BioQuakes

AP Biology class blog for discussing current research in Biology

Tag: Baby

How Did Our Baby Learn That Word?!?!

Jason Sudeikis’ character is hosting a nice dinner party with his wife played by Jennifer Aniston, and all seems to be going great. Then, all of a sudden, their 12- month-old baby blurts out a curse word! “How could our baby learn such a thing?” In a flashback 8 months earlier, we see the less-experienced parenting pair blurt out some pretty R-rated things in a fit of frustration on the road with their baby in the backseat. And so the punch line sinks in.

In modern day parenting comedies, scenes like this fabricated one are a dime a dozen. But these humorous takes on life always get at least one thing right: babies are sponges. Let’s take a look at why on a cellular level.

image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AComplete_neuron_cell_diagram_en.svg

Prior to birth, most neurons migrate to the frontal lobe of the brain where, during postnatal development, they link together and forge connections, allowing a baby to learn proper responses to stimuli. The “circuits” formed by the neural connections are incredibly flexible during the early months of development (roughly the first 6 months) and can quickly be formed or severed, resulting in a remarkable neonatal human ability to rapidly pick up new knowledge about our surroundings. But how are they so malleable?!

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco may have the answer! In a study coauthored by neuropathologist Eric Huang, they found neurons forming a chain moving towards the frontal lobe from the sub ventricular zone, a layer inside the brain where nerve cells are formed, in infants up to 7 months old!

This research seems to point to the idea that these new brain cells form connections with the pre-existing neurons in the frontal lobe later in the infant’s development, resulting in more cognitive flexibility for a longer period of time.

To quote the original article by Laurel Hamers, what the new neurons are doing is analogous to “replenishing the frontal lobe’s supply of building blocks midway through construction”.

Huang’s team observed postmortem infant brain tissue under an electron microscope and discovered a group of neurons synthesizing migration proteins, but the real major discovery came with the observation of rare tissue acquired moments after death. The team injected viruses tagged with glowing proteins into the neurons (thus making the nerve cells glow) in the sample and tracked their movement. While infants up to 7 months old were observed with migrating neurons, the researchers recorded the number of migrating cells at its highest at 1.5 months old and saw it diminish thereafter. The migrating neurons usually become inhibitory interneurons which, to quote the original article, are “like stoplights for other neurons, keeping signaling in check”.

So there you have it! To make sure your baby doesn’t learn that bad word, just suck up all the migrating neurons from its brain!

All jokes aside, this research presents an amazing window into the brain development of the most intelligent species on earth! It’s fascinating how it breaks down psychological mysteries using cellular evidence. And it raises new questions about these mobile neurons: When are they created and how long does it take them to move to the frontal lobe?

How do you think this new research will influence our understanding of the creation of social biases? Do you think this will lead to breakthroughs in research on the foundation of Autism spectrum disorders?  Do you have any funny baby stories? Let me know in the comments.

A True Medical Miracle!

Baby

Flickr
Photo By: Espen Faugstad

What would you do if your newborn baby had been HIV positive? Well this sad truth was given to more then 330,000 parents last year alone. Up until now there had never been a way of curing infants with this deadly disease, but due to a new radical treatment there may be hope for these babies. Thanks to Dr. Deborah Persaud this is now a possibility. She had a patient whose baby had been born with HIV. After the child had only been alive for about 30 hours her team started an aggressive treatment with antiretroviral drugs. After months of nonstop treatment the baby was no longer HIV positive. Dr. Deborah said,”It’s proof of principle that we can cure H.I.V. infection if we can replicate this case.” Although this is a breakthrough case for HIV doctors, there are still some people who are suspicious of the results. Dr. Daniel R. Kuritzkes, chief of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, was quoted as saying, “The one uncertainty is really definitive evidence that the child was indeed infected.” One hypothesis of way the treatment worked for the child is that the drugs killed off the virus before it could establish a hidden reservoir in the baby’s body. One reason older people cannot be cured now is that the virus hides in a dormant state, out of reach of existing drugs. When drug therapy is stopped, the virus can emerge from hiding. Although HIV is far from being cured altogether, this new information and research is a step in the right direction of a world where no one has to die of HIV or AIDS.

For more information on this subject please visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/health/for-first-time-baby-cured-of-hiv-doctors-say.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=science

 

Don’t Wish for your Baby to Come too Soon!

Premature birth is simply now known as the second leading cause of death in children under the age of 5. Premature birth, according to biologynews.net, is when a child is born prior to 37 weeks.India has a record 3,519,100 premature births, and the United States has 517,400 record births. That is a very scary thought, and it is even scarier that it is our reality. That is even the current storyline on Grey’s Anatomy!

Factually speaking, 15 million babies are born too soon, and 1.1 million of those die very quickly afterward. Those that live, can seriously suffer from “serious infections, cerebral palsy, brain injury, and respiratory, vision, hearing, learning, and developmental problems.”

The Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth (GAPPS) has partnered with Born Too Soon to try to stop premature births. Unfortunately, it is harder than it seems. Craig Rubes, MD, PhD and executive director of GAPPS even said,

“Even if every known intervention was implemented around the world, we would still see 13.8 million preterm births each year; we could only prevent 8 percent.

As a society, we cannot just stop premature births, so global research is being performed daily by NGOs like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

 

This is a picture of a premature baby. As you can see, the baby is hooked up to a ventilator to help with breathing.

Mothers: Avoid Drugs for Pain so Your Baby is Sane

photo cred: localtvkstu.files.wordpress.com

While pregnant or in labor, women experience amounts of pain that most men couldn’t dream of. They have to put up with this pain somehow…so according to a recent article, over the last decade, there has been a rise in use of prescription pain killers that has spread to maternity wards in the US. Unfortunately, because these painkillers are opiate-based, there has also been a rapid increase in the number of pregnant women addicted to opiates and also the number of babies born with withdrawal symptoms.

A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association has estimated that about one baby every hour is born with opiate withdrawal symptoms, and about 13,500 per year. According to the study, this condition, known as neonatal abstinence syndrome, results in seizures, breathing problems, dehydration, difficulty feeding, tremors and irritability in infants at birth. These infants must be hospitalized for up to many weeks while doctors ween them of their opium dependence with smaller doses of morphine or methadone.

The study, after looking at two databases consisting of “representative samples” from patients across the country, made two shocking discoveries. Over the period from 2000-2009, the number of pregnant women using opiate pain killers increased to five times as much, while the number of babies diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome tripled at the same rate.

Not only is it an awful thing for these infants to be born addicted to opiates, but it also takes “a tremendous amount of nursing care” and time to cure these babies, according to Dr. Mark Hudak of the University of Florida College of Medicine. In the study, infants averaged about 16 days in the hospital. It takes them this long to be initially “cuddled,” placed in a dark room, then given tapered doses of methadone or morphine until the baby is weened. However, Hudak also states that “[morphine and methadone] are easy to overdose babies with” and that “there have been deaths” in this treatment.

According to the article, doctors agree that the best approach to deal with this problem is to cure women of their addictions before they are pregnant and prescribe them little or no opiate painkillers.

Learning to Love

Photo Credit: Victoria Made Flickr

For years, scientists have believed that the nurture and love we receive from our parents when we are an infant, determines how we are when we are older. We learn very early on to trust and love and the relationship you have with your parents when you are a baby can affect relationships you have later in life. For example, researchers say that a mistreated infant may turn argumentative in stressful situations, while nurtured babies tend to deal with stress more skillfully.

Researchers Simpson, Collins, and Salvatore put babies and their mothers in high-tension situations and then years later researched the babies’ relationships. The researchers found that there is a link between the situations babies are put in and the relationship to the mother, and later relationships and stress management. However, they also found that although there is a link, it is not an extremely strong factor. You can learn to love, trust, and throughout your life, even if something traumatic did happen in your infancy.

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