Certain genetic mutations that are not inherited from an individual’s parents seem to happen more frequently in people diagnosed with schizophrenia compared to people who do not suffer from the disorder, according to research out of the University of Montreal.
Published in this week’s issue of Nature Genetics, the research team spent their time examining 20,000 genes in 14 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and their parents, who did not have schizophrenia.
In the course of its research, the team identified 15 de novo (new) mutations in eight patients. That number is significantly higher than they expected. They also found four of the 15 identified mutations were what they deemed “nonsense” mutations, a number that is higher than predicted simply by chance.
“Because the mutations are located in many different genes, we can now start to establish genetic networks that would define how these gene mutations predispose to schizophrenia,” said Simon Girard, one of the students involved in the study. “Most of the genes identified in this study have not been previously linked to schizophrenia, thereby providing new potential therapeutic targets.”
A second study out of the University of Montreal, this one published in Pediatrics, has found children living in urban areas, with a single parent and in economically disadvantaged homes are most likely to use “active transportation” such as walking or cycling to commute compared to others.
The research team followed the same groups of children as they aged through the school years. It showed that while young children like to walk or ride to school, that enthusiasm diminishes by the ages of 10 or 11.
The study looked at the habits of 7,690 Canadian children. Researchers found several interesting results. Not only were urban, disadvantaged children more likely to use active transportation to get to school, children as a whole were twice as more likely to walk or cycle to school if they had friends living close by. They also engaged in active transportation if they were accompanied by older siblings. Walking and riding declined if traffic lights or pedestrian crossings on the route to school were absent in the case of adolescents.
Study author Roman Pabayo said the study provides insight into active transportation as an affordable and easy way to incorporate physical activity into the daily routines of children. Yet it also raised more questions that required further research.
“Why are children from Saskatchewan and Manitoba the most likely to use active transport at a given point in their lives? What about children from poorer backgrounds? Why are there different patterns as children age across socio-demographic and regional lines?”
A new study published in Pediatrics has found a connection between children who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home and a 50 per cent higher risk of being diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), attention deficit disorder (ADD) and other learning disabilities compared to unexposed children.
The research team conducted a telephone survey between April 2007 and July 2008. Analysts asked for parent-reported information on secondhand smoke exposure in the home from birth to age 12 and any subsequent neurobehavioural disorders, such as ADD or ADHD.
In total, the survey covered 55,358 children under the age of 12. Of that total, six per cent were exposed to secondhand smoke at home. In total, children exposed to secondhand smoke had a 50 per cent higher chance of having two or more childhood behavioural disorders compared with children who were not exposed. Of boys and girls exposed to secondhand smoke, boys were at a significantly higher risk. Overall, children aged nine to 11 years living in the poorest households had the highest risk.
The authors concluded that, “The findings of the study, which are associational and not necessarily causal, underscore the health burden of childhood neurobehavioural disorders that may be attributable to secondhand smoke exposure in homes.”
Young children who start talking later in life than their peers do not have a higher risk of emotional and behavioural problems later on in childhood compared to children with normal speech development.
Published in Pediatrics, researchers studied 1,387 children, 142 of who did not start speaking until later in their childhood years. Parents competed a Language Development Survey when their children were two years old, as well as a behaviour checklist at ages two, five, eight, 10, 14 and 17.
While so-called “late-talkers” had increased levels of psychosocial problems at age two, they were at no more risk for similar problems later in life. Study leader Andrew Whitehouse attributed the behavioural and emotional problems identified at age two to the difficulties of not being able to communicate and overall frustration. Once these children progressed to the same normal language milestones as their peers, behavioural and emotional problems essentially disappeared.
He also noted that problems can persist if language delays continue into the school-age years.
