A child at the dinner table talks about trouble at school or an argument with a friend, but parents aren’t listening: They’re checking their smartphones instead. It’s a scenario that plays out millions of times per day across America, and it could be harming the mental health of children, a new study suggests. Kids ages 9 to 11 who said their parents spent way too much on their smartphones were more prone to anxiety, attention issues and hyperactivity later on compared to the youngsters of parents who weren’t phone-obsessed, Canadian researchers report. “When children’s emotional and physical needs are consistently ignored or inappropriately responded to, they are at risk of developing mental health difficulties,” explained a team led by Sheri Madigan, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Calgary in Alberta. Her team published their findings Aug. 16 in the journal JAMA Network Open. According to background data from the study, one recent study found that parents of infants now spend an average of more than five hours on their smartphones daily, including looking at a smartphone 27% of the time they are engaging with their baby. Another study found 68% of parents admitting they are often distracted by their smartphones as they interact with their kids. Research has shown that this kind of “technoference” while parenting means less attention paid to children,…  read on >  read on >

A good night’s sleep is crucial for helping people make new memories, a new study says. Neurons that capture new memories during the day reset while you sleep, researchers reported Aug. 15 in the journal Science. “This mechanism could allow the brain to reuse the same resources, the same neurons, for new learning the next day,” said researcher Azahara Oliva, an assistant professor of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y. The process revolves around the hippocampus, a brain region vital to humans’ ability to create memories. Learning something or engaging in a new experience activate neurons in the hippocampus, storing those events as memories. The same neurons later repeat the same pattern of activity while you sleep, transferring the day’s memories in a larger brain region called the cortex. But what keeps the neurons of the hippocampus from filling up, thus preventing new learning, the researchers wondered. Electrodes implanted into the hippocampi of mice provided a potential explanation. It turns out that those neurons that captured the day’s memories undergo a reset after feeding the latest memories into the cortex, researchers found. Two regions of the hippocampus that capture memories, CA1 and CA3, appear to reset during sleep under the direction of a third region called CA2, researchers said. “We realized there are other hippocampal states that happen during sleep where everything…  read on >  read on >

Casey Harrell was losing his ability to speak due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. “Not being able to communicate is so frustrating and demoralizing. It is like you are trapped,” said Harrell, 45. But a new brain-computer interface is allowing Harrell to speak to others once more, with his brain providing the words and a computer giving them voice. Four microelectrode arrays implanted into a brain region responsible for coordinating speech detect the words that Harrell wants to say and sends that information to a computer program. During Harrell’s first session, the system took 30 minutes to achieve more than 90% word accuracy with a 50-word vocabulary, researchers said. The decoded words appear on a screen and are read aloud in a voice that sounds like Harrell’s did before he developed ALS. “The first time we tried the system, he cried with joy as the words he was trying to say correctly appeared on screen. We all did,” said researcher Sergey Stavisky, co-director of the University of California, Davis Neuroprosthetics Lab. ALS affects the nerve cells that control movement throughout the body, researchers said. It causes a gradual loss of the ability to stand, walk, use hands and even speak. By the time Harrell entered the study, he had developed weakness in his arms and legs and his speech…  read on >  read on >

Some comatose patients with severe brain injury might be paying closer attention to their surroundings than previously thought, a new study says. About 1 in 4 patients respond to instructions covertly, with their brains showing activity even though their bodies aren’t moving, researchers found. When asked to imagine opening and closing their hand, those comatose patients displayed brain activity showing that they were repeatedly following this instruction, MRI and EEG brain scans revealed. This shows that some patients with severe brain injury are paying attention to the world around them, said lead researcher Yelena Bodien, an investigator for Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery. “These results bring up critical ethical, clinical and scientific questions — such as how can we harness that unseen cognitive capacity to establish a system of communication and promote further recovery?” Bodien said in a hospital news release. For the study, researchers scanned 241 people with brain injury who showed no outward signs of consciousness, such as being able to respond to simple instructions. The study included data from participants in six different sites in the United States, the U.K. and Europe, collected over about 15 years. The patients all had sustained severe brain injuries, often from either a stroke, cardiac arrest or a traumatic event like a car crash. MRI and EEG brain responses showed that 60 of…  read on >  read on >

When it comes to Medicaid and vision care, how much coverage people get depends on the state in which they live, a new study finds. Most Medicaid enrollees have at least some routine vision coverage, but an estimated 6.5 million adults live in states without comprehensive coverage for routine eye exams, researchers found. Likewise, about 14.6 million adults didn’t have comprehensive coverage for glasses. In all, 20 states do not cover glasses and 35 states do not cover low vision aids. That means even if a person’s eye exam is covered, they often can’t afford the glasses they need to correct their vision, the researchers noted. Medicaid provides health coverage to low-income people and families, and its policies can greatly influence access to vision care. “The positive finding from our study is that most fee-for-service Medicaid programs across the states covered routine eye exams, which are vital for detecting and addressing vision issues early,” said lead researcher Brandy Lipton, an associate professor of health, society and behavior at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). “However, the substantial gaps highlight opportunities for policy changes to enhance coverage and access,” Lipton added in a UCI news release. “Providing comprehensive vision care could have big benefits in terms of health, quality of life and even employment and productivity.”  About two-thirds of states with routine vision exam coverage require…  read on >  read on >

Not all babies born prematurely will suffer long-term developmental problems, a new study finds. Preemies tend to fall into three risk categories, with about one in five (20%) scoring above average on standard cognitive tests, researchers reported Aug. 13 in the journal Child Development. A second profile representing 41% of preemies scored above normal on tests of memory, vocabulary and reading, but below average on tests of pattern recognition and working memory, researchers said. And a third profile representing nearly 40% of preemies scored below normal on all tests, suffering both cognitive and attention deficits. “Our study dispels the notion that every preterm child is born with cognitive and behavioral deficits,” said lead researcher Iris Menu, a post-doctoral scholar of child and adolescent psychiatry with the NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City. About 13 million babies are born prematurely each year, and preterm birth has been linked to a higher risk of ADHD, problems with social development and lower grades, researchers said in background notes. But the tendency to lump preemies into a single group hinders efforts to tailor care for any one child, they added. For the study, researchers analyzed cognitive and behavioral data for nearly 1,900 boys and girls born prematurely who had reached 9 to 11 years of age. The team found that children who fell within the first…  read on >  read on >

Eating a healthy diet that dampens inflammation in the body could lower your odds for dementia, especially if you already have heart risk factors, a new Swedish study shows. So-called anti-inflammatory diets focus on foods like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fish and beans and include heart-healthy regimens such as the Mediterranean diet. In a study involving more than 84,000 older adults tracked for more than 12 years, those who adhered to an anti-inflammatory diet had a 21% lower odds of developing dementia, compared to people who ate an unhealthy pro-inflammatory diet rich in red meats, eggs, dairy and processed foods. When looking specifically at older adults with ailments such as heart disease or diabetes, the risk of dementia fell by 31% when they stuck to an anti-inflammatory diet, reported a team led by Abigail Dove. She’s an investigator at the Aging Research Center at the Karolinska Institute, in Stockholm. MRI brain scans of a subset of more than 9,000 of the participants also showed neurological benefits linked to the healthier diet. There were “positive changes within the brain,” noted Dr. Liron Sinvani, director of geriatric hospital services for North Shore University Hospital, in Manhasset, N.Y. “Larger gray matter volume — gray matter is good — and lower burden of ‘white matter hyperintensities’ was seen among those who ate an anti-inflammatory diet, said Sinvani, who wasn’t…  read on >  read on >

An experimental drug based on ancient Chinese herbal medicine can help ease the toxic side effects of chemotherapy and radiation therapy in cancer patients, the results of a small new trial results suggest. A small group of 24 patients experienced fewer GI side effects from their treatment for rectal cancer after they took YIV-906, researchers reported recently in the Journal of Gastrointestinal Oncology. YIV-906 is based on an 1,800-year-old treatment for stomach ailments that combined licorice, dates, peonies and skullcap, researchers said. “This study is the first demonstration of YIV-906’s effectiveness in reducing GI toxicity caused by chemotherapy and radiation, showing the medicine’s potential of improving the patient’s quality of life while increasing treatment effectiveness,” said co-researcher Yung-Chi Cheng, a professor of pharmacology at Yale School of Medicine who helped develop the drug. For the four-year, phase 2 study, the patients were given capsules of YIV-906 along with chemo and radiation prior to surgery. At the time of surgery, about 17% of patients had a complete or near-complete response to their cancer treatment, while the overall survival rate at five years was 82%, results show. Only two cases of severe diarrhea were reported among the patients. YIV-906 is meant to ease side effects like diarrhea, fatigue and nausea. “We didn’t have any serious toxicity associated with the drug and patients found taking the drug in…  read on >  read on >