Plasticity in children

BACKGROUND: Wounds of the finger nail bed represent a frequent injury, especially in children. Residents often learn nail bed repair on patients without prior training. We aimed to develop and evaluate a "low-fidelity" simulation model of nail bed repair. METHODS: The model consists of a false nail on a plastic finger and a hydrocolloid dressing, which is pasted on the nail bed site and cut horizontally. This model allows nail bed suture and nail fixation...

OBJECTIVE: To examine the reciprocal relationships between parenting stress and psychosocial adjustment of children with congenital craniofacial anomalies (CFAs) at 2 time points: school entry and approximately 2.5 years later, after children had time to adjust to school. DESIGN: Retrospective review of medical charts of children with CFAs. SETTING: Department of reconstructive plastic surgery at an urban medical center. PARTICIPANTS: Parents of 42 children aged 3...

OBJECTIVE: To examine whether polygenic susceptibility for body mass index (BMI) interacts with cumulative stress exposure, potentially exacerbating and buffering the effects of chronic stress, to predict obesity during childhood. METHODS: Data were analyzed from an established prospective puberty cohort in Anhui province, China. A total of 1000 children (421 boys and 579 girls, mean (standard deviation) age 8.97 (0.86) years) who had complete DNA genotyping, hair cortisol concentration and BMI were eligible for the study...

Approximately 15% of the Western world population, including pregnant women and their children, is characterized as vitamin C (vitC) deficient. In guinea pigs, early life vitC deficiency causes spatial memory deficits, decreased hippocampal volume and neuron numbers, in otherwise clinically healthy animals. We hypothesized that vitC deficiency leads to decreased brain-derived neurotrophic factor and synaptic plasticity markers in selected brain areas (frontal cortex, hippocampus and striatum) and cause morphological changes in cornu ammonis 1 pyramidal neurons of the hippocampus either through a direct effect or indirectly by increased oxidative stress...

Neurophysiological and neuroimaging data suggest that the brains of not only children but also adults are reorganized based on sensory inputs and behaviors. Plastic changes in the brain are generally beneficial; however, maladaptive cortical reorganization in the auditory cortex may lead to hearing disorders such as tinnitus and hyperacusis. Recent studies attempted to noninvasively visualize pathological neural activity in the living human brain and reverse maladaptive cortical reorganization by the suitable manipulation of auditory inputs in order to alleviate detrimental auditory symptoms...

Tessier No 3 facial cleft (oro-nasal-ocular clefts) is the rarest and most challenging of all the Tessier clefts. Reports on Tessier No 3 clinical findings, surgical techniques, and outcomes are varied due to the scarcity of patients and the wide range of phenotypic findings. The authors present our experience of 2 children born with Tessier No 3 clefts who were both managed at the Arkansas Children's Hospital. Our purpose is to add knowledge on this rare craniofacial cleft by providing detailed soft tissue findings, skeletal findings, operative techniques, early postoperative outcome, and suggestions of a treatment protocol...

There is growing evidence that exercise induced experience dependent plasticity may foster structural and functional recovery following brain injury. We examined the efficacy of exercise training for neural and cognitive recovery in long-term pediatric brain tumor survivors treated with radiation. We conducted a controlled clinical trial with crossover of exercise training (vs. no training) in a volunteer sample of 28 children treated with cranial radiation for brain tumors (mean age = 11.5 yrs.; mean time since diagnosis = 5...

Background: Every year millions of individuals acquire scars. A literature review of patient-reported outcome (PRO) instruments identified content limitations in existing scar-specific measures. The aim of this study was to develop a new PRO instrument called SCAR-Q for children and adults with surgical, traumatic, and burn scars. Methods: We performed a secondary analysis of the qualitative datasets used in the development of PRO instruments for plastic and reconstructive surgery, that is, BREAST-Q, FACE-Q, BODY-Q, and CLEFT-Q...

BACKGROUND: Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) is a leading cause of hyperactivity in children. Excitation of dopamine D1 receptor-expressing medium spiny neurons (D1-MSNs) of the dorsomedial striatum (DMS), a brain region that controls voluntary behavior, is known to induce hyperactivity in mice. We therefore hypothesized that PAE-linked hyperactivity was due to persistently altered glutamatergic activity in DMS D1-MSNs. METHODS: Female Ai14 tdTomato-reporter mice were given access to alcohol in an intermittent-access, 2-bottle choice paradigm before pregnancy, and following mating with male D1-Cre mice, through the pregnancy period, and until postnatal day (P) 10...

Malnourished children in low-income contexts usually suffer from environmental enteric dysfunction, which is damage to the intestines caused by chronic exposure to bacterial pathogens from feces hypothesized to contribute to stunting. Many intervention studies are piloting "Baby water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH)" to help rural farming families reduce infant and young children's (IYC's) exposure to human and free-range livestock feces. One proposed Baby WASH intervention is a play-yard, which consists of a baby-proofed structure (i...

Linguistic manual gestures are the basis of sign languages used by deaf individuals. Working memory and language processing are intimately connected and thus when language is gesture-based, it is important to understand related working memory mechanisms. This article reviews work on working memory for linguistic and non-linguistic manual gestures and discusses theoretical and applied implications. Empirical evidence shows that there are effects of load and stimulus degradation on working memory for manual gestures...

Phthalate esters, suspected endocrine disrupting chemicals, are used in a wide range of applications. Because phthalate esters are not covalently bound, they can easily leach into the indoor environment and associate to dust particles. Thus, exposure may occur through inhalation, ingestion, or contact with the skin. However, it is unclear to what degree indoor dust contributes to the daily intake of phthalate esters. This study investigates household dust as an exposure pathway for seven phthalate esters, the monoester MEHP, and the plasticizer DINCH...

Alpha-synuclein ( α -synuclein) and beta-synuclein ( β -synuclein) are presynaptic proteins playing important roles in neuronal plasticity and synaptic vesicle regulation. To evaluate the association of these two proteins and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), we investigated the plasma α -synuclein and β -synuclein levels in 39 male children with ASD (2 subgroups: 25 autism and 14 pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS)) comparing with 29 sex- and age-matched controls by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)...

The challenges of managing Gustilo IIIB tibial fractures (ie, high energy trauma with a contaminated wound >10 cm in length, severe comminution ["crumbling"] or segmental fractures, and periosteal stripping) in children are unique in part because no clear guidelines exist and the injuries may cause short-term and long-term complications. Repeated wound debridement and secondary reconstruction are required in approximately 20% of these cases in both adults and children. A 13-year-old girl presented with severe polytrauma including an open Gustilo type IIIB fracture of the left lower leg...

The study of music training as a model for structural plasticity has evolved significantly over the past 15 years. Neuroimaging studies have identified characteristic structural brain alterations in musicians compared to nonmusicians in school-age children and adults, using primarily cross-sectional designs. Despite this emerging evidence and advances in pediatric neuroimaging techniques, hardly any studies have examined brain development in early childhood (before age 8) in association with musical training, and longitudinal studies starting in infancy or preschool are particularly scarce...

The functional changes that occur in the brain due to deafness may affect the way the auditory system processes sound after cochlear implantation. Brain plasticity plays a crucial role in the success of cochlear implantation to facilitate or develop spoken language in profoundly deaf individuals. The functional plasticity that occurs in postlingually deaf adults during periods of deafness can both support and hinder speech understanding with a cochlear implant, depending on the nature and degree of functional changes...

Although antipsychotic drugs are mainly used for treating schizophrenia, they are widely used for treating various psychiatric diseases in adults, the elderly, adolescents and even children. Today, about 1.2% of the worldwide population suffers from psychosis and related disorders, which translates to about 7.5 million subjects potentially targeted by antipsychotic drugs. Neurites project from the cell body of neurons and connect neurons to each other to form neural networks. Deficits in neurite outgrowth and integrity are implicated in psychiatric diseases including schizophrenia...

Cadaver body bags are the conventional method to contain a human body or human remains, which includes the use for storage and transportation of the deceased at any crime scene or disaster scene. During disasters, most often than not, the first responders including the police will be equipped with cadaver body bags to do scene processing of human remains and collection of personal belongings at the disaster site. However, in an unanticipated large scale disasters involving hundreds and thousands of fatalities, cadaver body bags supplies may be scarce...

The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation to the supplementary motor area to inhibit involuntary movements of a child. An 8-year-old boy who developed hypoxic encephalopathy after asphyxia at the age of 2 had difficulty in remaining standing without support because of involuntary movements. He was instructed to remain standing with his plastic ankle-foot orthosis for 10 s at three time points by leaning forward with his forearms on a desk. He received cathodal or sham transcranial direct current stimulation to the supplementary motor area at 1 mA for 10 min...

The height response to the use of growth hormone in short height cases has already been confirmed in the literature. The influence of the insulin-like growth factor 1 (GH-IGF1) axis components on development, function, regeneration, neuroprotection, cognition, and motor functions has been evaluated in experimental studies and in adults with central nervous system lesions. However, there is still little research on the clinical impact of hormone replacement on neurological and psychomotor development. This report presents the case of a patient with excellent weight-height recovery and, even more surprisingly, neurological and psychomotor development in response to use of growth hormone...