ADHD

Low grades in adolescence linked to dopamine genes

October, 2010

A large American study of middle- and high-school students has found lower academic performance in core subjects was associated with three dopamine gene variants

Analysis of DNA and lifestyle data from a representative group of 2,500 U.S. middle- and high-school students tracked from 1994 to 2008 in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health has revealed that lower academic performance was associated with three dopamine gene variants. Having more of the dopamine gene variants (three rather than one, say) was associated with a significantly lower GPA.

Moreover, each of the dopamine genes (on its own) was linked to specific deficits: there was a marginally significant negative effect on English grades for students with a specific variant in the DAT1 gene, but no apparent effect on math, history or science; a specific variant in the DRD2 gene was correlated with a markedly negative effect on grades in all four subjects; those with the deleterious DRD4 variant had significantly lower grades in English and math, but only marginally lower grades in history and science.

Precisely why these specific genes might impact academic performance isn’t known with any surety, but they have previously been linked to such factors as adolescent delinquency, working memory, intelligence and cognitive abilities, and ADHD, among others.

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White noise improves memory in inattentive schoolchildren

October, 2010

Adding to research suggesting type of background noise affects whether it impairs learning or not, a new study indicates white noise has different effects depending on whether the students have attention problems.

Five years ago I reported on a finding that primary school children exposed to loud aircraft noise showed impaired reading comprehension (see below). Now a small Norwegian study has found that playing white noise helped secondary school children with attention problems, but significantly impaired those who were normally attentive.

The adolescents were asked to remember as many items as possible from a list read out either in the presence or absence of white noise (78dB). The results were consistent with a computational model based on the concepts of stochastic resonance and dopamine related internal noise, postulating that a moderate amount of external noise would benefit individuals in hypodopaminergic states (such as those with ADHD). The results need to be verified with a larger group, but they do suggest a new approach to helping those with attention problems.

The previous study referred to involved 2844 children aged 9-10. The children were selected from primary schools located near three major airports — Schiphol in the Netherlands, Barajas in Spain, and Heathrow in the UK. Reading age in children exposed to high levels of aircraft noise was delayed by up to 2 months in the UK and by up to 1 month in the Netherlands for each 5 decibel change in noise exposure. On the other hand, road traffic noise did not have an effect on reading and indeed was unexpectedly found to improve recall memory. An earlier German study found children attending schools near the old Munich airport improved their reading scores and cognitive memory performance when the airport shut down, while children going to school near the new airport experienced a decrease in testing scores.

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Prenatal exposure to pesticides linked to attention problems

September, 2010

In a study of young Mexican-American children, higher prenatal exposure to pesticides was significantly associated with ADHD symptoms at age 5.

A study following over 300 Mexican-American children living in an agricultural community has found that their prenatal exposure to organophosphate pesticides (measured by metabolites in the mother’s urine during pregnancy) was significantly associated with attention problems at age 5. This association was stronger among boys, and stronger with age (at 3 ½ the association, although present, did not reach statistical significance — perhaps because attention disorders are much harder to recognize in toddlers). Based on maternal report, performance on attention tests, and a psychometrician’s report, 8.5% of 5-year-olds were classified as having ADHD symptoms. Each tenfold increase in prenatal pesticide metabolites was linked to having five times the odds of scoring high on the computerized tests at age 5. The child’s own level of phosphate metabolites was not linked with attention problems.

Organophosphate pesticides disrupt acetylcholine, which is important for attention and short-term memory. While the exposure of these children to pesticides is presumably higher and more chronic than that of the general U.S. population, food is a significant source of pesticide exposure among the general population.

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Marks AR, Harley K, Bradman A, Kogut K, Barr DB, Johnson C, et al. 2010. Organophosphate Pesticide Exposure and Attention in Young Mexican-American Children. Environ Health Perspect :-. doi:10.1289/ehp.1002056
Full text available at http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info%3...

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Brain fitness program produces working memory improvement in older adults

August, 2010

A new study shows improvement in visual working memory in older adults following ten hours training with a commercial brain training program. The performance gains correlated with changes in brain activity.

While brain training programs can certainly improve your ability to do the task you’re practicing, there has been little evidence that this transfers to other tasks. In particular, the holy grail has been very broad transfer, through improvement in working memory. While there has been some evidence of this in pilot programs for children with ADHD, a new study is the first to show such improvement in older adults using a commercial brain training program.

A study involving 30 healthy adults aged 60 to 89 has demonstrated that ten hours of training on a computer game designed to boost visual perception improved perceptual abilities significantly, and also increased the accuracy of their visual working memory to the level of younger adults. There was a direct link between improved performance and changes in brain activity in the visual association cortex.

The computer game was one of those developed by Posit Science. Memory improvement was measured about one week after the end of training. The improvement did not, however, withstand multi-tasking, which is a particular problem for older adults. The participants, half of whom underwent the training, were college educated. The training challenged players to discriminate between two different shapes of sine waves (S-shaped patterns) moving across the screen. The memory test (which was performed before and after training) involved watching dots move across the screen, followed by a short delay and then re-testing for the memory of the exact direction the dots had moved.

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ADHD linked to welfare benefits, low maternal education, solo parents

July, 2010

Data from an entire birth cohort in Sweden has revealed that poverty and having a poorly educated mother are major risk factors in ADHD (or at least being medicated for it).

A national Swedish study involving the 1.16 million children in a national birth cohort identified nearly 8000 on the country's Prescribed Drug Register as using a prescription for ADHD medication (and thus assumed to suffer from severe ADHD). These children were significantly more likely to come from a family on welfare benefits (135% more likely), to have a mother with only the most basic education (130% more likely than those with mothers with university degrees), and to come from a single parent family (54% more likely). Boys were three times more likely to be on ADHD medication than girls, with medication use highest in boys aged between 10 and 15. The finding that family adversity is such a strong risk factor points to the need for more research into the role of environment

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Ritalin boosts learning by increasing brain plasticity

March, 2010

A rat study shows how Ritalin improves concentration and, it now appears, speed of learning. The finding may help the development of better-targeted drugs.

A rat study shows how Ritalin improves concentration and, it now appears, speed of learning. The study reveals that it does this by increasing the activity of dopamine at two specific types of neurotransmitter receptors in the amygdala. The dopamine receptor tagged “D2” appears to control the ability to stay focused on a task, while the D1 receptor underlies learning efficiency. The finding may help the development of better-targeted drugs.

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