Clinical trials for Ayurvedic formulations against covid to be initiated in India, US

Washington D.C, Feb 10: Children's vulnerability towards depression, anxiety, impulsive behaviour, and poor cognitive performance could be determined by considering the hours of sleep they manage to get.

Sleep states are active processes that support the reorganisation of brain circuitry. This makes sleep especially important for children, whose brains are developing and reorganising rapidly.

In a study by researchers from the University of Warwick -- recently published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry -- cases of 11,000 children aged between 9 and 11 years from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development dataset were analyzed to find out the relationship between sleep duration and brain structure.

The study was carried out by researchers Professor Jianfeng Feng, Professor Edmund Rolls, Dr. Wei Cheng and colleagues from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science and Fudan University.

Measures of depression, anxiety, impulsive behaviour and poor cognitive performance in the children were associated with shorter sleep duration. Moreover, the depressive problems were associated with short sleep duration one year later.

The reduced brain volume of areas such as orbitofrontal cortex, prefrontal, and temporal cortex, precuneus, and supramarginal gyrus was found to be associated with the shorter sleep duration.

Professor Jianfeng Feng, from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science, comments: "The recommended amount of sleep for children 6 to 12 years of age is 9-12 hours. However, sleep disturbances are common among children and adolescents around the world due to the increasing demand on their time from school, increased screen time use, and sports and social activities."

A previous study showed that about 60 per cent of adolescents in the United States receive less than eight hours of sleep on school nights.

Professor Jianfeng Feng further added: "Our findings showed that the total score for behavior problems in children with less than 7 hours sleep was 53 per cent higher on average and the cognitive total score was 7.8 per cent lower on average than for children with 9-11 hours of sleep. It highlights the importance of enough sleep in both cognition and mental health in children."

Professor Edmund Rolls from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science also commented: "These are important associations that have been identified between sleep duration in children, brain structure, and cognitive and mental health measures, but further research is needed to discover the underlying reasons for these relationships."

Dear parents, if you want your children to have proper sleep, read this carefully. Joining a growing list of studies that tell parents to shun devices at bed-time, researchers say that children who use devices and decide what time they go to sleep, achieve less sleep and feel more sleepier the following day than their peers.

The study of children in this age-group (aged 11 to 13 years), published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, found most (72 per cent) of the 163 students interviewed by University of Otago researchers achieved recommended guidelines of an average 9 to 11 hours sleep nightly over one week.

"But that also means that almost one in four students did not achieve sleep within these guidelines, which highlights an area for improvement," said study researcher Kate Ford.

However, consistent with previous research in 15 to 17-year-old New Zealanders, the study results show less sleep on the nights where devices are used in the hour before bed.

According to the researchers, students who used devices before going to sleep were also more likely to report that they felt sleepy the following morning. Watching television before bed had no significant effect on sleep length.

There were also some interesting observations over the weekends where students went to bed later but woke later achieving similar sleep length to the school days, the researchers said.

A small group of students (six per cent) who reported less than seven hours of sleep, including a small number reporting not sleeping at all, according to the study,

Therefore, while the average across the week of 72 per cent of students reporting adequate sleep is reassuring, it is far from the goal of every child achieving sleep within the recommended guidelines," Ford said.

Dr Paul Kelly, head of the Sleep Health Service at Canterbury District Health Board, supervised the study and explained that the foundations for good health are based on proper nutrition, regular exercise and good sleep quality.

Sleep quality is often overlooked as a contributory factor to poor health.

"The study findings suggest the need for parental guidance around bedtimings and moderation of the use and availability of electronic devices before bed," Kelly said.

"Respect and protect your sleep, as good daytime functioning is reliant on adequate sleep," Kelly added.

Boston, Feb 4: Practising yoga may increase levels of a messenger molecule involved in regulating brain activity, and completing one yoga class per week may maintain elevated levels of this chemical, according to a study which may lead to better ways of mitigating depressive symptoms.

The study, published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, assessed a group of 30 clinically depressed patients who were randomly divided into two groups.

According to the researchers, including those from Boston University in the US, both groups engaged in coherent breathing, and Iyengar yoga -- a form of hatha yoga, developed by B. K. S. Iyengar, emphasising on detail, precision, and alignment in the performance of yoga postures.

The only difference between the groups, the scientists said, was the number of 90 minute yoga sessions, and home sessions in which each group participated.

Over three months, they said, the high-dose group (HDG) was assigned three sessions per week, while the low-intensity group (LIG) engaged in two sessions per week.

The participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of their brain before the first and after the last yoga session, and also completed a clinical depression scale to monitor their symptoms, the study noted.

Results of the study revealed that both groups had improvement in depressive symptoms after three months.

Their MRI analysis showed that levels of the brain messenger molecule GABA were elevated after three months of yoga, as compared to the levels before starting yoga.

According to the study, this increase was found for approximately four days after the last yoga session, but the rise was no longer observed after about eight days.

"The study suggests that the associated increase in GABA levels after a yoga session are 'time-limited' similar to that of pharmacologic treatments such that completing one session of yoga per week may maintain elevated levels of GABA," explained study co-author Chris Streeter from Boston University.

Providing evidence-based data may help in getting more individuals to try yoga as a strategy for improving their health and well-being, the scientists said.

"A unique strength of this study is that pairing the yoga intervention with brain imaging provides important neurobiological insight as to the 'how' yoga may help to alleviate depression and anxiety," said study co-author Marisa Silveri from Harvard University.

In this study, we found that an important neurochemical, GABA, which is related to mood, anxiety, and sleep, is significantly increased in association with a yoga intervention," Silveri said.