http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101103141531.htm#
Using a blend of brain imaging and genetic detective work, scientists at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine and Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior are the first to illustrate how genetic variants rewire the brain. Published in the Nov. 3 online edition of Science Translational Medicine, their discovery offers the crucial missing physical evidence that links altered genes to modified brain function and learning.
"This is a key piece of the puzzle we've been searching for," said co-principal investigator Dr. Daniel Geschwind, a professor of neurology and psychiatry who holds UCLA's Gordon and Virginia MacDonald Distinguished Chair in Human Genetics. "Now we can begin to unravel the mystery of how genes rearrange the brain's circuitry not only in autism, but in many related neurological disorders."
The UCLA team scrutinized the differences in brain connectivity and function that result from two forms of the CNTNAP2 gene, one of which boosts risk for autism.
Earlier studies by Geschwind and others demonstrated that the gene is most active during brain development in the frontal lobe. The region is highly involved in learning, which is often disrupted in autistic children.
Suspecting that CNTNAP2 might influence brain activity, the researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of 32 children as they performed learning-related tasks. Half of the children had autism, and half did not.
The team's goal was to measure the strength of various communication pathways in different regions of the brain as they connected with each other.
The fMRI images excited the scientists -- and confirmed their suspicions.
Regardless of their diagnosis, the children carrying the risk variant showed a disjointed brain. The frontal lobe was over-connected to itself and poorly connected to the rest of the brain. Communication with the back of the brain was particularly diminished.
"In children who carry the risk gene, the front of the brain appears to talk mostly with itself," explained first author Ashley Scott-Van Zeeland, now a Dickinson Research Fellow at Scripps Translational Science Institute. "It doesn't communicate as much with other parts of the brain and lacks long-range connections to the back of the brain."
Depending on which CNTNAP2 version the child carried, the researchers also observed a difference in connectivity between the left and right sides of the brain. In most people, the left side processes functions tied to language, like speech and understanding.
In the children with the non-risk gene, communication pathways in the frontal lobe linked more strongly to the left side of the brain.
In children with the risk variant, communications pathways in the front lobe connected more broadly to both sides of the brain. The unusual symmetry suggests that the gene variant rewires connections in the brain, perhaps explaining why this version of CNTNAP2 is associated with delayed speech.
"We saw that if you had the risk variant, your brain showed disrupted activation patterns whether you were diagnosed on the autism spectrum or not," explained co-principal investigator Susan Bookheimer, a professor of psychiatry who holds the Joaquin Fuster Chair in Cognitive Neurosciences. "We suspect that CNTNAP2 plays an important role in wiring neurons at the front of the brain, and that the risk variant interferes with that process."
By enhancing understanding of the relationship between genes, the brain and behavior, the UCLA finding could lead to earlier detection for autism, and new interventions to strengthen connections between the frontal lobe and left side of the brain.
"If we determine that the CNTNAP2 variant is a consistent predictor of language difficulties," said Scott-Van Zeeland, "we could begin to design targeted therapies to help rebalance the brain and move it toward a path of more normal development."
Researchers could test whether specific therapies actually change brain function by measuring connectivity of patients before and after therapy, she added.
The authors emphasized that the patterns of connectivity found in the study still fall along the spectrum of normal gene variation. "One third of the population carries this variant in its DNA," noted Geschwind. "It's important to remember that the gene variant alone doesn't cause autism, it just increases risk."
Led by the UCLA Autism Center of Excellence, the research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Alliance for Autism Research, National Center for Research Resources, Autism Speaks, Whitehall Foundation, Training Program in Neurobehavioral Genetics and a National Research Service Award.
Other UCLA coauthors included Ana Alvarez-Retuerto, Lisa Sonnenblick, Jeffrey Rudie, Dara Ghahremani, Jeanette Mumford, Russell Poldrack, Mirella Dapretto and Brett Abrahams, now at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Editor's Note: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
Rabu, 10 November 2010
Senin, 01 November 2010
Train The Brain: Using Neurofeedback To Treat ADHD by JON HAMILTON
Katherine Ellison's son was 12 when he was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.
Courtesy of Katherine Ellison
Katherine Ellison and her son, whom she refers to as "Buzz" in her book, both have ADHD. Buzz was diagnosed at age 12.
"He was getting into fights. He wasn't doing his homework. He was being very difficult with his little brother. And he was just melting down day after day," Ellison says. "So I decided to devote a year to trying out different approaches to see if we could make it any better."
In recent years, more people have been trying an alternative approach called neurofeedback, a type of therapy intended to teach the brain to stay calm and focused. Neurofeedback is expensive, time consuming and still scientifically unproved. But, there's growing evidence that it can help.
Ellison says the idea appealed to her immediately.
"Because I was always wary about using meds as a single approach or for very long, it seemed to be an interesting alternative. It's really like meditation on steroids," says Ellison, a journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting — and who has ADHD herself.
Ellison has written a book about living with ADHD called Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention. And one chapter of the book is devoted to neurofeedback.
Training The Brain
Ellison says she tried meditation, but her mind kept wandering. Neurofeedback is better for people with ADHD, she says, because it provides constant feedback during a session, which is usually done in a therapist's office.
People usually sit in a chair facing a laptop screen. The laptop is connected to electrodes applied to the scalp. Special software monitors the electrical activity in your brain. In particular, it measures rhythmic patterns known as theta and beta waves.
Proponents of neurofeedback say these patterns reveal when the brain is in a focused and attentive state. So the computer software looks for desirable brain wave patterns and changes the image on screen to let people know how they are doing.
Catherine Avalone/The Middletown Press
A clinical psychologist in Connecticut monitors the electrode impulses of a patient with ADHD. Some parents are turning to neurofeedback to treat the disorder.
The image that worked best for Ellison showed a field.
"When my brain responded the way that it was supposed to, the field would burst into color. I'd hear bird song and beautiful flowers would bloom," she says. "But when I got distracted or when I got a little bit more sped up, the flowers would wilt. It would turn gray, and I'd know that I needed to work a little bit harder."
At first, people can't control their brain wave patterns, at least not consciously. But over time, their brains become conditioned to associate certain patterns with pleasant images or sounds — a reward for good behavior. And our brains like rewards.
This sort of brain training can take 40 sessions or more, and typically costs thousands of dollars.
Promising But Unproved
Even though there are studies now showing that neurofeedback works for ADHD, all of these studies have serious limitations, researchers say. So the approach remains promising but unproved, says David Rabiner, a researcher at Duke University who writes a newsletter about treatments for ADHD.
Considering Neurofeedback For ADHD?
A growing number of parents see neurofeedback as an appealing alternative to medication to treat their child's ADHD. The treatment is relatively simple and painless. First, a practitioner attaches three to 10 electrodes to the child's head. Each electrode sprouts a lead, or wire, connecting it to a computer. The child sits in front of a screen displaying images that respond to the child's brain activity. When the child has the right kind of brain activity — the images are rewarding or positive, for example — puzzle pieces might fall into place. Proponents say this helps encourage better behavior over time.
Cynthia Kerson, executive director of the International Society for Neurofeedback and Research, says her sessions with children last about 30 minutes and include breaks. Her own patients might have anywhere from 20 to 40 sessions, but some kids with ADHD struggle to sit still for even one session in the beginning. "It can be quite frustrating for them," she says. Katherine Ellison writes that a course of treatment can cost $3,000 or more.
Many highly trained doctors like Kerson offer the treatment, but the field has also attracted people with more dubious backgrounds. "That's a big problem in our field because people can acquire equipment quite easily," Kerson says. Kerson said there are a few things parents should look for to ensure their neurofeedback practitioner is a professional.
1. Look for a clinician board certified by the Biofeedback Certification International Alliance who is either a licensed professional specializing in psychological or medical disorders, or working with someone who is.
2. Determine whether the practitioner is a good fit by having your child meet with him or her before agreeing to a treatment plan.
3. Verify that the practitioner is using up-to-date methods and equipment, since the field is changing rapidly. Ask what research backs up practitioner's methodology and what kind of training he or she has had.
— Whitney Blair Wyckoff
"Parents do need to know that relative to treatments like medication treatment, to behavior therapy, at this point, the research base is not as extensive," Rabiner says.
On the other hand, Rabiner says, neurofeedback may offer something other treatments can't.
"The hope for neurofeedback is that after training ends, the benefits that resulted from training will persist — that in some sense there's been more enduring change in the child's ability to focus and attend and to regulate their behavior," he says.
But it will take better research to figure out whether neurofeedback can live up to that promise, Rabiner says.
"There has been a need for some time to have the kind of carefully controlled study that would provide more definitive answers for parents and for the field," he says.
Research In Progress
And that research appears to be on the way.
A team at The Ohio State University has nearly completed a pilot study of neurofeedback for ADHD that was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.
The team had hoped to announce results last week at a scientific meeting in New York, but Gene Arnold, one of the scientists in charge of the study, says they had to delay that announcement because "we weren't able to get the results analyzed in time," he says.
The results should be out within a few weeks, Arnold says. In the meantime, he says, the study has shown that it is possible to do neurofeedback research that involves a placebo.
The study used a video game involving race cars. For kids who got neurofeedback, he says, "The ability to speed up the car and steer it was contingent on maintaining your brain waves in a more favorable ratio."
But other children got a placebo — a race car that paid no attention to their brain waves.
Until a large study comes along using this sort of approach, parents and consumers will have to decide for themselves whether neurofeedback is worth the time and effort. Katherine Ellison says that for her and for her son, it was.
"What I noticed in my son was not necessarily that he'd stop losing things at school or do his homework better," she says. "The improvement I saw was that he was easier to live with."
But brain training might not be the only reason, Ellison says. She says it might have been because she and her son spent so much time going to all those sessions together, and had pizza together afterward.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130896102
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Fujitsu Offers Free Mobile Phone Application to Support Children with Special Needs
Fujitsu Offers Free Mobile Phone Application to Support Children with Special Needs
| Fujitsu Offers Free Mobile Phone Application to Support Children with Special Needs |
Tokyo, Oct 29, 2010 - (JCN Newswire) - Fujitsu Limited today announced that it has started to offer in Japan a free mobile phone application that provides educational and social support for children with special needs, including those with learning disabilities and autism, and their parents. The new software was originally developed by Fujitsu, and its functionality and operability were improved through field tests undertaken in collaboration with Kagawa University from May to September 2010. Software Features Children with special needs often require help in areas such as understanding time, communicating, and handwriting. To meet these needs, Fujitsu developed three software modules: "Timer" to help understand time; "Picture Card" to help with communication as well as scheduling; and "Handwriting" to show the correct order in which to write characters in Japanese. These software modules also use special mobile phone functions that have been designed with attention to the nature of learning disabilities, such as a color filter and the mobile phone's vibration function, to facilitate understanding on the part of the children. Background and Aims The number of children in Japan requiring special assistance because of developmental or learning disabilities includes approximately 600,000 children in regular schools and nearly 100,000 more in special needs schools and classes. In 2005, the Act to Support Persons with Developmental Disabilities was enacted in Japan, and, year after year, there is a growing need to support children requiring special assistance because of disabilities. Fujitsu has long been working on universal design initiatives that seek to enable broad accessibility to the world of information and communications technologies (ICT), and the company developed the new software with the goal of raising the quality of life for children requiring special assistance through the use of mobile phones - an ICT platform that has become an integral part of our modern lives. Overview of Field Tests In collaboration with Kagawa University's Faculty of Education, which is actively involved in the use of ICT in education, Fujitsu undertook field tests of the software from May to September 2010 to verify its effectiveness by lending mobile phones loaded with the three software modules to parents of the children attending a special needs school affiliated with the university. In the field tests, there were cases in which, using the character stroke order software, children were able to write their names for the first time, as well as cases in which, using the picture card software, children were able to change their own clothes or shop on their own, among other results. Availability Free from October 29, 2010 on Fujitsu phones sold in Japan by NTT DOCOMO. Download Method The software can be downloaded using the following method: To download from iMenu, press the iMode button and go to the iMenu, select the menu list and then the mobile phone manufacturer, and then go to the @F mobile phone support group. Mobile Phone Models with Confirmed Compatibility The software can operate on the following models sold in Japan by NTT DOCOMO: F-08B, F-07B, F-06B, F-04B, F-03B, F-02B, F-01B, F-09A, F-08A, F-04A, F-03A, F-02A, F-01A, RakuRaku Phone 7 (F-09B), RakuRaku Phone 6 (F-10A), Kids Mobile Phone (F-05A)
Fujitsu Public and Investor Relations http://www.fujitsu.com/global/news/contacts/ +81-3-3215-5259 |
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