MAC News Notes for 2007

The First Prenatal Visit May Actually Be Months Late
The number 1 issue in America for women is their weight. Pre-existing diabetes increases the risk of birth defects. But the risk is eliminated if the disease is controlled before conception. Pre-conception care has been recommended for many years but has never caught on. Most health plans don’t cover it, only one in six health care providers providing preconception care to patients. Doctors agree that planning pregnancies and using reliable contraception are part and parcel of preconception care.

(The New York Times, 11/28/06)

Book Review

How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die
By David Crystal, 500 pages, The Overlook Press. $32.50

This wonderful book explains 73 different aspects of language, all beginning with the word “How”. He discusses how people use tone of voice, how children learn to mean, and how conversation works. Among his topics are discussions on dyslexia and multilingualism, and an explanation about why sign language is a real language. Throughout, he provides an understandable neuroscience context for language development and use

Psychiatric Drugs For the Young
Last year in the U.S. about 1.6 million children and teenagers- 280,000 under the age of 10- were given at least two psychiatric drugs in combination, according to an analysis performed by Medco Health Solutions. More than 500,000 were prescribed at least three drugs, more than 160,000 at least four drugs. Researchers say there is virtually no scientific evidence to justify this multiplication of pills. ‘There are not any good scientific data to support the widespread use of these medicines in children, particularly young children where the scientific data are even more scarce, said Dr. Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health.

With more than 130 psychiatric drugs on the market, hard choices have to be made when treating children. For A.D.H.D. 3,600,00- children, ages 0-19 take medication, 28% in combination with another. Anticonvulsants are given for bipolar, severe mood symptoms and aggressive behavior in 830,000 children, 62 % in combination with another drug. Antidepressants for depression, panic attacks, bedwetting and eating disorders are given to 1,980,000 children, 50% in combination with another drug. Antipsychotic medications are given to 540,000 children for hallucinations, disorganized thinking and verbal outbursts, 86% in combination with other drugs. Anxiolytics for anxiety disorders are given to 475,000 children, 36% in combination with other drugs. Sleeping medications are given to 190,000 children, 45% in combination with other drugs.

(For the full story see Proof is Scant on Psychiatric Drug Mix for Young, Gardiner Harris, The New York Times, 11/23/06)


Neuroscience Notes

New Thoughts About Sleep
Findings in rat brains, thought to be similar in humans, showed that the brain replays events that happened during the day as the rats slept. Because two specific parts of the brain were synchronized during sleep, there appeared to be a dialogue between the two brain regions. It was suggested that one function of sleep was to let us process and stabilize the experiences had during the day.
(Nature Neuroscience, 12/18/06, Daoyun Ji & Matthew A. Wilson)

Dr. Witelson’s Brain Bank
Sandra F. Witelson, Ph. D., began her brain bank after winning a contract from the National Institutes of Health in 1977. Her goal was to study why language capacity is lateralized, 90-95% of people having language represented in the left hemisphere. She is a neuroscientist with the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, having a collection of 125 brains. She has examined Einstein’s brain, and has discovered extensive differences between male and female brains.
(A Hands-On Approach to Studying the Brain, Even Einstein’s, Roberts, The New York Times, 11/14/06)