Parents who use humor have better relationships with their children, study finds

They say that laughter is the best medicine, but it could be a good parenting tool too, according to a new study led by researchers from Penn State.

In a pilot study, the research team found that most people viewed humor as an effective parenting tool and that a parent or caregiver's use of humor affected the quality of their relationship with their children. Among those whose parents used humor, the majority viewed their relationship with their parents and the way they were parented in a positive light. The researchers published their findings in the journal PLOS One.

"Humor can teach people cognitive flexibility, relieve stress, and promote creative problem solving and resilience," said Benjamin Levi, professor of pediatrics and humanities at Penn State College of Medicine and senior author of the study. "My father used humor and it was very effective. I use humor in my clinical practice and with my own children. The question became, how does one constructively use humor?"

While aspects of humor and play have been studied across various settings and in child development, the use of humor in parenting hasn't been formally studied, the researchers said.

"There's an interesting parallel between business and parenting, which are both hierarchical. In business, humor has been shown to help reduce hierarchies, create better environments for collaboration and creativity and diffuse tension," said first author Lucy Emery, who was a medical student at Penn State College of Medicine at the time of the research and currently a pediatrics resident at Boston Children's Hospital. "While parent-child relationships are more loving than business relationships, stressful situations happen a lot when parenting. Humor can help diffuse that tension and hierarchy and help both parties feel better about a stressful situation."

This preliminary research was a first step to examine how people view the relationship between humor, their experience being parented and their experience of parenting. The study will help lay the groundwork for understanding how to use humor constructively and the kinds of situations that are riskier for using humor.

They surveyed 312 people between the ages of 18 and 45. More than half said they were raised by people who used humor and 71.8% agreed that humor can be an effective parenting tool. The majority said they do or plan to use humor with their children and believe that it has more potential benefit than harm.

The team also found a correlation between a parent's use of humor and the way their children, who are now adults, viewed the way they were parented and their relationship with their parents. Of those who reported that their parents used humor, 50.5% said they had a good relationship with their parents and 44.2% reported they felt their parents did a good job parenting them. On the other hand, of those who said their parents didn't use humor, only 2.9% reported a good relationship with their parents and 3.6% reported that they thought their parents did a good job parenting them.

While it's not surprising that parents would use humor with their children if they were raised by caregivers who did the same, Levi said the stark differences between the two groups was unexpected.

The research team is expanding on this preliminary study and are surveying a larger and more diverse cohort of parents as well as collecting qualitative research based on parents' experience using humor.

"My hope is that people can learn to use humor as an effective parenting tool, not only to diffuse tension but develop resilience and cognitive and emotional flexibility in themselves and model it for their children," Levi said.

Erik Lehman, biostatistician at Penn State, and Anne Libera, director of comedy studies at Chicago's The Second City, also contributed to the paper.

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Social change may explain decline in genetic diversity of the Y chromosome at the end of the Neolithic period

The emergence in the Neolithic of patrilineal social systems, in which children are affiliated with their father's lineage, may explain a spectacular decline in the genetic diversity of the Y chromosome observed worldwide between 3,000 and 5,000 years ago. In a study to be published on 24 April in Nature Communications, a team of scientists from the CNRS, MNHN and Université Paris Cité suggest that these patrilineal organisations had a greater impact on the Y chromosome than mortality during conflict.

This conclusion was reached after analysing twenty years of anthropological field data -- from contemporary non-warlike patrilineal groups, particularly from the scientists' own fieldwork carried out in Asia -- and modelling various socio-demographic scenarios. The team compared warrior and non-warrior scenarios and showed that two processes play a major role in genetic diversity: the splitting of clans into several sub-clans and differences in social status that lead to the expansion of certain lineages to the detriment of others.

This study calls into question the previously proposed theory that violent clashes, supposedly due to competition between different clans, in which many men died, were at the origin of the loss of genetic diversity of the Y chromosome. The results of this study also provide new hypotheses on human social organisation in the Neolithic and Bronze Age.

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Multiple air pollutants linked to asthma symptoms in children

Exposure to several combinations of toxic atmospheric pollutants may be triggering asthma symptoms among children, a recent analysis suggests.

The study, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, showed that 25 different combinations of air pollutants were associated with asthma symptoms among 269 elementary school children diagnosed with asthma in Spokane, Washington. In line with previous research, the Washington State University-led study revealed a socioeconomic disparity -- with one group of children from a lower-income neighborhood exposed to more toxic combinations, a total of 13 of the 25 identified in this research.

"It's not just one pollutant that can be linked to asthma outcomes. This study examined the variety and combinations of air toxics that may be associated with asthma symptoms," said lead author Solmaz Amiri, a WSU researcher in the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine.

While other studies have focused on a limited number of pollutants, Amiri and her colleagues used the data-crunching power of machine learning techniques to analyze the potential exposure effects of 109 air pollutants and their combinations on asthma outcomes.

The researchers drew on data collected and modeled by the Environmental Protection Agency on air toxics present in individual neighborhoods surrounding 10 Spokane elementary schools. They also accessed anonymized data from the elementary schools for reports of students diagnosed with asthma who experienced symptoms such as coughing, wheezing, difficulty breathing and the need to use an inhaler.

The study looked at asthma symptoms occurring in 2019 and 2020 in the six months before the pandemic lockdowns started in March 2020. The researchers then associated these data with air pollutant exposures that occurred within those six months and with two longer-term exposure periods of three years and five years prior to the asthma symptoms.

The researchers found that three specific pollutants were significantly associated with asthma symptoms across all three exposure periods.

The toxicants involved may have unfamiliar names -- 1,1,1 trichloroethane, 2-nitropropane and 2, 4, 6 trichlorophenol -- but they derive from commonly used materials. The first is a widely used solvent in industry but was formerly used in household cleaners and glues. The second is an additive to paints and other finishes, and the third is an anti-septic and anti-mildew agent that was banned in the 1980s but may still be found in some pesticides and preservatives made before then.

"Some of these air toxics were discontinued in the U.S., but they can still be found in materials that may be in storage or people have in their backyard or garage. Other air toxics still exist at least in the environment," said Amiri.

This study did not intend to pinpoint the source of any one air pollutant or the exact reason why one group of children from a lower-income neighborhood was highly exposed to air pollutants. However, proximity of known air pollution sources may play a role, Amiri said, such as living close to a highway with a lot of traffic or facilities that use solvents, such as paint producers or factories.

The finding of a likely socioeconomic disparity in air toxic exposures is consistent with previous research showing that children from lower-income areas, often indicated by schools with a higher percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced meals, are exposed to a wide variety of air pollutants in the neighborhoods where they live.

While the current study is limited to the mid-sized city of Spokane, Amiri noted that the findings align with another study in New York City which found similar air pollutants significantly associated with asthma outcomes.

"Both in Spokane and New York City, regardless of the setting -- how large or small the cities are -- these air toxics appear to be influencing asthma among children," she said.

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Drug limits dangerous reactions to allergy-triggering foods, Stanford Medicine-led study of kids finds

A drug can make life safer for children with food allergies by preventing dangerous allergic responses to small quantities of allergy-triggering foods, according to a new study led by scientists at the Stanford School of Medicine.

The research will be published Feb. 25 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The findings suggest that regular use of the drug, omalizumab, could protect people from severe allergic responses, such as difficulty breathing, if they accidentally eat a small amount of a food they are allergic to.

"I'm excited that we have a promising new treatment for multifood allergic patients. This new approach showed really great responses for many of the foods that trigger their allergies," said the study's senior author, Sharon Chinthrajah, MD, associate professor of medicine and of pediatrics, and the acting director of the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research at Stanford Medicine.

"Patients impacted by food allergies face a daily threat of life-threatening reactions due to accidental exposures," said the study's lead author, Robert Wood, MD, professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "The study showed that omalizumab can be a layer of protection against small, accidental exposures."

Omalizumab, which the Food and Drug Administration originally approved to treat diseases such as allergic asthma and chronic hives, binds to and inactivates the antibodies that cause many kinds of allergic disease. Based on the data collected in the new study, the FDA approved omalizumab for reducing risk of allergic reactions to foods on Feb. 16.

All study participants were severely allergic to peanuts and at least two other foods. After four months of monthly or bimonthly omalizumab injections, two-thirds of the 118 participants receiving the drug safely ate small amounts of their allergy-triggering foods. Notably, 38.4% of the study participants were younger than 6 years, an age group at high risk from accidental ingestions of allergy-triggering foods.

Allergies are common

Food allergies affect about 8% of children and 10% of adults in the United States. People with severe allergies are advised to fully avoid foods containing their allergy triggers, but common allergens such as peanuts, milk, eggs and wheat can be hidden in so many places that everyday activities such as attending parties and eating in restaurants can be challenging.

"Food allergies have significant social and psychological impacts, including the threat of allergic reactions upon accidental exposures, some of which can be life-threatening," Chinthrajah said. Families also face economic impacts from purchasing more expensive foods to avoid allergens, she added.

In the best available treatment for food allergies, called oral immunotherapy, patients ingest tiny, gradually increasing doses of allergy-triggering foods under a doctor's supervision to build tolerance. But oral immunotherapy itself can trigger allergic responses, desensitization to allergens can take months or years, and the process is especially lengthy for people with several food allergies, as they are usually treated for one allergy at a time. Once they are desensitized to an allergen, patients also must continue to eat the food regularly to maintain their tolerance to it -- but people often dislike foods they were long required to avoid.

"There is a real need for treatment that goes beyond vigilance and offers choices for our food allergic patients," Chinthrajah said.

Omalizumab is an injected antibody that binds and deactivates all types of immunoglobin E, or IgE, the allergy-causing molecule in the blood and on the body's immune cells. So far, omalizumab appears able to provide relief from multiple food allergens at once.

"We think it should have the same impact regardless of what food it is," Chinthrajah said.

Injections stave off severe reactions

The study included 177 children with at least three food allergies each, of whom 38% were 1 to 5 years old, 37% were 6 to 11 years old, and 24% were 12 or older. Participants' severe food allergies were verified by skin-prick testing and food challenges; they reacted to less than 100 milligrams of peanut protein and less than 300 milligrams of each other food.

Two-thirds of the participants were randomly assigned to receive omalizumab injections, and one-third received an injected placebo; the injections took place over 16 weeks. Medication doses were set based on each participant's body weight and IgE levels, with injections given once every two or four weeks, depending on the dose needed. The participants were re-tested between weeks 16 and 20 to see how much of each allergy-triggering food they could safely tolerate.

Upon re-testing, 79 patients (66.9%) who had taken omalizumab could tolerate at least 600 mg of peanut protein, the amount in two or three peanuts, compared with only four patients (6.8%) who had the placebo. Similar proportions of patients showed improvement in their reactions to the other foods in the study.

About 80% of patients taking omalizumab were able to consume small amounts of at least one allergy-triggering food without inducing an allergenic reaction, 69% of patients could consume small amounts of two allergenic foods and 47% could eat small amounts of all three allergenic foods.

Omalizumab was safe and did not cause side effects, other than some instances of minor reactions at the site of injection. This study marks the first time its safety has been assessed in children as young as 1.

More questions

More research is needed to further understand how omalizumab could help people with food allergies, the researchers said.

"We have a lot of unanswered questions: How long do patients need to take this drug? Have we permanently changed the immune system? What factors predict which people will have the strongest response?" Chinthrajah said. "We don't know yet."

The team is planning studies to answer these questions and others, such as finding what type of monitoring would be needed to determine when a patient gains meaningful tolerance to an allergy-triggering food.

Many patients who have food allergies also experience other allergic conditions treated by omalizumab, Chinthrajah noted, such as asthma, allergic rhinitis (hay fever and allergies to environmental triggers such as mold, dogs or cats, or dust mites) or eczema. "One drug that could improve all of their allergic conditions is exactly what we're hoping for," she said.

The drug could be especially helpful for young children with severe food allergies, she added, because they tend to put things in their mouths and may not understand the dangers their allergies pose, she added.

The drug could also make it safer for community physicians to treat food allergy patients, since it cannot trigger dangerous allergic reactions, as oral immunotherapy sometimes does. "This is something that our food allergy community has been waiting a long time for," Chinthrajah said. "It's an easy drug regimen to implement in a medical practice, and many allergists are already using this for other allergic conditions."

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Preterm babies do not habituate to repeated pain

Preterm infants do not get used to repeated pain in the way that full-term infants, children and adults do habituate to pain, finds a study led by UCL (University College London) researchers.

The authors of the new Current Biology paper say that if preterm infants have not yet developed the mechanism that enables people to get used to moderate pain, medical procedures in their first few weeks of life could potentially impact their development.

Lead author Dr Lorenzo Fabrizi (UCL Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology) said: "The way that we can get used to things can be seen as the simplest example of behavioural and brain plasticity, and it is a basic part of memory and learning. Pain habituation is important because it enables us to preserve physical, emotional, and cognitive resources by not overreacting to pain that is unavoidable or not life-threatening.

"Our findings suggest that the ability to get used to repeated pain might develop during the third trimester of pregnancy, so that babies born prematurely have not yet developed this ability that full-term babies have right from birth."

The study involved 20 infants at University College London Hospitals (UCLH). Half of them were preterm (and tested while still younger than 35 weeks gestational age*), while the other half were either born at full term (seven infants) or preterm but tested at term age (three infants). The two groups were comparable in terms of their actual postnatal age, as the preterm babies had a median age of 14 days, compared to 10 days among the full-term (or term age) group.

The researchers were measuring the infants' responses to a painful but clinically required heel lance (blood test), which was conducted twice (three to 18 minutes apart) for each infant (two lances are sometimes required to collect enough blood; this is not needed for most infants so only those that needed a second lance were included in the study).

Heel lances can elicit substantial pain responses in infants, but it was not previously known whether this decreases on repeated lances. To understand this, the researchers recorded the infants' brain activity with EEG (electroencephalography) electrodes placed on the scalp, and their heart rates using ECG (electrocardiography), while also monitoring their facial expressions and reflexes in withdrawing the leg.

The researchers found that the brain activity was not as strong immediately after the second heel lance, compared to the first, suggesting a habituation response, but this was only the case for full-term infants. They found a similar pattern for heart rate and facial expressions, as preterm infants reacted just as strongly to both heel lances, while the full-term infants appeared to habituate to the pain.

The team says this habituation response might be due to the full-term infants anticipating the imminent pain when they receive a second heel lance, so their reaction is less pronounced, or it may instead or additionally be due to their brains modulating their reflexive survival responses.

They add that habituation to pain might protect the full-term infants, but not those who were pre-term, from potential consequences to their development.

First author Dr Mohammed Rupawala (UCL Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology) said: "While unpleasant and painful clinical procedures are necessary for many young infants, there is the potential to impact their development, such as by altered pain perception, or potentially reduced grey matter or disrupted white matter in the brain."

Co-author Dr Judith Meek, consultant neonatologist at UCLH, said: "This work raises awareness of the extra vulnerability of premature babies to pain. Clinicians need to do their best to protect them from repeated painful experiences. This should be regarded as an essential component of brain oriented newborn care."

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Can children map read at the age of four?

Children start to develop the basic skills that underlie map reading from the age of four -- according to new research from the University of East Anglia.

A new study published today reveals that they become able to use a scale model to find things in the real world.

The study involved 175 two to five-year-olds and is the largest of its kind.

The team say that this new spatial ability potentially lays the foundations for maths and science skills.

Lead researcher Dr Martin Doherty, from UEA's School of Psychology, said: "We wanted to find out when children can use scale models or maps to learn things about the world.

"So we played a hiding game with 175 children aged between two and five years old. We showed them a sticker hidden in a model of a room, and then they had to look for another sticker in the 'same place' in another model of the room.

"The two and three-year-olds were not able to recognise that the spatial arrangements in the model rooms were the same. But from about four years old, they were able to use one model room as a guide to finding the object in the other.

"This means that children start to develop the basic skills that underly map reading from the age of four.

"Based on these findings we predict children can read simple maps from around the age of four. Extending our methods to maps would help resolve a controversial developmental question," he added.

The study resolves a debate about whether understanding models is a representational ability or a spatial one.

Previous research had claimed that understanding models showed an understanding of representation. But the UEA team found that it is about understanding spatial layout, and that complex concepts like representation were not involved.

"This tells us that map-reading may be cognitively simpler than previously thought," added Dr Doherty.

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Hunter-gatherer childhoods may offer clues to improving education and wellbeing in developed countries

Hunter-gatherers can help us understand the conditions that children may be psychologically adapted to because we lived as hunter-gatherers for 95% of our evolutionary history. And paying greater attention to hunter-gatherer childhoods may help economically developed countries improve education and wellbeing.

Published today in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, a new study by Dr Nikhil Chaudhary, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Cambridge, and Dr Annie Swanepoel, a child psychiatrist, calls for new research into child mental health in hunter-gatherer societies. They explore the possibility that some common aspects of hunter-gatherer childhoods could help families in economically developed countries. Eventually, hunter-gatherer behaviours could inform 'experimental intervention trials' in homes, schools and nurseries.

The authors acknowledge that children living in hunter-gatherer societies live in very different environments and circumstances than those in developed countries. They also stress that hunter-gatherer children invariably face many difficulties that are not experienced in developed countries and, therefore, caution that these childhoods should not be idealised.

Drawing on his own observations of the BaYaka people in Congo and the extensive research of anthropologists studying other hunter-gatherer societies, Dr Chaudhary highlights major differences in the ways in which hunter-gatherer children are cared for compared to their peers in developed countries. He stresses that "contemporary hunter-gatherers must not be thought of as 'living fossils', and while their ways of life may offer some clues about our prehistory, they are still very much modern populations each with a unique cultural and demographic history."

Physical contact and attentiveness

Despite increasing uptake of baby carriers and baby massage in developed countries, levels of physical contact with infants remain far higher in hunter-gatherer societies. In Botswana, for instance, 10-20 week old !Kung infants are in physical contact with someone for around 90% of daylight hours, and almost 100% of crying bouts are responded to, almost always with comforting or nursing -- scolding is extremely rare.

The study points out that this exceptionally attentive childcare is made possible because of the major role played by non-parental caregivers, or 'alloparents', which is far rarer in developed countries.

Non-parental caregivers

In many hunter-gatherer societies, alloparents provide almost half of a child's care. A previous study found that in the DRC, Efe infants have 14 alloparents a day by the time they are 18 weeks old, and are passed between caregivers eight times an hour.

Dr Chaudhary said: "Parents now have much less childcare support from their familial and social networks than would likely have been the case during most of our evolutionary history. Such differences seem likely to create the kind of evolutionary mismatches that could be harmful to both caregivers and children."

"The availability of other caregivers can reduce the negative impacts of stress within the nuclear family, and the risk of maternal depression, which has knock-on effects for child wellbeing and cognitive development."

The study emphasises that alloparenting is a core human adaptation, contradicting 'intensive mothering' narratives which emphasise that mothers should use their maternal instincts to manage childcare alone. Dr Chaudhary and Dr Swanepoel write that 'such narratives can lead to maternal exhaustion and have dangerous consequences'.

Care-giving ratios

The study points out that communal living in hunter-gatherer societies results in a very high ratio of available caregivers to infants/toddlers, which can even exceed 10:1.

This contrasts starkly with the nuclear family unit, and even more so with nursery settings, in developed countries. According to the UK's Department of Education regulations, nurseries require ratios of 1 carer to 3 children aged under 2 years, or 1 carer to 4 children aged 2-3.

Dr Chaudhary said: "Almost all day, hunter-gatherer infants and toddlers have a capable caregiver within a couple of metres of them. From the infant's perspective, that proximity and responsiveness, is very different from what is experienced in many nursery settings in the UK."

"If that ratio is stretched even thinner, we need to consider the possibility that this could have impacts on children's wellbeing."

Children providing care and mixed-age active learning

In hunter-gatherer societies, children play a significantly bigger role in providing care to infants and toddlers than is the case in developed countries. In some communities they begin providing some childcare from the age of four and are capable of sensitive caregiving; and it is common to see older, but still pre-adolescent children looking after infants.

By contrast, the NSPCC in the UK recommends that when leaving pre-adolescent children at home, babysitters should be in their late teens at least.

Dr Chaudhary said: "In developed countries, children are busy with schooling and may have less opportunity to develop caregiving competence. However, we should at least explore the possibility that older siblings could play a greater role in supporting their parents, which might also enhance their own social development."

The study also points out that instructive teaching is rare in hunter-gatherer societies and that infants primarily learn via observation and imitation. From around the age of two, hunter-gatherer children spend large portions of the day in mixed-age (2-16) 'playgroups' without adult supervision. There, they learn from one another, acquiring skills and knowledge collaboratively via highly active play practice and exploration.

Learning and play are two sides of the same coin, which contrasts with the lesson-time / play-time dichotomy of schooling in the UK and other developed countries.

Dr Chaudhary and Dr Swanepoel note that "Classroom schooling is often at odds with the modes of learning typical of human evolutionary history." The study acknowledges that children living in hunter-gather societies live in very different environments and circumstances than those in developed countries:

"Foraging skills are very different to those required to make a living in market-economies, and classroom teaching is certainly necessary to learn the latter. But children may possess certain psychological learning adaptations that can be practically harnessed in some aspects of their schooling. When peer and active learning can be incorporated, they have been shown to improve motivation and performance, and reduce stress." The authors also highlight that physical activity interventions have been shown to aid performance among students diagnosed with ADHD.

The study calls for more research into children's mental health in hunter-gatherer societies to test whether the hypothesised evolutionary mismatches actually exist. If they do, such insights could then be used to direct experimental intervention trials in developed countries.

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Video game playing causes no harm to young children's cognitive abilities, study finds

Parents: It might be time to rethink your family's video-gaming rules.

New research findings challenge the fears parents have been hearing for years that children who spend hour after hour playing video games, or choose games of certain genres, would manifest unhealthy results in their cognitive ability.

"Our studies turned up no such links, regardless of how long the children played and what types of games they chose," said Jie Zhang, associate professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Houston College of Education and a member of the research team. The work is published in the Journal of Media Psychology.

In reaching the conclusions, researchers examined the video gaming habits of 160 diverse urban public-school preteen students (70% from lower income households), which represents an age group less studied in previous research. Participating students reported playing video games an average of 2.5 hours daily, with the group's heaviest gamers putting in as much as 4.5 hours each day.

The team looked for association between the students' video game play and their performance on the standardized Cognitive Ability Test 7, known as CogAT, which evaluates verbal, quantitative and nonverbal/spatial skills. CogAT was chosen as a standard measure, in contrast to the teacher-reported grades or self-reported learning assessments that previous research projects have relied on.

"Overall, neither duration of play nor choice of video game genres had significant correlations with the CogAT measures. That result shows no direct linkage between video game playing and cognitive performance, despite what had been assumed," said May Jadalla, professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at Illinois State University and the study's principal investigator.

But the study revealed another side of the issue, too. Certain types of games described as helping children build healthy cognitive skills also presented no measurable effects, in spite of the games' marketing messages.

"The current study found results that are consistent with previous research showing that types of gameplay that seem to augment cognitive functions in young adults don't have the same impact in much younger children," said C. Shawn Green, professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Does this mean the world can play on? Maybe, the research suggests. But the experts also caution that gaming time took the heaviest players' away from other, more productive activities -- homework, to be specific -- in a process psychologists call displacement. But even in those cases, the differences were slight between those participants and their peers' CogAT measures of cognitive abilities.

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Rest isn't best: Getting kids back to school sooner after a concussion can mean a faster recovery

Contrary to popular belief, rest may not always be the best cure after a concussion, new study published in JAMA Network Open finds. In fact, an early return to school may be associated with a lower symptom burden after suffering a concussion and, ultimately, faster recovery.

"We know that absence from school can be detrimental to youth in many ways and for many reasons," says Christopher Vaughan, Psy.D., neuropsychologist at Children's National Hospital and the study's lead author. "The results of this study found that, in general, an earlier return to school after a concussion was associated with better outcomes. This helps us feel reassured that returning to some normal activities after a concussion -- like going to school -- is ultimately beneficial."

In this cohort study, data from over 1,600 youth aged 5 to 18 were collected across nine pediatric emergency departments in Canada. Because of the large sample size, many factors associated with greater symptom burden and prolonged recovery were first accounted for through the complex statistical approach used to examine the data. The authors found that an early return to school was associated with a lower symptom burden 14 days post-injury in the 8 to 12 and 13 to 18-year-old age groups.

"Clinicians can now confidently inform families that missing at least some school after a concussion is common, often between 2 and 5 days, with older kids typically missing more school," Dr. Vaughan says. "But the earlier a child can return to school with good symptom management strategies and with appropriate academic supports, the better that we think that their recovery will be."

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Study reveals average age at conception for men versus women over past 250,000 years

The length of a specific generation can tell us a lot about the biology and social organization of humans. Now, researchers at Indiana University can determine the average age that women and men had children throughout human evolutionary history with a new method they developed using DNA mutations.

The researchers said this work can help us understand the environmental challenges experienced by our ancestors and may also help us in predicting the effects of future environmental change on human societies.

"Through our research on modern humans, we noticed that we could predict the age at which people had children from the types of DNA mutations they left to their children," said study co-author Matthew Hahn, Distinguished Professor of biology in the College of Arts and Sciences and of computer science in the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering at IU Bloomington. "We then applied this model to our human ancestors to determine what age our ancestors procreated."

According to the study, published today in Science Advances and co-authored by IU post-doctoral researcher Richard Wang, the average age that humans had children throughout the past 250,000 years is 26.9. Furthermore, fathers were consistently older, at 30.7 years on average, than mothers, at 23.2 years on average, but the age gap has shrunk in the past 5,000 years, with the study's most recent estimates of maternal age averaging 26.4 years. The shrinking gap seems to largely be due to mothers having children at older ages.

Other than the recent uptick in maternal age at childbirth, the researchers found that parental age has not increased steadily from the past and may have dipped around 10,000 years ago because of population growth coinciding with the rise of civilization.

"These mutations from the past accumulate with every generation and exist in humans today," Wang said. "We can now identify these mutations, see how they differ between male and female parents, and how they change as a function of parental age."

Children's DNA inherited from their parents contains roughly 25 to 75 new mutations, which allows scientists to compare the parents and offspring, and then to classify the kind of mutation that occurred. When looking at mutations in thousands of children, IU researchers noticed a pattern: The kinds of mutations that children get depend on the ages of the mother and the father.

Previous genetic approaches to determining historical generation times relied on the compounding effects of either recombination or mutation of modern human DNA sequence divergence from ancient samples. But the results were averaged across both males and females and across the past 40,000 to 45,000 years.

Hahn, Wang and their co-authors built a model that uses de novo mutations -- a genetic alteration that is present for the first time in one family member as a result of a variant or mutation in a germ cell of one of the parents or that arises in the fertilized egg during early embryogenesis -- to separately estimate the male and female generation times at many different points throughout the past 250,000 years.

The researchers were not originally seeking to understand the relationship of gender and age at conception over time; they were conducting a broader investigation about the number of mutations passed from parents to children. They only noticed the age-based mutation patterns while seeking to understand differences and similarities between these pattens in humans versus other mammals, such as cats, bears and macaques.

"The story of human history is pieced together from a diverse set of sources: written records, archaeological findings, fossils, etc.," Wang said. "Our genomes, the DNA found in every one of our cells, offer a kind of manuscript of human evolutionary history. The findings from our genetic analysis confirm some things we knew from other sources (such as the recent rise in parental age), but also offer a richer understanding of the demography of ancient humans. These findings contribute to a better understanding of our shared history."

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A stone age child buried with bird feathers, plant fibers and fur

The exceptional excavation of a Stone Age burial site was carried out in Majoonsuo, situated in the municipality of Outokumpu in Eastern Finland. The excavation produced microscopically small fragments of bird feathers, canine and small mammalian hairs, and plant fibres. The findings gained through soil analysis are unique, as organic matter is poorly preserved in Finland's acidic soil. The study, led by Archaeologist Tuija Kirkinen, was aimed at investigating how these highly degraded plant- and animal-based materials could be traced through soil analysis.

During the Stone Age in Finland, the deceased were interred mainly in pits in the ground. Little of the organic matter from human-made objects have been preserved in Stone Age graves in Finland, but it is known, on the basis of burial sites in the surrounding regions, that objects made of bones, teeth and horns as well as furs and feathers were placed in the graves.

Teeth and arrowheads found in the red ochre grave

The Trial Excavation Team of the Finnish Heritage Agency examined the site in 2018, as it was considered to be at risk of destruction. The burial place was located under a gravelly sand road in a forest, with the top of the grave partially exposed. The site was originally given away by the intense colour of its red ochre. Red ochre, or iron-rich clay soil, has been used not only in burials but also in rock art around the world.

In the archaeological dig at the burial site, only a few teeth were found of the deceased, on the basis of which they are known to have been a child between 3 and 10 years of age. In addition, two transverse arrowheads made of quartz and two other possible quartz objects were found in the grave. Based on the shape of the arrowheads and shore-level dating, the burial can be estimated to have taken place in the Mesolithic period of the Stone Age, roughly 6,000 years before the Common Era.

What made the excavation exceptional was the near-complete preservation of the soil originating in the grave. A total of 65 soil sample bags weighing between 0.6 and 3.4 kilograms were collected, also comparison samples were taken from outside the grave. The soil was analyzed in the archaeology laboratory of the University of Helsinki. Organic matter was separated from the samples using water. This way, the exposed fibres and hairs were identified with the help of transmitted-light and electron microscopy.

Oldest feather fragments found in Finland

From the soil samples, a total of 24 microscopic (0.2-1.4 mm) fragments of bird feathers were identified, most of which originated in down. Seven feather fragments were identified as coming from the down of a waterfowl (Anseriformes). These are the oldest feather fragments ever found in Finland. Although the origin of the down is impossible to state with certainty, it may come from clothing made of waterfowl skins, such as a parka or an anorak. It is also possible that the child was laid on a down bed.

In addition to the waterfowl down, one falcon (Falconidae) feather fragment was identified. It may have originally been part of the fletching of the arrows attached to the arrowheads, or, for example, from feathers used to decorate the garment.

Dog or wolf hairs?

Besides the feathers, 24 fragments of mammalian hair were identified, ranging from 0.5 to 9.5 mm in length. Most of the hairs were badly degraded, making identification no longer possible. The finest discoveries were the three hairs of a canine, possibly a predator, found at the bottom of the grave. The hairs may also originate, for example, in footwear made of wolf or dog skin. It is also possible a dog was laid at the child's feet.

"Dogs buried with the deceased have been found in, for example, Skateholm, a famous burial site in southern Sweden dating back some 7,000 years," says Professor Kristiina Mannermaa, University of Helsinki.

"The discovery in Majoonsuo is sensational, even though there is nothing but hairs left of the animal or animals -- not even teeth. We don't even know whether it's a dog or a wolf," she says, adding: "The method used, demonstrates that traces of fur and feathers can be found even in graves several thousands of years old, including in Finland."

"This all gives us a very valuable insight about burial habits in the Stone Age, indicating how people had prepared the child for the journey after death," says Kirkinen.

The soil is full of information

Also found were three fragments of plant fibres, which are preserved particularly poorly in the acidic Finnish soil. The fibres were what are known as bast fibres, meaning that they come from, for example, willows or nettles. At the time, the object they were part of may have been a net used for fishing, a cord used to attach clothes, or a bundle of strings. For the time being, only one other bast fibre discovery dating back to the Mesolithic Stone Age is known in Finland: the famed Antrea Net on display in the National Museum of Finland, laced with willow bast fibres.

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Video gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children, study suggests

A study of nearly 2,000 children found that those who reported playing video games for three hours per day or more performed better on cognitive skills tests involving impulse control and working memory compared to children who had never played video games. Published today in JAMA Network Open, this study analyzed data from the ongoing Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, which is supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and other entities of the National Institutes of Health.

"This study adds to our growing understanding of the associations between playing video games and brain development," said NIDA Director Nora Volkow, M.D. "Numerous studies have linked video gaming to behavior and mental health problems. This study suggests that there may also be cognitive benefits associated with this popular pastime, which are worthy of further investigation."

Although a number of studies have investigated the relationship between video gaming and cognitive behavior, the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the associations are not well understood. Only a handful of neuroimaging studies have addressed this topic, and the sample sizes for those studies have been small, with fewer than 80 participants.

To address this research gap, scientists at the University of Vermont, Burlington, analyzed data obtained when children entered the ABCD Study at ages 9 and 10 years old. The research team examined survey, cognitive, and brain imaging data from nearly 2,000 participants from within the bigger study cohort. They separated these children into two groups, those who reported playing no video games at all and those who reported playing video games for three hours per day or more. This threshold was selected as it exceeds the American Academy of Pediatrics screen time guidelines, which recommend that videogaming time be limited to one to two hours per day for older children. For each group, the investigators evaluated the children's performance on two tasks that reflected their ability to control impulsive behavior and to memorize information, as well as the children's brain activity while performing the tasks.

The researchers found that the children who reported playing video games for three or more hours per day were faster and more accurate on both cognitive tasks than those who never played. They also observed that the differences in cognitive function observed between the two groups was accompanied by differences in brain activity. Functional MRI brain imaging analyses found that children who played video games for three or more hours per day showed higher brain activity in regions of the brain associated with attention and memory than did those who never played. At the same time, those children who played at least three hours of videogames per day showed more brain activity in frontal brain regions that are associated with more cognitively demanding tasks and less brain activity in brain regions related to vision.

The researchers think these patterns may stem from practicing tasks related to impulse control and memory while playing videogames, which can be cognitively demanding, and that these changes may lead to improved performance on related tasks. Furthermore, the comparatively low activity in visual areas among children who reported playing video games may reflect that this area of the brain may become more efficient at visual processing as a result of repeated practice through video games.

While prior studies have reported associations between video gaming and increases in depression, violence, and aggressive behavior, this study did not find that to be the case. Though children who reported playing video games for three or more hours per day did tend to report higher mental health and behavioral issues compared to children who played no video games, the researchers found that this association was not statistically significant, meaning that the authors could not rule out whether this trend reflected a true association or chance. They note that this will be an important measure to continue to track and understand as the children mature.

Further, the researchers stress that this cross-sectional study does not allow for cause-and-effect analyses, and that it could be that children who are good at these types of cognitive tasks may choose to play video games. The authors also emphasize that their findings do not mean that children should spend unlimited time on their computers, mobile phones, or TVs, and that the outcomes likely depend largely on the specific activities children engage in. For instance, they hypothesize that the specific genre of video games, such as action-adventure, puzzle solving, sports, or shooting games, may have different effects for neurocognitive development, and this level of specificity on the type of video game played was not assessed by the study.

"While we cannot say whether playing video games regularly caused superior neurocognitive performance, it is an encouraging finding, and one that we must continue to investigate in these children as they transition into adolescence and young adulthood," said Bader Chaarani, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont and the lead author on the study. "Many parents today are concerned about the effects of video games on their children's health and development, and as these games continue to proliferate among young people, it is crucial that we better understand both the positive and negative impact that such games may have."

Through the ABCD Study, researchers will be able to conduct similar analyses for the same children over time into early adulthood, to see if changes in video gaming behavior are linked to changes in cognitive skills, brain activity, behavior, and mental health. The longitudinal study design and comprehensive data set will also enable them to better account for various other factors in the children's families and environment that may influence their cognitive and behavioral development, such as exercise, sleep quality, and other influences.

The ABCD Study, the largest of its kind in the United States, is tracking nearly 12,000 youth as they grow into young adults. Investigators regularly measure participants' brain structure and activity using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and collect psychological, environmental, and cognitive information, as well as biological samples. The goal of the study is to understand the factors that influence brain, cognitive, and social-emotional development, to inform the development of interventions to enhance a young person's life trajectory.

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Not all in the genes: Are we inheriting more than we think?

A fundamental discovery about a driver of healthy development in embryos could rewrite our understanding of what can be inherited from our parents and how their life experiences may shape us.

The new research suggests that epigenetic information, which sits on top of DNA and is normally reset between generations, is more frequently carried from mother to offspring than previously thought.

The study, led by researchers from WEHI (Melbourne, Australia), significantly broadens our understanding of which genes have epigenetic information passed from mother to child and which proteins are important for controlling this unusual process.

Epigenetics is a rapidly growing field of science that investigates how our genes are switched on and off to allow one set of genetic instructions to create hundreds of different cell types in our body.

Epigenetic changes can be influenced by environmental variations such as our diet, but these changes do not alter DNA and are normally not passed from parent to offspring.

While a tiny group of 'imprinted' genes can carry epigenetic information across generations, until now, very few other genes have been shown to be influenced by the mother's epigenetic state.

The new research reveals that the supply of a specific protein in the mother's egg can affect the genes that drive skeletal patterning of offspring.

Chief investigator Professor Marnie Blewitt said the findings initially left the team surprised.

"It took us a while to process because our discovery was unexpected," Professor Blewitt, Joint Head of the Epigenetics and Development Division at WEHI, said.

"Knowing that epigenetic information from the mother can have effects with life-long consequences for body patterning is exciting, as it suggests this is happening far more than we ever thought.

"It could open a Pandora's box as to what other epigenetic information is being inherited."

The study, led by WEHI in collaboration with Associate Professor Edwina McGlinn from Monash University and The Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, is published in Nature Communications.

The new research focused on the protein SMCHD1, an epigenetic regulator discovered by Professor Blewitt in 2008, and Hox genes, which are critical for normal skeletal development.

Hox genes control the identity of each vertebra during embryonic development in mammals, while the epigenetic regulator prevents these genes from being activated too soon.

In this study, the researchers discovered that the amount of SMCHD1 in the mother's egg affects the activity of Hox genes and influences the patterning of the embryo. Without maternal SMCHD1 in the egg, offspring were born with altered skeletal structures.

First author and PhD researcher Natalia Benetti said this was clear evidence that epigenetic information had been inherited from the mother, rather than just blueprint genetic information.

"While we have more than 20,000 genes in our genome, only that rare subset of about 150 imprinted genes and very few others have been shown to carry epigenetic information from one generation to another," Benetti said.

"Knowing this is also happening to a set of essential genes that have been evolutionarily conserved from flies through to humans is fascinating."

The research showed that SMCHD1 in the egg, which only persists for two days after conception, has a life-long impact.

Variants in SMCHD1 are linked to developmental disorder Bosma arhinia microphthalmia syndrome (BAMS) and facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), a form of muscular dystrophy. The researchers say their findings could have implications for women with SMCHD1 variants and their children in the future.

A drug discovery effort at WEHI is currently leveraging the SMCHD1 knowledge established by the team to design novel therapies to treat developmental disorders, such as Prader Willi Syndrome and the degenerative disorder FSHD.

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Air pollution, including during wildfires, shows ill effects in children

New research linking air pollution data from federal monitors in the Sacramento area of California, including during significant fires, is showing ill effects of pollution exposure among children, a new University of California, Davis, study suggests.

Blood samples show that children have elevated markers of inflammation, such as interleukin 6, if they were exposed to higher air pollution. Further, higher air pollution was linked to lower cardiac autonomic regulation in children, which impacts how fast the heart beats and how hard it pumps, according to the study.

In the study, published Aug. 3 date in the journal New Directions for Child and Adolescent Research, researchers looked at blood samples from more than 100 healthy children ages 9-11 in the Sacramento area where pollutants near their homes were recorded by the Environmental Protection Agency. The study was authored by Anna M. Parenteau, a doctoral student, and Camelia E. Hostinar, associate professor, both from the UC Davis Department of Psychology. The work took place at UC Davis.

These findings are important because exposure to pollutants released during wildfires has been related to numerous negative health outcomes in children, who have smaller bodies and organ systems than adults, including asthma and decreased lung function, as well as neurodevelopmental outcomes like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, and deficits in school performance and memory, researchers said.

Looked at particulates

Researchers looked at fine particulate matter data from the EPA (PM2.5) -- or the fine particles that can penetrate lungs and pass into the bloodstream -- finding the children's blood contained markers of systemic inflammation. Additionally, PM2.5, which refers to particulate matter measuring 2.5 micrometers or smaller by the EPA, was linked to lower cardiac autonomic regulation assessed using an electrocardiogram. Specifically, researchers used data files maintained by the EPA, which have daily air quality summary information from each outdoor monitor in the country.

In total, 27 of the children studied had inflammation markers in their blood recorded during significant fires when their neighborhoods recorded significant levels of PM2.5 in the air. These times when fires were burning included during the Mendocino Complex Fire in 2018, which was active about 100 miles from the lab where blood was drawn. The findings were similar to those found in an earlier study, in which the blood of young primates was collected by UC Davis researchers after significant wildfires.

"By examining daily and monthly levels of particulate matter in relation to children's inflammation and autonomic physiology, this study further demonstrates the immediate consequences of exposure to air pollution, which may increase risk of future disease," Parenteau said. Furthermore, Parenteau added: "As climate change continues to impact children and families, it is paramount to understand the impact of environmental contaminants such as air pollution on children's physiology."

Previous studies with children have shown significant associations between ambient air pollution and allergic sensitization, respiratory symptoms, and ultra-structural and cellular changes to their lungs and airways, researchers said.

Researchers have found children may be especially susceptible to the effects of air pollution, given that, compared to adults, they have a higher intake of contaminants and greater lung surface area relative to their body weight.

Continued developmental research on environmental contaminants can sound the alarm about the effects of air pollution and inform policy changes that could promote long-term population health, researchers concluded.

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Pre-teen children believe 'brilliance' is a male trait, and this stereotype increases in strength up to the age of twelve

Children hold stereotypical views that 'brilliance' is a male trait, and this belief strengthens as they grow up to the age of twelve, researchers from Singapore and the United States have reported.

The study led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) in collaboration with New York University, was published in the scientific journal Child Development in May 2022. It involved 389 Chinese Singaporean parents and 342 of their children aged 8 to 12.

Tests were carried out to measure the extent to which parents and their children associate the notion of brilliance with men, and to probe the relationship between parents and their children's views.

The study defined brilliance as an exceptional level of intellectual ability and results showed that children are as likely to associate brilliance with men, as their parents are.

This belief was stronger among older children and stronger among those children whose parents held the same view.

While previous research on gender stereotypes has found the idea that giftedness is a male trait can emerge at around the age of six, it was not known whether and how this stereotype changes over the course of childhood, until now.

Lead author of the study, Associate Professor Setoh Peipei from NTU Singapore's School of Social Sciences, said the Singapore-based study is the first to identify that the tendency to associate brilliance with men (also known as the 'brilliance equals to men' stereotype) increases in strength through the primary school years, and reaches the level of belief seen in adults by the age of 13.

"Stereotypical views about how boys are smarter than girls can take root in childhood and become a self-fulfilling prophecy," said Prof Setoh. "For girls, this may lead them to doubt their abilities, thus limiting their ideas about their interests and what they can achieve in life."

"Our research work shows parents must also be included in policies and school programmes to effectively combat children's gender stereotypes from a young age," she added.

For example, as previous studies have found that parents use different explanation styles for daughters and for sons, the research team said programmes to train parents and teachers to be mindful of balancing their behaviour during interactions with children -- especially with girls -- could be introduced.

The authors say the study offers evidence to support Singapore's push to close the gender gap in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) sectors.

While Singapore has the second highest in the world OECD PISA scores in mathematics, science and reading, a recent study by the Promotion of Women in Engineering, Research, and Science (POWERS) programme at NTU Singapore found that women in Singapore are less confident in their math and science abilities compared to men. Women are also more likely than men to perceive gender barriers to STEM career entry and career progress.

How the study was conducted

The researchers used the Implicit Association Test (IAT) -- a commonly-used implicit measure of stereotyping -- to evaluate parents' and children's behaviour. During the test, participants were asked to categorise photographs of men and women, along with two sets of words. One set of 'genius words' referred to the notion of brilliance and included words such as "super-smart" and "genius," while the other set of words referred to creativity (control attribute).

During the first half of the trials, participants had to press a key to categorise the male photographs with the genius words. This process was repeated in the second half of the trials with female photographs and genius words. Participants with an implicit association of men being brilliant will react faster to the task of categorising genius words with the male photographs than the same task with female photographs.

Results revealed an average D score (a metric of the strength of the stereotypical 'intellectual brilliance = men' association) of 0.16, indicating that Singaporean children associate brilliance with men more than women and that this stereotypical belief increased in strength with age among the child sample and reached stereotype levels comparable to those of adults by age 12. Thereafter, there was little change in their perspective.

In the second part of the study, the researchers investigated scores from parent-child pairs who took the tests separately but at the same time and found that children's scores were correlated to their parents' test scores. This finding suggests that during the earlier years of primary school, parents may play a role in their children's acquisition of the 'brilliance equals to men' stereotype.

Further analysis revealed that as the age of the boys that were tested got older, they were less likely to hold the same stereotypical views of males as more brilliant as their parents. However, for girls, their stereotypes remained closely linked to their parents' stereotypes throughout the primary school years.

Co-author Andrei Cimpian, Professor of Psychology at New York University said, "This study adds to the evidence that the gender imbalances observed in many prestigious careers are not a function of differences between women and men in their inherent aptitudes or interests. Rather, these imbalances are the product of the messages that young people are getting from those around them about what women and men are supposedly -- and supposed to be -- like. As a society, we have a responsibility to work toward addressing this issue."

Moving forward, the research team is studying whether this gender stereotype about brilliance may differently impact primary and secondary school girls' and boys' outcomes in math -- a core STEM subject that is typically believed to require intellectual brilliance to excel in.

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Air pollution caused 2,780 deaths, illnesses, and IQ loss in children in Massachusetts in 2019

Air pollution remains a silent killer in Massachusetts, responsible for an estimated 2,780 deaths a year and for measurable cognitive loss in Bay State children exposed to fine particulate pollutants in the air they breathe, according to a new study by researchers at Boston College's Global Observatory on Planetary Health.

The study was supported by the Barr Foundation and is the first to examine far-reaching public health consequences of air pollution in the state on a town-by-town basis. The study found air-pollution-related disease, death and IQ loss occur in every city and town regardless of demographics or income level. Highest rates were in the most economically disadvantaged and socially underserved cities and towns.

The Boston College team estimates the cumulative impact on childhood cognitive development in Massachusetts in 2019 was a loss of almost 2 million Performance IQ points, or more than 2 IQ points for the average child, according to the report, published today in the journal Environmental Health. IQ loss impairs children's school performance and reduces graduation rates, the team noted.

"We are talking about the impacts of air pollution at a very local level in Massachusetts -- not just statewide," said lead author Boston College Professor of Biology Philip J. Landrigan, MD, director of the Observatory. "This report gives the people in every city and town the opportunity to see for themselves the quality of the air they and their families are breathing and the dangerous health implications for both adults and children as a consequence of air pollution."

"All of these health effects occurred at pollution levels below current EPA standards," Landrigan noted.

The average level of fine particulate pollution across Massachusetts in 2019 was 6.3 micrograms per cubic meter, and levels ranged from a low of 2.77 micrograms per cubic meter in Worcester County to a high of 8.26 in Suffolk County. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standard is 12 micrograms per cubic meter, and the World Health Organization's recommended guideline is 5.

"Clearly, current EPA air pollution standards are not adequately protecting public health," Landrigan said.

Town-by-town air pollution information is not typically available, given there are not enough air quality monitoring stations in the state. The team determined levels for all cities and towns using available data and computer modeling.

While Massachusetts meets federal clean air guidelines and air pollution in the U.S. has declined 70 percent since the passage of the Clean Air Act in the 1970s -- when Landrigan and other scientists successfully pushed for the removal of lead from gasoline -- unclean air at current levels still poses health hazards to both healthy individuals and those with other ailments or illnesses.

"We do not have the level of air pollution you see in China or India and because it is mostly invisible today people tend to forget about air pollution and we get complacent," Landrigan said. "We hope to break through this complacency and increase awareness. Air pollution is killing 2,780 people in Massachusetts each year, nearly 5 percent of all deaths in the state, and that is a big deal. Air pollution is something we can fix. We know the steps that need to be taken to reduce fatalities and the impact on our children and grandchildren. Now citizens in every city and town across the Commonwealth need to urge our elected officials to take those necessary steps."

Additional findings include:
 

• Of the 2,780 deaths attributable to air pollution in Massachusetts in 2019, at least 2,185 were due to lung cancer 1,677 to heart disease, 343 to chronic lung disease, and 200 to stroke.
• Air pollution was responsible for 15,386 cases of pediatric asthma and an estimated 308 low-birthweight babies (5.5 lbs. or less).

More than 95 percent of air pollution in Massachusetts results from the combustion of fossil fuels. Cars, trucks, buses, planes, trains and ships produced two-thirds of pollutant emissions-655,000 tons -- in 2017, the most recent year for which data were available. Power plants, industrial facilities, and home heating and cooking produced 283,000 tons. In all, these sources emitted 938,000 tons of pollutants.

Fossil fuel combustion is also the major source of the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that drive global climate change, which the researchers said should further incentivize Massachusetts to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions by transitioning to cleaner fuels.

"Air pollution harms our environment and young people, and these burdens disproportionately impact environmental justice communities," said Kathryn Wright, the Barr Foundation's Senior Program Officer for Clean Energy. "Meaningful action on climate change requires us to swiftly address air pollution from transportation and our energy system and its many harmful effects."

Fine particulate air pollution is linked to multiple non-communicable diseases in adults, including cardiovascular disease, stroke, lung cancer and diabetes. Among infants and children air pollution increases risk for premature birth, low birthweight, stillbirth, impaired lung development, and asthma.

"All of these adverse health effects occur at fine particulate matter pollution levels below the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's current annual standard of 12 micrograms per cubic meter," said Landrigan. "So even for a state like Massachusetts, which registered below that standard, air pollution is a formidable public health threat that needs urgently to be addressed."

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Link between air pollution and child brain development strengthened

Air pollution is not just a problem for lungs. Increasingly, research suggests air pollution can influence childhood behavioral problems and even IQ. A new study led by the University of Washington has added evidence showing that both prenatal and postnatal exposure to air pollution can harm kids.

The study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, found that children whose mothers experienced higher nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposure during pregnancy, particularly in the first and second trimester, were more likely to have behavioral problems.

Researchers also reported that higher exposures to small-particle air pollution (PM2.5) when children were 2 to 4 years old was associated with poorer child behavioral functioning and cognitive performance.

"Even in cities like Seattle or San Francisco, which have a lot of traffic but where the pollution levels are still relatively low, we found that children with higher prenatal NO2 exposure had more behavioral problems, especially with NO2exposure in the first and second trimester," said Yu Ni, lead author and a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences.

The study involved data gathered from 1,967 mothers recruited during pregnancy from six cities: Memphis, Tennessee; Minneapolis; Rochester, N.Y.; San Francisco; and two in Washington, Seattle and Yakima. Originally, these participants were enrolled as part of three separate studies: CANDLE, GAPPS and TIDES. The three studies have been combined under a major NIH initiative called ECHO, which brings together multiple pregnancy cohorts to address key child health concerns. These three combined cohorts are known as the ECHO PATHWAYS consortium.

The study employed a state-of-the-art model of air pollution levels in the United States over time and space that was developed at the University of Washington. Using participant address information, the researchers were able to estimate each mother and child's exposures during the pregnancy period and early childhood.

Exposure to NO2 and PM2.5 pollution in early life is important to understand, Ni said, because "there are known biological mechanisms that can link a mother's inhalation of these pollutants to effects on placenta and fetal brain development."

Furthermore, once the child is born, the first few years are a critical time of ongoing brain development as the number of neural connections explodes and the brain reaches 90% of its future adult size, the researchers write. For young children, inhaled pollutants that invade deep in the lung and enter the central nervous system can cause damage in areas relevant for behavioral and cognitive function.

"This study reinforces the unique vulnerability of children to air pollution -- both in fetal life where major organ development and function occurs as well as into childhood when those processes continue. These early life perturbations can have lasting impacts on lifelong brain function. This study underscores the importance of air pollution as a preventable risk factor for healthy child neurodevelopment," said senior author Dr. Catherine Karr, a professor in the UW School of Public Health and School of Medicine.

More specifically, the researchers found that exposure to PM2.5 pollution was generally associated with more behavioral problems in girls than in boys, and that the adverse effect of PM2.5 exposure in the second trimester on IQ was stronger in boys.

"We hope the evidence from this study will contribute to informed policymaking in the future," Ni said. "In terms of reducing air pollution, the U.S. has gone a long way under the Clean Air Act, but there are threats to continued improvement in the nation's air quality. The evidence suggests there is reason to bring the level of air pollution down even further as we better understand the vulnerability of pregnant women and children."

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Reducing air pollution can support healthy brain development

A new study finds that having a portable air cleaner in the home can reduce the negative impacts of air pollution on brain development in children.

Simon Fraser University researchers collaborated with U.S. and Mongolian scientists to study the benefits of using air filters to reduce exposure to air pollution during pregnancy, and assessed the impact on children's intelligence.

The researchers note that their randomized controlled trial is the first study of its kind to document the impacts of air pollution reduction on cognition in children.

Beginning in 2014, the team recruited 540 pregnant women in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to participate in the Ulaanbaatar Gestation and Air Pollution Research (UGAAR) study. Ulaanbaatar has some of the worst air quality in the world, well exceeding guidelines set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The women were less than 18 weeks into their pregnancies and non-smokers who had not previously used air filtering devices in their homes. They were randomly assigned to either the control or intervention group. The intervention group was provided with one or two HEPA filter air cleaners and encouraged to run the air cleaners continuously for the duration of their pregnancies. The air cleaners were removed from the home once the child was born.

The researchers later measured the children's full-scale intelligence quotient (FSIQ) at four years of age using the Weschler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence.

They found that the children born to mothers who had used the air cleaners had an average FSIQ that was 2.8-points higher than the group that did not use an air cleaner during pregnancy.

"These results, combined with evidence from previous studies, strongly implicate air pollution as a threat to brain development," says Ryan Allen, professor of environmental health in SFU's Faculty of Health Sciences. "But the good news is that reducing exposure had clear benefits."

Children in the intervention group also had significantly greater average verbal comprehension index scores, which is consistent with results from previous observational studies. The research suggests that a child's verbal skills may be particularly sensitive to air pollution exposure.

More than 90 per cent of the world's population breathes air with particulate matter concentrations above the WHO guidelines. The researchers suggest the population-level impact of air pollution on brain development could be substantive even if the individual-level effects are modest.

Their study results indicate that reducing exposure to air pollution during pregnancy could improve children's cognitive development around the world.

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Video games can help boost children's intelligence

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have studied how the screen habits of US children correlates with how their cognitive abilities develop over time. They found that the children who spent an above-average time playing video games increased their intelligence more than the average, while TV watching or social media had neither a positive nor a negative effect. The results are published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Children are spending more and more time in front of screens. How this affects their health and whether it has a positive or negative impact on their cognitive abilities are hotly debated. For this present study, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam specifically studied the link between screen habits and intelligence over time.

Over 9,000 boys and girls in the USA participated in the study. At the age of nine or ten, the children performed a battery of psychological tests to gauge their general cognitive abilities (intelligence). The children and their parents were also asked about how much time the children spent watching TV and videos, playing video games and engaging with social media.

Followed up after two years

Just over 5,000 of the children were followed up after two years, at which point they were asked to repeat the psychological tests. This enabled the researchers to study how the children's performance on the tests varied from the one testing session to the other, and to control for individual differences in the first test. They also controlled for genetic differences that could affect intelligence and differences that could be related to the parents' educational background and income.

On average, the children spent 2.5 hours a day watching TV, half an hour on social media and 1 hour playing video games. The results showed that those who played more games than the average increased their intelligence between the two measurements by approximately 2.5 IQ points more than the average. No significant effect was observed, positive or negative, of TV-watching or social media.

"We didn't examine the effects of screen behaviour on physical activity, sleep, wellbeing or school performance, so we can't say anything about that," says Torkel Klingberg, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet. "But our results support the claim that screen time generally doesn't impair children's cognitive abilities, and that playing video games can actually help boost intelligence. This is consistent with several experimental studies of video-game playing."

Intelligence is not constant

The results are also in line with recent research showing that intelligence is not a constant, but a quality that is influenced by environmental factors.

"We'll now be studying the effects of other environmental factors and how the cognitive effects relate to childhood brain development," says Torkel Klingberg.

One limitation of the study is that it only covered US children and did not differentiate between different types of video games, which makes the results difficult to transfer to children in other countries with other gaming habits. There was also a risk of reporting error since screen time and habits were self-rated.

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Impact of family background on children's education unchanged in a century, research reveals

The family background of UK children still influences their educational achievements at primary school as much as it did nearly one hundred years ago, a major new study has revealed.

The study, by the University of York, looked at data from 92,000 individuals born between 1921 and 2011 and revealed that the achievement gap between children from impoverished family backgrounds and their more privileged peers has remained stagnant.

This gap accounted for half a grade difference at primary school level, but the impact of family background persists and increases throughout the school years. Previous research suggests that by GCSE year, the effect of family background on school performance is more than three times worse, accounting for a 1.75 grade difference.

The enduring impact of family background on success in education perpetuates social and economic inequalities across generations, the researchers say. They are calling for educational policies which prioritise equality in learning outcomes for children over equality in opportunities.

Lead author of the study, Professor Sophie von Stumm from the Department of Education at the University of York, said: "Our study shows for the first time that despite the efforts of policy makers and educators, children from impoverished backgrounds, whether born in 1921 or the modern day, face the same prospect of earning lower grades and obtaining fewer educational opportunities than children from wealthier backgrounds.

"We are calling for educational interventions that ensure the weakest students get the most support, as policies promoting equal learning opportunities only work if all children are equally well prepared to take advantage of them.

"For example, we know that children from low socioeconomic family backgrounds tend to start school with poorer language skills than their better-off peers. This early disadvantage makes it more difficult for them to utilise the learning opportunities that that school offers. In turn, children from impoverished families earn lower grades in primary and secondary school, and ultimately, they earn fewer educational qualifications than children from wealthier backgrounds."

The study looked at data provided by large cohort studies up until 2016. The researchers caution that the pandemic is likely to have intensified the link between family socioeconomic status and children's school performance because it increased inequality in families' access to resources.

Co-author of the study, Professor Paul Wakeling from the Department of Education at the University of York said: "There was rightly much public scrutiny of inequalities in GCSE grades during the pandemic. However, our findings highlight how important it is to consider inequalities in earlier years of schooling. The impacts could be felt for years to come "

Professor von Stumm added: "Children growing up in low socioeconomic family homes during the pandemic were disproportionately affected by school closures, with a lack of access to online learning and suitable learning environments.

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