-term study of reading and math. Hart says by focusing on twins specifically, psychological scientists are able to tease out the difference between nature and nurture.
To do this, scientists compare identical twins, who have nearly the same DNA, with fraternal twins, who generally only share about half of their DNA. If identical twins are generally more alike on a trait -- say, their eye color or reading ability -- and fraternal twins are much less alike on the same trait, you can presume the trait is inherited. On the other hand, if pairs of identical twins are alike on a trait to the same extent that pairs of fraternal twins are alike on that trait -- like how outgoing they are -- you know the trait is probably influenced by their environment. Most traits fall somewhere in between, and twin studies can show that, too.
In this case, Hart and her colleagues were interested in how twins matched up on symptoms of ADHD, reading achievement, and math achievement. At about age 10, every pair of twins was tested on their reading and math ability. Their mothers also filled out surveys on any problems the children have with attention or hyperactivity.
The researchers found that ADHD behaviors, reading achievement, and math achievement were all influenced by the same genetic influences; this doesn't prove anything about what causes what, but some psychological scientists think that all three might be linked through the working memory system.
Although common genetic influences is a typical result from twin studies, the exciting aspect of this work was that that ADHD behaviors, reading achievement, and math achievement are also associated by common environmental influences.
Although it is not known what the actual environmental influences are, Hart and her colleagues suggest that it could be related to aspects of the classroom and homework environment. If researchers can figure out what these environmental influences really are, they may be able to help children with ADHD do better in school.[/SIZE]
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THE EARLIEST POSSIBLE COUNTING AND READING Program “ System one 4 every 1†started when the child begins to speak is the only way parents can ensure the very best opportunity for their own children the sooner the British government recommend this procedure, the sooner many education and behavioural problems will disappear.
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