By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on August 25, 2010

Beginning college is a landmark event for many young people and a key step toward adulthood. However, for some, it also can be an episode that pushes some into a dangerous battle with eating disorders.

Stress can trigger an eating disorder, and for the college student who is away from home for the first time, the stress of moving into a totally different environment and meeting new people can make them more susceptible to developing an eating disorder, says Mary Boggiano, Ph.D., University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Even new positive events are processed by the brain as stressful, she says. “A lot of students have heard about the ‘freshman 15,’” says Boggiano.

“To keep from gaining weight, some students engage in risky behaviors such as excessive dieting or purging food. In many cases, people learn about the risky behaviors from others students in their dorm or over the Internet, so that obsession about weight can become infectious.”

Boggiano says the common signs of an eating disorder include:

• A preoccupation with calculating calories, fat grams and carbohydrate grams
• A need to weigh oneself more than once a day
• Allowing the numbers on the scale to determine mood
• Exercising, skipping meals or purging after overeating
• Exercising to burn calories rather than for health or for fun
• An inability to stop eating once eating begins
• Eating in secret
• Feeling guilty, ashamed or disgusted after overeating
• Basing self-worth on looks or weight
• Worrying continuously about weight and body shape
• Abusing diet pills or laxatives

Eating disorders can lead to long-term health problems, and even death.

For any young people who suspect they might be developing an eating disorder, Boggiano encourages them to seek help at free campus counseling centers, through a pastor or family doctor or through programs like Overeaters Anonymous.

“Whatever you do, don’t try to take care of it by yourself,” says Boggiano. “It will only get worse.”

Read in Full:  http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/08/25/stress-triggers-college-eating-disorders/17262.html

 

 

ScienceDaily (Aug. 27, 2010) — While some teenagers may puff on cigarettes to ‘self-medicate’ against the blues, scientists at the University of Toronto and the University of Montreal have found that smoking may actually increase depressive symptoms in some adolescents. Published in the journal Addictive Behaviors, the findings are part of the long-term Nicotine Dependence in Teens (NDIT) study based at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre.

“This observational study is one of the few to examine the perceived emotional benefits of smoking among adolescents,” says lead author Michael Chaiton, a research associate at the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit of the University of Toronto. “Although cigarettes may appear to have self-medicating effects or to improve mood, in the long term we found teens who started to smoke reported higher depressive symptoms.”

As part of the study, some 662 high school teenagers completed up to 20 questionnaires from grades 7 to 11 about their use of cigarettes to affect mood. Secondary schools were selected to provide a mix of French and English participants, urban and rural schools, and schools located in high, moderate and low socioeconomic neighbourhoods.

Participants were divided into three groups: never smokers; smokers who did not use cigarettes to self-medicate, improve mood or physical state; smokers who used cigarettes to self-medicate. Depressive symptoms were measured using a scale that asked how often participants felt too tired to do things; had trouble going to sleep or staying asleep; felt unhappy, sad, or depressed; felt hopeless about the future; felt nervous or tense; and worried too much about things.

“Smokers who used cigarettes as mood enhancers had higher risks of elevated depressive symptoms than teens who had never smoked,” says coauthor Jennifer O’Loughlin, a professor at the University of Montreal Department of Social and Preventive Medicine and scientist at the of the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre. “Our study found that adolescent smokers who reported emotional benefits from smoking are at higher risk of developing depressive symptoms.”

The association between depression and smoking exists principally among teens that use cigarettes to feel better. “It’s important to emphasize that depressive symptom scores were higher among teenagers who reported emotional benefits from smoking after they began to smoke,” says Dr. Chaiton.

 Michael Chaiton, Joanna Cohen, Jennifer O’Loughlin, Juergen Rehm. Use of cigarettes to improve affect and depressive symptoms in a longitudinal study of adolescents. Addictive Behaviors, 2010; DOI: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2010.07.002

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100827102551.htm

 

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on August 27, 2010

Researchers have discovered that moderate exercise, such as walking for 40 minutes three times a week, can enhance cognitive skills.

Specifically, the exercise can improve the connectivity of important brain circuits, mitigate declines in brain function associated with aging and improve performance on cognitive tasks.

Researchers followed a group of “professional couch potatoes,” composed of 65 adults ages 59 to 80, who joined a walking group or stretching and toning group for a year.

All of the participants were sedentary before the study, reporting less than two episodes of physical activity lasting 30 minutes or more in the previous six months. The researchers also measured brain activity in 32 younger (18- to 35-year-old) adults.

The study is published in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

Rather than focusing on specific brain structures, the study looked at activity in brain regions that function together as networks.

“Almost nothing in the brain gets done by one area – it’s more of a circuit,” said University of Illinois psychology professor and Beckman Institute Director Art Kramer, who led the study.

Read in Full:  http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/08/27/walking-is-good-brain-exercise/17326.html

 

Article Date: 27 Aug 2010 – 2:00 PDT

Mental disorders, such as depression, anxiety disorders, addiction and schizophrenia are the core challenge of most health care systems around the world. In the EU alone, each year 27% of the total adult population this corresponds to 83 Million citizens suffer from mental disorders. Depression alone affects almost 20 million ranking in the EU as the most disabling disorder of all diseases. Unless appropriately treated, mental disorders are typically associated with a wide range of complications and sequelae for the subjects affected, their partners and families as well as society as a whole, and they can be lethal. Suicide a frequent complication of depression and other mental disorders is a major cause of premature death in Europe with over 160.000 completed suicides every year; rates of attempted suicides are at least 10 times higher. Nevertheless despite the tremendous suffering and burden of mental disorder and the fact that mental disorders are treatable the majority of persons with mental disorders in the EU remain untreated.

The European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) is Europe’s largest and most comprehensive interdisciplinary forum in this field, dedicated to translating new knowledge on fundamental disease mechanisms into clinical practice, paving the way for improved pharmacological and non drug treatments for the prevention and treatment of all mental disorders and disorders of the brain in general.

Read in Full:  http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/199120.php

 August 26, 2010

An international study led by University of Montreal scientists suggests family history may not be a good predictor of the presence of mutations predisposing to autism or schizophrenia.

More information: The paper, “Direct Measure of the de novo Mutation Rate in Autism and Schizophrenia cohorts,” published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, was authored by Philip Awadalla, et al. http://www.cell.com/AJHG

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news202031239.html

Wednesday, August 25, 2010 | 7:08 p.m. CDT; updated 10:46 p.m. CDT, Wednesday, August 25, 2010

COLUMBIA — You don’t have to be Bruce Lee to break a wooden board with your bare hands.

“I hit it with my fist, and it snapped,” said Joe Reneker, 13, while reclining on a hospital bed at Rusk Rehabilitation Center after back surgery, unrelated to his taekwondo activities. “I wanted to break one for fun and ended up doing it. It doesn’t hardly hurt.”

Joe learned taekwondo at Hockman’s ATA Black Belt Academy, 2703 E. Broadway, where he started taking private lessons at age 6 with Jeff Hockman, the class master. Joe performed the board-splitting feat as part of a test to win a higher rank. Over the course of seven years, he has moved up nine levels, from white belt to recommended black belt.

Born with a disability, Joe has spent most of his childhood in a wheelchair. When he was 6, a woman in his neighborhood told his father, Jeff Reneker, about the academy. Father and son wanted to give it a shot.

“We’ve tried different forms of exercise, horseback riding, swimming in a pool, … but he really likes this one,” Reneker said.

Five students with disabilities are enrolled in the special programs at Hockman’s ATA Black Belt Academy, said Russ Taft, chief instructor. Among them are several with autism disorders. All the students either learn in a classroom setting or take private lessons modified for their medical conditions and families’ wishes.

“Depending on the disabilities, they fill out evaluations, then come to the first class, and we find out what their limitations are,” Taft said. “That’s how we adapt to them.”

Modified moves don’t necessarily make training sessions easier. The students practice the forms, or the different series of taekwondo movements, with precision. They compete and spar against their teammates. For them, tae kwon do is both an exercise to help with muscle recovery and a serious sport.

“Encouragement of physical activity and sports is very beneficial for everyone and for this population, ” said Evan Prost, clinical instructor in the MU physical therapy department. “Resting is an enemy. It has bad effects on your heart, joints, and you’ll have slow reaction time.”

Taft has seen other benefits.

“Self-esteem is probably the No. 1 thing I see,” he said. “A lot of people feel better. We use the correct praise method, we watch them focus on the things they love and keep them motivated.”

It also helps the students develop confidence, make new friends and build new relationships.

Read in Full:  http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2010/08/25/students-disability-practicing-taekwondo/

A toy tambourine in Kaspar’s lap adds to its perceived playfulness.

 

August 25, 2010 3:23 PM PDT

Kaspar the friendly robot helps autistic kids

 

by Leslie Katz

 

A playful child-size humanoid robot with a face inspired by comics and Japanese Noh theater is being used to help teach autistic children social skills.

 

Kaspar (Kinesics and Synchronisation in Personal Assistant Robots), developed at the U.K’s University of Hertfordshire, has a minimally expressive face so it doesn’t “overwhelm” its play partners with social cues, thus allowing them to individually interpret the expressions as “happy,” “neutral,” “surprised,” and so on, as they interact with the robot toy.

Makers of the bot–which has been in development for a few years now but is currently on display to the public through Friday at London’s Science Museum–deliberately took a low-cost approach to Kaspar so future research or commercial versions would be simple to make and easy to transport with on-board processing and battery power.

They built the robot for $2,500 using a child-shaped mannequin for the body’s base, off-the-shelf parts, and silicone-rubber RoboSkin with embedded tactile sensors that detect different kinds of touch.

Kaspar has minimal motors, only enough to simulate the most salient gestures involved in human communication. It has eight degrees of freedom in the head and neck and six in the arms and hands. Its blinking eyes have two axes of movement (and video cameras), and its mouth can open and smile in varying degrees.

 

Kaspar is part of the Aurora Project, which is aimed at investigating the possible use of robotic systems as therapeutic or educational tools for autistic children. The University of Hertfordshire researchers went out of their way to make Kaspar look like an approachable, non-threatening playmate. Since Kaspar has mainly been tested with boys in autism therapy, for example, the scientists gave the robot a playful boyish appearance complete with a baseball cap that kids can remove and replace.

 

Read in Full(Includes Video): 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20014712-1.html

 

 11:00am Friday 27th August 2010

 By Emily Allen »

SARAH Hewitt always felt like an outsider at school.

She was disruptive, found it difficult to make friendships, and for years wondered why she did not fit in.

To escape the confusion and angst that beset her days at Bloxham School, near Banbury, she would immerse herself in music, and excelled at the clarinet and saxophone.

It was not until she was 26 that doctors diagnosed her with Asperger’s syndrome, after her mother Sue suspected her daughter’s social difficulties were not normal.

Last night, Mrs Hewitt, who is married to 45-year-old property developer Chris Liversedge, said the diagnosis changed her life, and helped save her relationship.

Asperger’s is a form of autism, a life-long and incurable disability that affects how a person processes information and relates to other people.

Mrs Hewitt, who lives in Stanton Harcourt, said: “Some things had been going wrong for years, and my mum said she thought I had a chemical inbalance.

“I had difficulties in social situations and managing relationships.

“When you get older, children are expected to become more responsible and learn how to interact with other people and how to empathise, but I did not.”

About 588,000 people in the UK are thought to suffer from some type of autism including Asperger’s, but only one in five is female.

Diagnosis so late in life is also rare, with many youngsters showing signs from the age of two.

Mrs Hewitt added: “I would get left behind in conversations and I could not master the skill of making people feel good about themselves or comfortable with me in their company.

“I was too honest about things, I did not learn to ‘white lie’. I was very blunt with people and didn’t realise what I was saying would cause offence.

“My sister and her friends in Stratford always spoke of someone called ‘Orange John’. I really offended him when I met him, as I said, ‘You must be Orange John’, and I did not understand that was not what everyone really called him.”

The 33-year-old dropped out of Goldsmiths University after a term, and began a cycle of different jobs, all of which ended after relations with her colleagues deteriorated.

She has maintained her current role as a senior technical consultant for BT thanks to the support of the company and the National Autistic Society employment arm Prospects.

She said: “When I was diagnosed, it really helped, things made sense. It really helped my relationship with my parents and sister, they realised I wasn’t a nut case, but that my brain was wired differently.

“I do not know if my relationship with Chris would have lasted had I not been diagnosed. He understands it now and my differences.

“He knows if I am behaving strangely I am not doing it intentionally. He is a very patient man.”

She admits that although she has become more aware of herself, she still struggles with “meaningless small talk” and is dogged by obsessive behaviour – both typical characteristics of people with Asperger’s.

She added: “The difficulty is, it is so invisible, Asperger’s does not affect intelligence or the way you look.

“It can be very difficult because people expect you to be the same as them and operate in the same manner, but there are subtle differences which can surprise people.”

Source:  http://www.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk/news/8356785.Asperger_s_diagnosis_made_sense_to__outsider_/?ref=rss

 

 We trawl the world’s journals so you don’t have to:

Approaches to cognitive modelling (Trends in Cognitive Sciences).

Source:  http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2010/08/special-issue-spotter.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BpsResearchDigest+(BPS+Research+Digest)

 

ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2010) — There is still much that is unknown about autism spectrum disorders, but a University of Nevada, Reno psychologist has added to the body of knowledge that researchers around the world are compiling to try to demystify, prevent and treat the mysterious condition.

“Autism is a unique developmental disability,” states Jeffrey Hutsler, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno, who recently completed a six-year study of brain tissue that, for the first time, provided physical evidence of short-range over-connectivity in the outer layer of the brain’s cortex in those with autism disorders.

“It creates a lot of noise in the brain, so to speak,” he explained. “There was a higher density of synaptic connections, about 20 percent.”

Although this short-range over-connectivity had been hypothesized, Hutsler is the first to examine postmortem tissue samples and provide physical evidence of the condition. His research was published recently in the journal, Brain Research. He says his study supports the types of treatments the University is providing at its Early Childhood Autism Program, with early intervention behavioral therapies.

“This is in the layer of the cortex that is one of the last to develop, and a lot of these connections are refined after birth up to about age 4,” Hutsler explained. “As you interact with the environment, you sculpt them out.”

Those with autism are typically detached from their environment. Hutsler said that their interaction with the environment, or lack thereof, may interfere with that sculpting process. Early intervention with behavioral therapy during the preschool years may be able to aid that sculpting or weeding-out process.

Working mostly with 2- to 5-year-olds, tutors at the University’s Early Childhood Autism Program spend a minimum of 30 hours per week, one-on-one with each child for at least two years. The tutors, graduate and undergraduate students who are under faculty supervision, use applied behavior analysis, employing positive reinforcement techniques that strengthen appropriate interaction and behavior, as well as decrease inappropriate behavior.

The program is very effective, with virtually all participants showing improvement and about 50 percent showing total recovery from the disorder, meaning they are indistinguishable from their peers when they enter elementary school, according to the program’s director, Patrick Ghezzi.

In fact, Ghezzi has been asked to speak about the methods and the UNR Early Childhood Autism Program throughout the world, and has helped to start other programs modeled after Nevada’s in countries such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, German and Portugal. The University’s doctoral program in behavior analysis is one of a handful of such accredited programs in the country. Victoria Follette, chair of the University’s psychology department, says that research such as Hutsler’s is part of her department’s increased emphasis in neuroscience research.

“Research in these areas is key to providing the scientific foundation for our understanding of this disorder and has both local and international implications in the treatment of autism,” she states.

Ghezzi is glad to have Hutsler, who joined the University in 2006, as part of the University’s psychology and autism research team, stating, “He’s at the frontier of research in the biomedical field.”

Hong Zhang, now a faculty member at Wuhan University in China, co-authored the study with Hutsler when he was a post-doctoral student of Hutsler’s. Hutsler and Zhang credit the National Alliance for Autism Research for providing funding for the study, and also are grateful to the Autism Tissue Program, the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center and the Tissue Bank for Developmental Disorders at the University of Miami for their assistance with the study.

Source:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100825174116.htm