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Air pollution cuts growth of working memory in kids

Agencies
October 9, 2017

London, Oct 9: Exposure to air pollution on the way to school can have damaging effects on growth of children's working memory, suggests new research.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Pollution, found an association between a reduction in working memory and exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) -- fine inhalable particles that have diameters of 2.5 micrometres or less -- and black carbon -- a pollutant directly related to traffic -- during the walking commute to and from school.

The findings of an earlier study had shown that 20 per cent of a child's daily dose of black carbon is inhaled during urban commutes.

"The results of earlier toxicological and experimental studies have shown that these short exposures to very high concentrations of pollutants can have a disproportionately high impact on health" said first author of the study Mar Alvarez-Pedrerol, researcher at Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) in Spain.

"The results of earlier toxicological and experimental studies have shown that these short exposures to very high concentrations of pollutants can have a disproportionately high impact on health" said first author of the study Mar Alvarez-Pedrerol, researcher at Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) in Spain.

"The detrimental effects may be particularly marked in children because of their smaller lung capacity and higher respiratory rate," she added.

The study was carried out in Barcelona and enrolled over 1,200 children aged from 7 to 10, from 39 schools, all of whom walked to school on a daily basis.

The children's working memory and attention capacity was assessed several times during the 12-month study.

Their exposure to air pollution over the same period was calculated on the basis of estimated levels on the shortest walking route to their school.

Statistical analysis of the findings revealed that exposure to PM2.5 and black carbon was associated with a reduction in the growth of working memory.

An interquartile range increase in PM 2.5 and black carbon levels was associated with a decline of 4.6 per cent and 3.9 per cent, respectively, in expected annual growth of working memory, the study said.

The interquartile range (IQR) is a measure of variability based on dividing a data set into quartiles.

"The fact that children who walk to school may be more exposed to pollution does not mean that children who commute by car or on public transport are not also exposed to high levels," said Jordi Sunyer, head of ISGlobal's Child Health Programme. and co-author of the study.

"The solution is the same for everyone: reduce the use of private vehicles for the school run and create less polluted and safer home-to-school routes," Alvarez-Pedrerol said.

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Agencies
August 2,2020

Washington, Aug 2: Children under the age of five have between 10 to 100 times greater levels of genetic material of the coronavirus in their noses compared to older children and adults, a study in JAMA Pediatrics said Thursday.

Its authors wrote this meant that young children might be important drivers of Covid-19 transmission within communities -- a suggestion at odds with the current prevailing narrative.

The paper comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump is pushing hard for schools and daycare to reopen in order to kickstart the economy.

Between March 23 and April 27, researchers carried out nasal swab tests on 145 Chicago patients with mild to moderate illness within one week of symptom onset.

The patients were divided into three groups: 46 children younger than five-years-old, 51 children aged five to 17 years, and 48 adults aged 18 to 65 years.

The team, led by Dr Taylor Heald-Sargent of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital, observed, "a 10-fold to 100-fold greater amount of SARS-CoV-2 in the upper respiratory tract of young children."

15 countries with the highest number of cases, deaths due to the Covid-19 pandemic

The authors added that a recent lab study had demonstrated that the more viral genetic material was present, the more infectious virus could be grown.

It has also previously been shown that children with high viral loads of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are more likely to spread the disease.

"Thus, young children can potentially be important drivers of SARS-CoV-2 spread in the general population," the authors wrote.

"Behavioral habits of young children and close quarters in school and daycare settings raise concern for SARS-CoV-2 amplification in this population as public health restrictions are eased," they concluded.

The new findings are at odds with the current view among health authorities that young children -- who, it has been well established, are far less likely to fall seriously ill from the virus -- don't spread it much to others either.

However, there has been fairly little research on the topic so far.

One recent study in South Korea found children aged 10 to 19 transmitted Covid-19 within households as much as adults, but children under nine transmitted the virus at lower rates.

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Agencies
June 22,2020

A team of scientists has produced first open source all-atom models of full-length COVID-19 Spike protein that facilitates viral entry into host cells – a discovery that can facilitate a faster vaccine and antiviral drug development.

The group from Seoul National University in South Korea, University of Cambridge in the UK and Lehigh University in the US produced the first open-source all-atom models of a full-length S protein.

The researchers say this is of particular importance because the S protein plays a central role in viral entry into cells, making it a main target for vaccine and antiviral drug development.

"Our models are the first full-length SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein models that are available to other scientists," said Wonpil Im, a professor in Lehigh University.

"Our team spent days and nights to build these models very carefully from the known cryo-EM structure portions. Modeling was very challenging because there were many regions where simple modeling failed to provide high-quality models," he wrote in a paper published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry B.

Scientists can use the models to conduct innovative and novel simulation research for the prevention and treatment of Covid-19.

Though the coronavirus uses many different proteins to replicate and invade cells, the Spike protein is the major surface protein that it uses to bind to a receptor.

The total number of global COVID-19 cases was nearing 9 million, while the deaths have increased to over 467,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

With 2,279,306 cases and 119,967 deaths, the US continues with the world's highest number of COVID-19 infections and fatalities, according to the CSSE.

Brazil comes in the second place with 1,083,341 infections and 50,591 deaths.

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News Network
February 22,2020

Feb 22: The subjective feeling of well-being experienced by many people with the practice of meditation is associated with specific changes in the brain, according to a study which may lead to better clinical recommendations of the practice.

The study, published in the journal Brain and Cognition, examined the effects of the technique known as Transcendental Meditation (TM), which consists of the silent repetition of a meaningless sound.

In the study, the researchers from the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca in Italy, enrolled 34 healthy young volunteers and divided them in two groups.

They said the first group practised TM 40 minutes per day in two sessions of 20 minutes each, one in the morning and the other in the evening.

The second group, the scientists said, did not change its daily routine.

Using questionnaires, they also measured the anxiety and stress levels of all the participants at the beginning of the study, as well as the subjects' ability to manage stressful situations.

According to the researchers, the participants were also subjected to a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scan, in order to measure the organ's activity at rest, and changes in the excitation among different cerebral areas.

They repeated the tests after three months, at the end of the study.

According to the study, the levels of anxiety and stress perceived by the subjects who followed the meditation program were significantly reduced in comparison with those of the volunteers who did not practice TM.

"Magnetic resonance imaging also shows that the reduction of anxiety levels is associated with specific changes in the connectivity between different cerebral areas, such as precuneus, left parietal lobe and insula, which all have an important role in the modulation of emotions and inner states," said study co-author Giulia Avvenuti from the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca.

"In the control group, instead, none of these changes was observed. The fact that Transcendental Meditation has measurable effects on the 'dialogue' between brain structures involved in the modulation of affective states opens new perspectives for the understanding of brain-mind relationships," said Pietro Pietrini, IMT School's Director, and co-author of the study.

"It also extends the results of recent research suggesting that drugs therapies and psychotherapy leverage on the same biological mechanism," Pietrini said.

According to the researchers, even a few months of practice of TM can have positive effects which can be correlated with measurable changes in the brain.

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