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    Published on 08-27-2010 12:29 PM
    Categories:
    1. Behavior Issues

    Inline Image What Is It About 20-Somethings? - New York Times

    This question pops up everywhere, underlying concerns about “failure to launch” and “boomerang kids.” Two new sitcoms feature grown children moving back in with their parents — “$#*! My Dad Says,” starring William Shatner as a divorced curmudgeon whose 20-something son can’t make it on his own as a blogger, and “Big Lake,” in which a financial whiz kid loses his Wall Street job and moves back home to rural Pennsylvania. A cover of The New Yorker last spring picked up on the zeitgeist: a young man hangs up his new Ph.D. in his boyhood bedroom, the cardboard box at his feet signaling his plans to move back home now that he’s officially overqualified for a job. In the doorway stand his parents, their expressions a mix of resignation, worry, annoyance and perplexity: how exactly did this happen?

    It’s happening all over, in all sorts of families, not just young people moving back home but also young people taking longer to reach adulthood overall. It’s a development that predates the current economic doldrums, and no one knows yet what the impact will be — on the prospects of the young men and women; on the parents on whom so many of them depend; on society, built on the expectation of an orderly progression in which kids finish school, grow up, start careers, make a family and eventually retire to live on pensions supported by the next crop of kids who finish school, grow up, start careers, make a family and on and on. The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course, as young people remain un­tethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach for America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life.
    Published on 08-24-2010 09:08 AM
    Categories:
    1. Substance Abuse

    Inline Image Impulsivity-Related Problem Drinking Decreases Greatly for 18 To 25-Year-Olds - Science Daily

    Personality traits associated with impulsivity normally decrease during emerging and young adulthood, and these decreases are associated with reduced substance use. A new study of "trajectories" of impulsivity and their association with problem alcohol use has found that the 18-to-25-years-of-age group exhibited the largest declines in impulsivity as well as the sharpest decreases in alcohol consumption.

    "Traits related to impulsivity, such as undirectedness or 'reverse-scored conscientiousness,' tend to normally decrease from late adolescence into early adulthood, approximately from ages 18 to 35," explained Andrew K. Littlefield, a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the University of Missouri and corresponding author for the study.

    "Many researchers and clinicians think of personality as an incredibly stable construct that does not change across time, however, these findings provide clear evidence that at least some individuals undergo significant changes in impulsivity across time," he said. "Future studies could examine why some individuals make significant changes in impulsivity across time whereas other individuals' level of impulsivity remains relatively stable. Identifying factors that enhance or inhibit seemingly beneficial changes in personality may inform treatment approaches that could facilitate decreased impulsivity."

    The study was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
    Published on 08-24-2010 08:33 AM
    Categories:
    1. Autism Spectrum

    Inline Image Autism Gives Woman An 'Alien View' Of Social Brains - NPR

    It takes a smart brain to invent a spaceship. But putting one in orbit takes a brain with extraordinary social skills.

    That's because getting from concept to launchpad takes more than technology — it takes thousands of people agreeing on a common goal and working together to accomplish it.

    Humans have succeeded in part because we evolved a brain with a remarkable capacity for this type of complex social interaction. We automatically respond to social cues and facial expressions. We can look at the world from another person's point of view. We are predisposed to cooperate.

    But all these things are so much a part of us, they're easy to take for granted.
    Unless you have autism, like Lisa Daxer.

    Daxer, 27, is a biomedical engineering major at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. And for her, things like reading faces and understanding what's on another person's mind are a struggle.
    Published on 08-24-2010 08:29 AM
    Categories:
    1. Autism Spectrum

    Inline Image Autism and Mental Retardation Connected With APC Protein - Science Daily

    A clue to the causes of autism and mental retardation lies in the synapse, the tiny intercellular junction that rapidly transfers information from one neuron to the next. According to neuroscientists at Tufts University School of Medicine, with students from the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts, a protein called APC (adenomatous polyposis coli) plays a key role in synapse maturation, and APC dysfunction prevents the synapse function required for typical learning and memory.

    The findings are published in the August 18 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

    "Both sides of the synapse are finely tuned for efficient transmission; an imbalance on either side can negatively impact function, resulting in cognitive deficits. Our study reveals that APC forms a key protein complex in the postsynaptic neuron that also provides signals to direct synapse maturation in the presynaptic neuron, ensuring that the two sides of the synapse mature in concert to provide optimal function," said senior author Michele H. Jacob, PhD, professor in the department of neuroscience at Tufts University School of Medicine. Jacob is also a member of the cell, molecular and developmental biology; cellular and molecular physiology; and neuroscience program faculties at the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts.
    Published on 08-24-2010 08:24 AM
    Categories:
    1. Autism Spectrum

    Inline Image Autism Might Slow Brain's Ability to Integrate Input From Multiple Senses - Scientific American
    Children with autism often focus intently on a single activity or feature of their environment. New research might help to explain this behavioral trend, providing evidence that the brains of young people with autism are slower to integrate input coming from more than one sense at the same time.

    During study of the disorder decades ago, research into these basic tendencies was common. But in subsequent years, scientists have tended to focus more on complex issues, ranging from communication troubles to underlying genetic patterns.

    Recently, however, more studies have set their sights back on some of the simple processes that most people take for granted, such as sensory intake, as a way to better understand more high-level manifestations, such as social interaction issues. "We believe that these things interact in very significant ways," says Sophie Molholm, an associate professor of neuroscience at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and co-author of a new study about multi-sensory processing.
    Published on 08-17-2010 12:11 PM
    Categories:
    1. Autism Spectrum

    Inline Image Autism explosion half explained, half still a mystery - New Scientist

    Why have the numbers of autism diagnoses ballooned in recent decades? Researchers have long claimed that changes to the way the condition is diagnosed are the main cause. But now a series of a studies have shown that diagnostic changes alone cannot account for the increase. They suggest that other causes, perhaps environmental factors, are also contributing to the rise in cases.

    "These studies give me the feeling that there must be a true increase in the number of children affected," says Tom Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health in Rockville, Maryland.

    The studies are the work of sociologist Peter Bearman at Columbia University in New York and colleagues. They have spent three years trying to disentangle the causes of the roughly sevenfold increase in autism rates seen in many developed nations over the past 20 years. They have identified three factors that are driving up autism rates, but found that these account for only half of the observed increase.
    by
    runawaybunny
    Published on 08-17-2010 12:05 PM
    Categories:
    1. ADHD/ADD

    Inline Image Younger kids may wrongly get ADHD diagnosis - MSNBC
    How mature a child is compared to his peers may partly determine how likely he is to be diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to a new study. This finding validates concerns that the condition is misdiagnosed, researchers say.

    North Carolina State University researchers found that children born just after the kindergarten eligibilty cutoff date were 25 percent less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than children born just before the cutoff date. Children born just after the cutoff date are among the oldest in their class, and those born just before the cutoff date are among the youngest in their class.
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