Punishing a child, even with the mild `naughty step’, may suppress bad behaviour, but probably won’t stop it happening again, according to a man heralded as America’s `most eminent living child psychologist’.

However, he insists: “The book isn’t about disparaging the advice in other books; what it’s about is what you do before behaviour, and then how you praise it afterwards. If you do it this special way, the results are unbelievable.”

To illustrate his method, Kazdin uses the example of a child having a tantrum - although he stresses that the time for the child to learn the `positive opposite’ of their behaviour is when they have calmed down afterwards.

The parent should tell the child they’re going to play a game, with the same scenario that caused the tantrum. But in the game he/she can’t get angry and if he/she manages that, he/she can have a star which will ultimately lead to a reward.

If the child does this, says Dr Kazdin, the praise should be effusive, and the parent should touch him/her. The `game’ should then be practised four or five times a week for a few weeks - by which time the positive behaviour should be the child’s automatic response.

“The child has to know what he can get ahead of time. The process changes the brain and it will lock it in as a habit.”

He points out that humans are `hard-wired’ to pick up negative behaviour. “Don’t focus on what the child shouldn’t do - turn it around, and look at the child’s positive behaviours. If you punish, it won’t suppress the behaviour, except at that moment.”

He stresses that his method doesn’t need to be used long-term, pointing out: “The intention is that you build the frame of the method around your child’s changing behaviour, but that once the desired behaviour takes deeper root you quickly scale down the frame and then take it down entirely.”

Dr Kazdin claims his method also improves life for parents.

“It’s about getting parents to act in a different way. Once they practise alternatives to punishment, they get results from their child. Parental stress and depression go down, family relationships improve and home life is made much less stressful,” he said.

Source: Manchester Evening News, UK
http://tinyurl.com/2o9ga2

Some classic games help limit anti-social behavior

Other work has shown that measures of executive control can predict future success in school at least as well as IQ tests, which gauge only a limited range of mental abilities. Improving executive function could be a promising way of getting kids ready for the real world, said Adele Diamond, a co-author of the study that appeared last November in the journal Science.

Many applications

“You need these kinds of skills in all facets of your life,” said Diamond, a professor of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia.

Scientists believe executive control comes from an area of the brain called the pre-frontal cortex, which underlies much of our ability to make conscious, deliberate choices.

It’s also one of the last brain areas to reach maturity in children, and that shows in the often impulsive behavior of young kids. When young children see someone else with a toy they want, they simply take it. When they want food, they grab it. Executive control includes the power to think twice and avoid such missteps.

Many researchers believe another key aspect of executive function is what’s called “working memory,” the small store of memory that people keep in mind while doing a task such as solving a math problem or spelling a word. Improving working memory also could aid self-control, said Philip David Zelazo, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development.

“Working memory is important for executive function because you have to keep something in mind while ignoring various distractions in the environment,” Zelazo said.

Diamond’s work suggests that schools can teach young children better executive control, just as they now teach skills in math and reading.

Her team had teachers of low-income children use a curriculum called “Tools of the Mind,” which emphasizes having children do planned imaginative play in which they act out specific roles for an extended period.

The theory is that such play helps children develop executive control by forcing them to inhibit actions that are inconsistent with their role and to stick with the plan instead of simply reaching for an alluring toy. Teachers also focused on activities that forced children to take turns rather than have someone else tell them what to do.

Fighting an impulse

To see whether the approach improved the children’s self-control, the researchers administered several formal tests of executive function. In one, children were given a piece of paper with a heart or flower on one side, and they were told to press on the side that does not have an image. Because a natural tendency is to point at the image, having children go against that instinct is considered a good test of their ability to inhibit their first impulse.

The children who received the special play curriculum performed significantly better on such tests than children on an ordinary preschool curriculum, the researchers found.

“Those are great games that kids used to play a lot more than they do now,” Diamond said. “And they played them for a very good reason.”

Source: Chicago Tribune, United States
http://tinyurl.com/yscglh

A new Tufts University study sees the emergence of a “digital skills divide” based on socioeconomic status.

The study, published in the March/April issue of the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, finds that wealthy, educated Americans are more capable of identifying untrustworthy information about child-rearing on the Internet than poor, uneducated Americans.

Fred Rothbaum, a professor in the department of child development at Tufts University, and colleagues conducted interviews of 60 mothers and 60 fathers from low, middle, and high socioeconomic strata, as measured by education and income, about Web use and online information.

Rothbaum said that the research was conducted four years ago and is only now being published because of the time it has taken to analyze the study.

After answering questions about how they used the Web, parents were asked to search for information on a specific topic and then asked how confident they were that the information found was trustworthy.

While confidence levels did not vary by socioeconomic status, the justifications provided about why specific information was trustworthy did. Among parents in the high socioeconomic group, 40% said they were more likely to trust Web sites affiliated with credible organizations, like universities or research entities. Only 26% of parents in the middle socioeconomic group and 16% of parents in the low socioeconomic group expressed similar confidence in credible organizations.

The study also indicates that wealthy, educated parents are more likely to choose their own search engine, rather than accept the default search engine on their computer. Among that group, 55% preferredGoogle (NSDQ: GOOG), compared with 28% in the middle socioeconomic status group and 8% in the low socioeconomic status group.

“I thought it was rather striking that more educated people were using Google (NSDQ: GOOG),” said Rothbaum.

The most popular choice among those with low levels of income and education was AOL. The research didn’t suggest a significant socioeconomic status difference among users ofYahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) or MSN. MSN Search is now Windows Live Search, but was called MSN four years ago when the study was conducted.

Last year, Danah Boyd, a Ph.D. student at the School of Information Sciences at the University of California at Berkeley, made a related observation about class divisions at Facebook and MySpace. She noted in an essay that high-social-status students seem to prefer Facebook and that those of lower social status seem to prefer the more garish MySpace.

The researchers conclude that the digital skills divide ought to be addressed through greater education about search engines, searching, and information evaluation. Given that the gap is largely defined by lack of education, the study might best be summed up by saying the uneducated should be educated.

“The point is that there are some very basic skills that the government should be helping its citizens become aware of, just as it helps all its citizens with basic literacy skills,” said Rothbaum.

Source: InformationWeek, NY
http://tinyurl.com/yp9y9z

Pregnant women who perceive having had a well-balanced relationship with their parents during their childhood will experience fewer difficulties in the transition to motherhood, as opposed to women whose relationship with their parents was characterized by unresolved anger or rejection – reveals a new study conducted at the University of Haifa. The study also found that women who tend to deny negative experiences in early childhood relationships expected to experience a relationship with their future children characterized by less warmth compared to other women who participated in the study.

The research, which was conducted by Ora Gazit under the direction of Dr. Miri Scharf, examined 160 Jewish women in the last trimester of their first pregnancy who live with their husband or partner. The researchers examined the expectations, thoughts and emotions of the pregnant women regarding themselves as future mothers and their future relationships with their babies – based on two approaches related to identity building. The first focuses on the way people perceive their early childhood relationship with their parents and how this is reflected in their thoughts, perceptions and behavior during their lives. The second focuses on existing differences between people whose motivation is derived from an aspiration for success and those who are motivated by an aspiration to avoid failure.

The results of the study revealed that women whose early childhood relationships with their parents were characterized by rejection and unresolved conflicts, expected to experience a high measure of separation anxiety, thought their child would be more demanding of them and thought they would set a lot boundaries, compared to other women in the study.

Among women who described their early childhood relationships with their parents as being characterized by rejection but who had difficulty recalling many of the events representative of this relationship, the study found a majority had positive thoughts about their impending motherhood and towards their unborn child. However, in comparison to the remainder of the women in the study, they expected to develop a less warm and close relationship with their baby. The women who had a balanced view of their early relationship with their parents had the most optimal expectations towards their impending motherhood. They expected to feel a low level of separation anxiety from their child, thought childrearing would be easy and that their relationship would be characterized by warmth.

In addition, the study found that women who were characterized by wanting to advance and reach set goals were positive and more optimistic, in comparison to women who were characterized by abstention and concern with self-defense, security and responsibility. According to the researchers, women in the first group thought they would be more fulfilled in parenthood, saw themselves and their child in a more positive light, thought they would be more productive and warm as mothers and expected to have good communication with their child. “The results of the research show that there is great importance in evaluating thoughts, perceptions and feelings about parental identity during pregnancy. Such an evaluation will enable early identification of women who are concerned they will have difficulty contending with parental roles and offer them tools that will help them adapt better to the transition to motherhood,” summarized the researchers.

Source: EurekAlert, DC
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/uoh-wwt022608.php

In a controversial new book, psychologist Susan Pinker uncovers the workings of the hormone oxytocin, which she claims explains why females are biologically driven to nurture their young rather than climb the corporate ladder

In 2006, when investment analyst Carolyn Buck Luce and economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett tried to get to the bottom of the “hidden brain drain” of female talent by surveying 2,443 women with graduate or professional degrees, they discovered that one in three American women with MBAs chose not to work full-time – compared with one in 20 male MBAs – and that 38% of high-achieving women had turned down a promotion or had deliberately taken a position with lower pay.

Instead of being forcibly barred from top positions by a glass ceiling, these women were avoiding them.

When the researchers looked at women’s motivations to work, they discovered that having a powerful position was the lowest ranked career goal of highly qualified women in every sector. For 85% of the women, other values came first: the ability to work with people they respect, to “be themselves” at work and to have flexible schedules.

Logging millions of air miles, being available 24/7 and facing unpredictable demands and tight deadlines are the mainstays of top-tier jobs. Of the small minority of women in such posts, twice as many women as men described the negative fallout on their families – connecting their kids’ behaviour, school performance, television and eating habits to their own job pressures in what Hewlett calls “a veritable portrait of guilt”. Why is this? (…)

Most women in the West are now in the workplace and young women are doing exceptionally well at school and university in comparison with their male peers. But gifted, talented women with the most choices and freedoms don’t seem to be choosing the same paths, in the same numbers, as the men around them. Even with barriers stripped away, they don’t behave like male clones.

As a developmental psychologist, I began to wonder about the science. We have come to expect that there should be no real differences between the sexes. But the science that’s emerging upends the notion that male and female are interchangeable, symmetrical or the same. The psychology, neuro-science and economics of people’s choices and behaviour have exploded with amazing findings in the past 10 years alone.

In particular, an opiate-like hormone, oxytocin, which one anthropologist calls “the elixir of contentment” (it surges during breastfeeding, childbirth, sex, cuddling and nurturing), has emerged as a key to understanding Elaine’s decision to impose her own glass ceiling. LIKE Elaine, most of the women I have met in studying this phenomenon did not feel forcibly excluded from the most lucrative positions or feel that talented women are routinely barred from the top ranks. (…)

The science of sex differences is a grab bag of surprises. In the early 1980s I was not alone in thinking that men and women had nearly identical brains but had been socialised to take on different roles.

If my husband, a doting father, could leave our newborn daughter after two weeks at home and go to work for 10 hours a day without a backward glance, the script dictated that this was because he had learnt that his role was to be the provider.

And if I felt physical distress about tearing myself away from the baby to go back to work, I had internalised my role as the care giver.

Many of us thought that if only women could tame their outdated sentimentality, if only men offered their babies more bottles, then our parental roles could be reversed. I was amused but admiring when a male friend strapped on a device at a dinner party that allowed him to simulate breastfeeding.

At the time we assumed that men and women were equals – not just in rights and opportunities, as they should be, but also in underlying psychology and behaviour. Any differences, including physical differences, could be fixed via technology, policy or force of will.

There are distinctive design elements in female brains that evolved to promote the survival of infants. An avalanche of hormones at childbirth and during nursing trigger behaviour and emotions that don’t vanish simply because the new mothers have to go to work.

Breastfeeding releases hormones and neurotransmitters that induce euphoria in mothers. Prolactin turns on breastfeeding in females and circulates any time feeding, nurturing or protecting is on the agenda. And oxytocin, “the elixir of contentment”, is evolution’s way of making proximity to infants and feeding them so attractive.

Regular intimate contact becomes a physiological imperative. After infusing her brain with the analgesic and pleasure-inducing effects of oxytocin every few hours when she nurses her baby, a mother is suddenly cut off from her supply when not breastfeeding. That’s why nursing mothers newly returned to full-time work can’t wait to get home to feed the baby again. HORMONES are the catalysts that set dynamic sex differences in motion. Based on studies in animals, scientists expect that certain regions of the brain are not just transformed by hormones early on but are also endowed with receptors that enable the hormones to continue to play a role throughout life. (…)

Oxytocin, the underlying driver in tending children, is also the hormone of befriending. Besides being triggered by childbirth, breastfeeding, nurturing and orgasm, it is also released at critical moments in women’s relationships and menstrual cycles, damping down other stress responses. It helps to keep mothers going, providing sedative and analgesic effects, calming and immediately rewarding the women who instinctively reach out to others when they are in trouble.

Oxytocin is not just a feel-good, nurturing drug. It helps people to read emotions in other’s faces and increases their trust, according to two studies at the University of Zurich. These showed that oxytocin in nasal spray even has a positive effect on men’s usual behavioural limitations: it boosts their trust in social situations and their ability to read facial expressions.

Both studies bolster the idea that this hormone secreted in greater quantities in females – when they have babies, when they nurture them, when they cuddle or have sex with their partners, or when they reach out to others – facilitates females’ capacity for empathy and their trust in others.

Testosterone, secreted in greater quantities in males, may alter some neural connections related to reading others’ emotional states. And oxytocin seems to do the reverse. It seems to help women guess what’s going on inside the heads of other people, enabling them to trust them enough to seek them out, especially when they’re stressed, and to feel pleasure and relief when they do.

Studies have also shown that women on average perceive, experience and remember emotional events more intensely than men do and that these experiences are encoded in more areas of their brains than in men’s. From this, it makes sense that their emotional attachments will figure more strongly in their career decisions.

In the context of male-dominated “extreme” jobs, being aware of others’ needs can be a liability if promotion is the yardstick of success. (…)

(…) THE science showing that many women feel empathy more acutely than many men doesn’t mean they must or should make trade-offs over their work. It simply explains why some women might want to, as the British sociologist Catherine Hakim understands.

“If you are seriously interested in a career you don’t have time for children and if you are seriously interested in bringing up more than one child, you don’t have the time, effort and imagination for getting to the top of a career,” she told me.

Half of all women in the top professional and managerial grades are childless, Hakim reports, which is similar to women in academic science and engineering. Reliable contraception has allowed them to choose how they want to direct their energies and to plan their ascent.

In Hakim’s case, over the past eight years she has written six books and “there’s no way I could have done that if I had had children. The fact is that children are a 20-year project and a career is a 20 to 40-year project and there is an incompatibility there”.

And she added mildly: “If someone tested me, I’m sure I’d have the highest level of testosterone.”

Source: Times Online, UK
http://tinyurl.com/yuu8dp

If there is such a person as a “baby whisperer,” it is the pediatrician Dr. Harvey Karp, whose uncanny ability to quiet crying babies became the best-selling book The Happiest Baby on the Block.

Dr. Karp’s method, endorsed by child advocates and demonstrated in television appearances and a DVD version of his book, shows fussy babies who are quickly, almost eerily soothed by a combination of tight swaddling, loud shushing and swinging, which he says mimics the sensations of the womb.

Now Dr. Karp, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles, has turned his attention to the toddler years, that explosive period of development when children learn language, motor skills and problem solving, among other things. The rapid pace at which all these changes occur is nothing short of astonishing, but it can also be overwhelming to little brains. A wailing baby is nothing compared with the defiant behavior and tantrums common among toddlers.

In his latest book, The Happiest Toddler on the Block, Dr. Karp tries to teach parents the skills to communicate with and soothe tantrum-prone children. In doing so, however, he redefines what being a toddler means. In his view, toddlers are not just small people. In fact, for all practical purposes, they’re not even small Homo sapiens.

Dr. Karp notes that in terms of brain development, a toddler is primitive, an emotion-driven, instinctive creature that has yet to develop the thinking skills that define modern humans. Logic and persuasion, common tools of modern parenting, “are meaningless to a Neanderthal,” Dr. Karp says.

The challenge for parents is learning how to communicate with the caveman in the crib. “All of us get more primitive when we get upset, that’s why they call it ‘going ape,’ ” Dr. Karp says. “But toddlers start out primitive, so when they get upset, they go Jurassic on you.” (…)

(…) Dr. Karp’s method of toddler communication is not for the self-conscious. It involves bringing yourself, both mentally and physically, down to a child’s level when he or she is upset. The goal is not to give in to a child’s demands, but to communicate in a child’s own language of “toddler-ese.”

This means using short phrases with lots of repetition, and reflecting the child’s emotions in your tone and facial expressions. And, most awkward, it means repeating the very words the child is using, over and over again.

For instance, a toddler throwing a tantrum over a cookie might wail, “I want it. I want it. I want cookie now.”

Often, a parent will adopt a soothing tone saying, “No, honey, you have to wait until after dinner for a cookie.”

Such a response will, almost certainly, make matters worse. “It’s loving, logical and reasonable,” notes Dr. Karp. “And it’s infuriating to a toddler. Now they have to say it over harder and louder to get you to understand.”

Dr. Karp adopts a soothing, childlike voice to demonstrate how to respond to the toddler’s cookie demands.

“You want. You want. You want cookie. You say, ‘Cookie, now. Cookie now.’ ”

It’s hard to imagine an adult talking like this in a public place. But Dr. Karp notes that this same form of “active listening” is a method adults use all the time. The goal is not simply to repeat words but to make it clear that you hear someone’s complaint. “If you were upset and fuming mad, I might say, ‘I know. I know. I know. I get it. I’m really really sorry. I’m sorry.’ That sounds like gibberish out of context,” he says.

On his DVD, Dr. Karp demonstrates the method. Within seconds, teary-eyed toddlers calm and look at him quizzically as he repeats their concerns back at them. Once the child has calmed, a parent can explain the reason for saying no, offer the child comfort and a happy alternative to the original demand.

Dr. Karp also offers methods for teaching children patience, and he suggests regularly giving children small victories — like winning at a game of wrestling. “If you give them these little victories all day long, when you want them to do something for you, they’re much more likely to do it.”

Sometimes, excessive tantrums can signal an underlying health problem, so parents with a difficult child should consult with a pediatrician.

“The thing about toddlers is that they are uncivilized,” Dr. Karp says. “Our job is to civilize them, to teach them to say please and thank you, don’t spit and scratch and don’t pee anywhere you want. These are the jobs you have with a toddler.”

Source: New York Times, United States
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05well.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Skill Training Is the Answer Say Authorities!

Some experts in the field say indiscriminate praise by adults sets children up for low standards and lack of respect for authority. The Human Potential Movement’s dictum of heaping praise on children has come under question. The American Psychological Association Monitor quoted William Damon, Ph. D. (currently a professor of education and Director of the Center on Adolescence at Stanford University) as saying that the self-esteem movement has tried to offset the shame-based parenting of past generations. “This may well be a reaction against the heavy, guilt inducing parenting style of the past, but now we have gone too far.”

Martin Seligman, author of Learned Optimism and creator of the concept of learned helplessness, which is a major theory of depression, was quoted as saying “…. What needs improving is not self-esteem, but improvement of our skills (for dealing) with the world…. Bolstering self-esteem without changing hopelessness or passivity… . accomplishes nothing.”

A long look at the effects of the ways that adults praise children is long overdue. Remember the old saying, “Don’t give a man a fish; teach him how to fish.” Generic cues that praise children and are typically used to promote self-esteem such as “nice job”, “super” and “keep up the good work” start to lose their meaning when overused. Children become immune to bland, general cues. They shrug off compliments when they know they have not done a good job. Children need to be held accountable for their poor work as well as their hurtful actions.

Teach children to evaluate their work and praise themselves. Learning an internal phrase that allows the child to motivate himself is a powerful skill that will last a lifetime. You can work yourself out of the job as primarily motivator when you teach children their own set of Helper Words that they can carry around inside them. Some Helper Words to encourage children to use self-talk to make good choices and feel good about their effort include:

- Do you like what you accomplished? Tell yourself, “I worked hard and did a good job.”

- How do you feel about this worksheet? Give yourself a big pat on the back. Tell yourself, “Right on!”

- Did you remember to praise yourself for a job well done? Tell yourself that you made a good choice.

- What can you say to yourself to get out of this problem? How will you feel when you figure it out?

- Stop and think. How do you feel about what you just did? Remind yourself, “I feel good about being responsible for my behavior.”

Asking children to evaluate and praise themselves when appropriate helps tie in associational learning of high standards, their effort and feeling good about themselves.

Source: Gather.com, MA
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977242619

Most parents nowadays try not to use physical punishment, which they know undermines kids’ self esteem. Many experts advise using timeouts to “calm” kids down and correct bad behavior. But any child can explain to you that timeouts are still punishment. And we all know that sending a kid to a timeout it is not the best way to calm him!

What’s wrong with timeouts for disciplining kids? Nothing tragic. They’re infinitely better than hitting, and yelling. But Timeouts backfire if your goal is better-behaved children.

Here’s why.

1. Instead of reaffirming the relationship so that the child wants to please the parent, timeouts create a power struggle. Timeouts pit you and your authority against the child. It’s true that as long as the parent is bigger than the child, the parent wins this power struggle, but no one ever really wins in a parent-child power struggle. The child loses face and has plenty of time to sit around fantasizing revenge. (Did you really think he was resolving to be a better kid?)

2. Because you have to harden your heart to your child’s distress during the timeout, timeouts erode your empathy for your child. Yet your empathy for this struggling little person is the basis of your relationship with him, and is the most important factor in whether or not he behaves to begin with. So parents who use timeouts often find themselves on a cycle of escalating misbehavior.

3. Timeouts backfire with toddlers because two and three year olds love to experience their sense of power and agency in the world, and timeouts teach them they can get a big reaction from you, so they repeat it. Research shows that ignoring the bad behavior is generally more effective in eliminating the behavior than negative reinforcement. If the behavior can’t be ignored, such as hitting, it is more effective to remove the child to his room to calm him, but to stay with him. Don’t call it a time out, and don’t leave him there alone. Calmly explain that if he hits, he can’t be with other kids, and that he needs to calm down. Again, an emotional reaction from you will provoke a repeat offense.

Research shows that punishment is never as effective as positive discipline to encourage good behavior. But Timeouts are a terrific management technique – for yourself. When you find yourself losing it, take five. This keeps you from doing anything you’ll be sorry about later. It models wonderful self-management for your kids. And it ultimately makes your discipline more effective.

Parents who use timeouts as threats are often shocked to learn that there are families who never hit, never use timeouts, rarely yell at or threaten their children – and have well-behaved kids! But you shouldn’t need to use these methods of discipline, and if you’re using them now, you’ll probably be quite relieved to hear that you can wean yourself away from them.

What else can you do? Here are some basics to reduce the need for discipline:

1. A good relationship is your foundation; discipline doesn’t work without that.

2. Stay two steps ahead of your kid, so you can give him ample warning before transitions, and preemptively distract.

3. Always leave extra time to get anything done, which reduces your stress level and lets you be more patient. Rushing kids stimulates resistance from them.

4. Make sure your child gets enough sleep. It’s harder to stay patient with a cranky kid.

5. Sidestep power struggles. Give her as much control over her life as possible so she doesn’t need to rebel.

Finally, when all else fails — as it often will, because we’re only human — fall back on your sense of humor. How? Don’t take it personally. Turn things into a game. Distract your child with jokes and riddles. Sit down on the floor and laugh until you cry at the absurdity of the whole thing. The truth is, when you’re in a good mood, and have a good relationship with your child, parenting gets a lot easier. And remember, this too shall pass. (…)

Source: HealthNewsDigest.com, NY
http://tinyurl.com/3y2abo

For decades, scientists and parents explored how much of children’s chances for success were determined by their nature (the genes and the body chemistry they were born with) and how much came from nurture (whether or not they were raised in a loving, nurturing, safe environment).

This has historically been one of the biggest debates in the global research community.

The nature-nurture balance affects, for instance, whether researchers should focus on finding better ways of teaching to improve learning ability, or instead devote their time to developing gene therapies designed to achieve the same end.

But, as is so often the case in advanced research, it turned out that the original question was framed incorrectly.

Asking whether nature or nurture has the greater impact on human development is like asking whether length or width has the greatest impact on the area of a rectangle.

Examining them as separate entities is meaningless.

The traditional nature vs. nurture debate is based on the idea that you are given a set of genes at conception and that combination of genes determines or influences everything from eye colour to learning ability.

It turns out, though, that you’re not nearly as limited by your original blueprints as it used to appear.

The reason for this has to do with how genes express themselves.

You might have a gene in your DNA that predisposes you to, say, breast cancer.

But that gene might never be activated, and therefore never have a chance to do any harm.

What determines whether the gene turns on or not?

Nurture and nature consort in ways that shape people’s health and happiness for their entire lives.

In fact, nature and nurture begin consorting even before prospective parents do.

The food, drink, and drugs the parents consume before conception can influence how the genes in their children turn on and off.

This is truer for men, who are constantly generating new sperm carrying updated genetic material, than for women, who are born with all the eggs they will have for their lifetime, genes included.

Thus, it is not nature and/or nurture but rather it is a nature-by-nurture interaction.

On a personal level, understanding this new relationship between nature and nurture means that parents and prospective parents can learn new and better ways to care for themselves and their children.

Things as simple as a small dietary change, regular physical contact, or even a song or a nightly story, can change the direction of a child’s entire life. (…)

Source: Canada.com, Canada
http://tinyurl.com/2w729v

Most people know it from experience: After so many hours of being awake, your brain feels unable to absorb any more–and several hours of sleep will refresh it.

Now new research from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health clarifies this phenomenon, supporting the idea that sleep plays a critical role in the brain’s ability to change in response to its environment. This ability, called plasticity, is at the heart of learning.

The UW-Madison scientists showed by several measures that synapses — nerve cell connections central to brain plasticity — were very strong when rodents had been awake and weak when they had been asleep.

The new findings reinforce the UW-Madison researchers’ highly-debated hypothesis about the role of sleep. They believe that people sleep so that their synapses can downsize and prepare for a new day and the next round of learning and synaptic strengthening.

The human brain expends up to 80 percent of its energy on synaptic activity, constantly adding and strengthening connections in response to all kinds of stimulation, explains study author Chiara Cirelli, associate professor of psychiatry.

Given that each of the millions of neurons in the human brain contains thousands of synapses, this energy expenditure “is huge and can’t be sustained.”

“We need an off-line period, when we are not exposed to the environment, to take synapses down,” Cirelli say. “We believe that’s why humans and all living organisms sleep. Without sleep, the brain reaches a saturation point that taxes its energy budget, its store of supplies and its ability to learn further.” (…)

“Taken together, these molecular and electro-physiological measures fit nicely with the idea that our brain circuits get progressively stronger during wakefulness and that sleep helps to recalibrate them to a sustainable baseline,” says Cirelli.

The theory she and collaborator Dr. Giulio Tononi, professor of psychiatry, have developed, called the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis, runs against the grain of what many scientists currently think about how sleep affects learning. The most popular notion these days, says Cirelli, is that during sleep synapses are hard at work replaying the information acquired during the previous waking hours, consolidating that information by becoming even stronger.

“That’s different from what we think,” she says. “We believe that learning occurs only when we are awake, and sleep’s main function is to keep our brains and all its synapses lean and efficient.” (…)

Source: Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080120160658.htm