Introduction/aims: While dystrophinopathies are primarily characterized by progressive muscle weakness with onset during childhood, dystrophin also plays a role in brain development. This study aimed to characterize how neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders are currently identified and managed in clinical care of those with Becker and Duchenne muscular dystrophy (BDMD).
Methods: Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD) disseminated surveys to caregivers and health care providers (HCPs) in the United States to assess the frequency and management of neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders of those with dystrophinopathy.
Objectives: Infant temperament is assumed to be primarily innate. However, newer research suggests that maternal affection impacts ratings of temperament and environmental factors, including feeding method, can also influence infant temperament. This study investigates child temperament and its relationships with maternal psychiatric symptoms, environmental variables and feeding method longitudinally in a cohort of children followed from 6 to 72 months.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Infancy is a stage characterized by multiple brain and cognitive changes. In a short time, infants must consolidate a new brain network and develop two important properties for speech comprehension: phonemic normalization and categorical perception. Recent studies have described diet as an essential factor in normal language development, reporting that breastfed infants show an earlier brain maturity and thus a faster cognitive development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPreadolescence is an important period for the consolidation of certain arithmetic facts, and the development of problem-solving strategies. Obese subjects seem to have poorer academic performance in math than their normal-weight peers, suggesting a negative effect of obesity on math skills in critical developmental periods. To test this hypothesis, event-related potentials (ERPs) were collected during a delayed-verification math task using simple addition and subtraction problems in obese [above 95th body mass index (BMI) percentile] and non-obese (between 5th and 90th BMI percentile) preteens with different levels of math skill; thirty-one with low math skills (14 obese, mean BMI = 26.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPreadolescence is a period in which structural and functional changes occur in brain network reorganization that relate to the development of executive control functions, particularly in the areas of attention and cognitive inhibition. Obesity has been associated with a deficit in executive functions and behavioral and electrophysiological differences using the go/no-go task (proactive inhibition), but no study has assessed brain-electrical activity using the stop-signal task (reactive inhibition) in this population. Therefore, we hypothesized that obese preadolescents would show less efficiency in reactive inhibition than their same-age non-obese peers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: This study longitudinally characterized the developmental status, growth, and body composition of children who were fed human milk (breastfed, BF), cow's milk-based (MF), or soy protein-based (SF) infant formula from 3 to 12 months.
Methods: Standardized anthropometrics and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry were used to characterize growth and body composition at 3, 6, 9, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, and 72 months (NCT00616395). Preschool Language Scale-3, Children's Memory Scale Index (CMS), and Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence were administered at age 72 months.
Objective: To investigate the effects of infant feeding mode on childhood cognition and language as the differential effects of infant feeding on development remain understudied.
Methods: Breastfed [BF, 174], cow's milk-based formula-fed [MF, 169], or soy protein-based formula-fed [SF, 161] children were longitudinally tested from age 3 to 60 months for neurodevelopment. Data were analyzed using mixed models while adjusting for multiple covariates.
Objective: The current study describes sleeping heart rate patterns in an adolescent cohort of Hispanic and Caucasian children over approximately a 5-year period to determine how sex, ethnicity, and body mass index (BMI) contribute to sleeping heart rate patterns over time.
Methods: Participants were recruited from a large urban school district in the southwest United States as part of the Tucson Children's Assessment of Sleep Apnea Study (TuCASA). Heart rate data was obtained through electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings during in-home polysomnography, approximately 5 years apart.
Unlabelled: STUDY HYPOTHESES: 1) Youth with evidence of SDB (total apnea-hypopnea index [Total-AHI] ≥ 1.5) would have significantly worse glucose control than those without SDB; 2) Elevated self-reported sleepiness in youth with T1DM would be related to compromised psychosocial functioning; and 3) Youth with T1DM would have significantly less slow wave sleep (SWS) than controls.
Design: The study utilized home-based polysomnography, actigraphy, and questionnaires to assess sleep, and continuous glucose monitors and hemoglobin A1C (HbA1C) values to assess glucose control in youth with T1DM.