Could Breastfeeding Make Baby Brighter? Just Four Weeks on Mother's Milk Can Benefit Brain

Babies who are breastfed grow up to be more intelligent, scientists suggested yesterday.

Just four weeks on their mothers’ milk can have a ‘significant’ effect on a child’s development in primary and secondary school, research has found.

Those who have been breastfed do better at reading, writing and maths at the ages of five, seven, 11 and 14.

While breast milk has long been known to boost babies’ immunity, helping them fight ear infections, stomach bugs and even asthma, little was known about its effects on intelligence until now.

Maria Iacovou, one of the authors of the study, said: ‘The issue was that while it looked as though breastfeeding did have an impact on cognitive development,

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Late-Preterm Babies at Greater Risk for Problems Later in Childhood

Late-preterm babies -- those born between 34 and 36 weeks -- are at an increased risk for cognitive and emotional problems, regardless of maternal IQ or demographics, according to new research published by Michigan State University researchers in the current edition of the journal Pediatrics.

While late-preterm births (full-term pregnancies last at least 37 weeks) have been associated with such problems before, the study represents one of the most rigorous looks at the issue by accounting for other potential causes, said the study's lead author, Nicole Talge, a postdoctoral research associate in MSU's Department of Epidemiology.

"Previous studies reveal that babies born a little early are at-risk for short-term medical problems and possibly long-term behavioral and cognitive problems," Talge said.

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BRAIN SCAN CAN PREDICT THERAPY RESPONSE FOR ANXIOUS KIDS

Experts say a brain scan can predict which kids with anxiety disorders will respond to one form of psychotherapy. As a consequence, Georgetown University neuroscientists say the use of psychiatric medication is not necessary for certain children.

Their study, presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, utilized functional Magentic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to map regions of brain activity. The results showed that children and adolescents, ages 8 to 16, who show fear when looking at happy faces on a screen were those who had least success with an eight-week course of cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Conversely, children who showed fear while looking at fearful faces benefitted from the treatment, the researchers found.

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How Video Games Stretch the Limits of Our Visual Attention

They are often accused of being distracting, but recent research has found that action packed video games like Halo and Call of Duty can enhance visual attention, the ability that allows us to focus on relevant visual information. This growing body of research, reviewed in WIREs Cognitive Science, suggests that action based games could be used to improve military training, educational approaches, and certain visual deficits.

The review, authored by a group led by Dr Daphne Bavelier from the University of Rochester, focused on the impact video games have on visual attention, the mechanism which allows us to select relevant visual information and suppress irrelevant information, allowing us to function in a world made up of infinite visual data.

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Functional MRI Predicts Outcome to Talk Therapy in Children With an Anxiety Disorder

A brain scan with functional MRI (fMRI) is enough to predict which patients with pediatric anxiety disorder will respond to "talk therapy," and so may not need to use psychiatric medication, say neuroscientists from Georgetown University Medical Center.

Their study, being presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, showed that children and adolescents, ages 8 to16, who show fear when looking at happy faces on a screen inside an fMRI scanner were those who had least success with an eight-week course of cognitive behavioral therapy.

Conversely, children who showed fear while looking at fearful faces benefitted from the treatment, which is also known as talk therapy, the researchers found.

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INFANT ESTROGEN LEVELS TRACKED THROUGH DIAPER RESEARCH

With the help of babies and more than 5,000 of their diapers, Emory University researchers have developed an accurate, noninvasive method to determine estrogen levels in infants.

The method, previously used in nonhuman primates, will allow researchers to learn more about the association between estrogen levels in human infants and their long-term reproductive development as well as the development of sex-specific behaviors, such as toy preference or cognitive differences. What's more, the method will also allow researchers to look at how early disruption of the endocrine system affects long-term maturation, a growing concern among researchers and physicians.

Surprisingly little is known about hormone levels during human infancy. Previous human research has focused on the measurement of hormones in blood, urine and saliva. The new data are the result of using fecal samples collected from cotton diapers.

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EYEBLINK CONDITIONING MAY HELP IN ASSESSING CHILDREN WITH FETAL ALCOHOL EXPOSURE

Children with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) are extremely difficult to diagnose, as well as treat. But, new research indicates that eyeblink conditioning may provide a better model for assessing and diagnosing FAS in children.

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is an irreversible disorder in children that affects the learning centers of the brain and results in cognitive and behavioral impairment in the child for life. One of the most pressing problems in studying and treating this disorder is that it is difficult to diagnose. Although the more severe form of the disorder, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), is characterized by a distinct set of facial features and growth retardation, the majority of lack these features, and there is no recognized diagnostic criteria that can be used to identify them.

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