•Children with hearing aids or cochlear implants perform poorer than children with normal hearing in a timbre recognition test.•Some children with hearing aids or cochlear implants reach age ...equivalent levels of timbre recognition.•Age at test is associated with performance of timbre recognition.•Children with hearing aids or cochlear implants have same formal music experience as children with normal hearing.•Children with hearing aids or cochlear implants have same amount of weekly music listening as children with normal hearing.
A new generation of children with hearing impairment (HI) has emerged due to the introduction of universal neonatal hearing screening, medical–surgical/technical and educational advances. Aim: ...Investigation of long-term development of vocabulary and social well-being of children with HI, including children with HI and additional disability. Method and Material: The project design was prospective, longitudinal, and comparative. Level of receptive vocabulary was compared to children with normal hearing, type of hearing technology, gender, additional disability, diagnosis of HI, level of social well-being, and start age for use of hearing technology. A total of 231 children participated. Intervention included early start of hearing technology and three years of auditory–verbal therapy (AVT) at the preschool level, followed by 3 years of AV guidance at the school level. Results: Children with HI scored within the norm for receptive vocabulary but were outperformed by the control group. Children with HI and a diagnosed additional disability scored lower than children without additional disability, in terms of parental assessments of social well-being. Children with additional disabilities showed positive progression in terms of receptive vocabulary development. Conclusions: New generations with HI possess the potential to succeed academically in accordance with individual abilities and become active participants in the working market.
History re-written for children with hearing impairment Wischmann, Signe; Josvassen, Jane Lignel; Schiøth, Christina ...
International journal of pediatric otorhinolaryngology,
January 2022, 2022-Jan, 2022-01-00, 20220101, Letnik:
152
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
A new generation of children with hearing impairment (HI) has emerged due to introduction of universal neonatal hearing screening, medical-surgical/technical and educational advances in the field of ...paediatric audiology.
The primary aim of the study was to investigate long-term development of language fundamentals of children with HI at school level and analyse associations to several background variables.
The project design is prospective, longitudinal and comparative and was conducted over a three-year period with annual testing of core language, expressive language, working memory and pragmatics. Language scores were compared to type of hearing technology, gender, additional disability, diagnosis of HI, level of social well-being and start age of use of hearing technology. A total of 56 children participated (Children with HI N = 47; Children with normal hearing (NH) N = 9). Intervention included early start and full time use of hearing technology and 3 years of Auditory Verbal (AV) guidance at school level.
Children with HI scored within the norm on all language fundamentals and showed high scores on parental assessments of level of social well-being. No significant association was found between any of the language fundamentals and social well-being. Children with HI and a diagnosed additional disability showed positive progression in terms of language development over the three years.
The new generation of children with HI showed potentials of developing language fundamentals within normal range and thrived in terms of social well-being. Opportunities exist for children to be fully included in their respective local hearing community, if qualitative technical and educational intervention is provided.
Few studies have used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to investigate the micro-structural alterations of WM in patients with restrictive eating disorders (rED), and longitudinal data are lacking. ...Twelve patients with rED were scanned at diagnosis and after one year of family-based treatment, and compared to twenty-four healthy controls (HCs) through DTI analysis. A tract-based spatial statistics procedure was used to investigate diffusivity parameters: fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean, radial and axial diffusivities (MD, RD and AD, respectively). Reduced FA and increased RD were found in patients at baseline in the corpus callosum, corona radiata and posterior thalamic radiation compared with controls. However, no differences were found between follow-up patients and controls, suggesting a partial normalization of the diffusivity parameters. In patients, trends for a negative correlation were found between the baseline FA of the right anterior corona radiata and the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire total score, while a positive trend was found between the baseline FA in the splenium of corpus callosum and the weight loss occurred between maximal documented weight and time of admission. A positive trend for correlation was also found between baseline FA in the right anterior corona radiata and the decrease in the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory Revised total score over time. Our results suggest that the integrity of the limbic-thalamo-cortical projections and the reward-related circuitry are important for cognitive control processes and reward responsiveness in regulating eating behavior.
Bariatric surgery is an effective method to rapidly induce weight loss in severely obese people, however its impact on brain functional connectivity after longer periods of follow-up is yet to be ...assessed. We investigated changes in connectivity in 16 severely obese women one month before, one month after and one year after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery (RYGB). 12 lean controls were also enrolled. Resting-state fMRI was acquired for all participants following an overnight fast and after a 260 kcal load. Connectivity between regions involved in food-related saliency attribution and reward-driven eating behavior was stronger in presurgery patients compared to controls, but progressively weakened after follow-up. At one year, changes in networks related to cognitive control over eating and bodily perception also occurred. Connectivity between regions involved in emotional control and social cognition had a temporary reduction early after treatment but had increased again after one year of follow-up. Furthermore, we could predict the BMI loss by presurgery connectivity in areas linked to emotional control and social interaction. RYGBP seems to reshape brain functional connectivity, early affecting cognitive control over eating, and these changes could be an important part of the therapeutic effect of bariatric surgery.
Objective
Patients with atypical anorexia nervosa (AN) have many features overlapping with AN in terms of genetic risk, age of onset, psychopathology and prognosis of outcome, although the weight ...loss may not be a core factor. While brain structural alterations have been reported in AN, there are currently no data regarding atypical AN patients.
Method
We investigated brain structure through a voxel‐based morphometry analysis in 22 adolescent females newly‐diagnosed with atypical AN, and 38 age‐ and sex‐matched healthy controls (HC). ED‐related psychopathology, impulsiveness and obsessive‐compulsive traits were assessed with the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE‐Q), Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS‐11) and Obsessive‐compulsive Inventory Revised (OCI‐R), respectively. Body mass index (BMI) was also calculated.
Results
Patients and HC differed significantly on BMI (p < .002), EDE‐Q total score (p < .000) and OCI‐R total score (p < .000). No differences could be detected in grey matter (GM) regional volume between groups.
Discussion
The ED‐related cognitions in atypical AN patients would suggest that atypical AN and AN could be part of the same spectrum of restrictive‐ED. However, contrary to previous reports in AN, our atypical AN patients did not show any GM volume reduction. The different degree of weight loss might play a role in determining such discrepancy. Alternatively, the preservation of GM volume might indeed differentiate atypical AN from AN.
Metformin is a widely prescribed antihyperglycemic agent that has been also associated with multiple therapeutic effects in various diseases, including several types of malignancies. There is growing ...evidence regarding the contribution of the epigenetic mechanisms in reaching metformin's therapeutic goals; however, the effect of metformin on human cells in vivo is not comprehensively studied. The aim of our study was to examine metformin-induced alterations of DNA methylation profiles in white blood cells of healthy volunteers, employing a longitudinal study design.
Twelve healthy metformin-naïve individuals where enrolled in the study. Genome-wide DNA methylation pattern was estimated at baseline, 10 h and 7 days after the start of metformin administration. The whole-genome DNA methylation analysis in total revealed 125 differentially methylated CpGs, of which 11 CpGs and their associated genes with the most consistent changes in the DNA methylation profile were selected: POFUT2, CAMKK1, EML3, KIAA1614, UPF1, MUC4, LOC727982, SIX3, ADAM8, SNORD12B, VPS8, and several differentially methylated regions as novel potential epigenetic targets of metformin. The main functions of the majority of top-ranked differentially methylated loci and their representative cell signaling pathways were linked to the well-known metformin therapy targets: regulatory processes of energy homeostasis, inflammatory responses, tumorigenesis, and neurodegenerative diseases.
Here we demonstrate for the first time the immediate effect of short-term metformin administration at therapeutic doses on epigenetic regulation in human white blood cells. These findings suggest the DNA methylation process as one of the mechanisms involved in the action of metformin, thereby revealing novel targets and directions of the molecular mechanisms underlying the various beneficial effects of metformin.
EU Clinical Trials Register, 2016-001092-74. Registered 23 March 2017, https://www.clinicaltrialsregister.eu/ctr-search/trial/2016-001092-74/LV .
Objective
Patients with atypical anorexia nervosa (AN) are often in the normal‐weight range at presentation; however, signs of starvation and medical instability are not rare. White matter (WM) ...microstructural correlates of atypical AN have not yet been investigated, leaving an important gap in our knowledge regarding the neural pathogenesis of this disorder.
Method
We investigated WM microstructural integrity in 25 drug‐naïve adolescent patients with atypical AN and 25 healthy controls, using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) with a tract‐based spatial statistics (TBSS) approach. Psychological variables related to the eating disorder and depressive symptoms were also evaluated by administering the eating disorder examination questionnaire (EDE‐Q) and the Montgomery–Åsberg depression rating scale (MADRS‐S) respectively, to all participants.
Results
Patients and controls were in the normal‐weight range and did not differ from the body mass index standard deviations for their age. No between groups difference in WM microstructure could be detected.
Discussion
Our findings support the hypothesis that brain structural alterations may not be associated to early‐stage atypical AN. These findings also suggest that previous observations of alterations in WM microstructure in full syndrome AN may constitute state‐related consequences of severe weight loss. Whether the preservation of WM structure is a pathogenetically discriminant feature of atypical AN or only an effect of a less severe nutritional disturbance, will have to be verified by future studies on larger samples, possibly directly comparing AN and atypical AN.
Atypical anorexia nervosa (AN) usually occurs during adolescence. Patients are often in the normal-weight range at diagnosis; however, they often present with signs of medical complications and ...severe restraint over eating, body dissatisfaction, and low self-esteem. We investigated functional circuitry underlying the hedonic response in 28 female adolescent patients diagnosed with atypical AN and 33 healthy controls. Participants were shown images of food with high (HC) or low (LC) caloric content in alternating blocks during functional MRI. The HC > LC contrast was calculated. Based on the previous literature on full-threshold AN, we hypothesized that patients would exhibit increased connectivity in areas involved in sensory processing and bottom-up responses, coupled to increased connectivity from areas related to top-down inhibitory control, compared with controls. Patients showed increased connectivity in pathways related to multimodal somatosensory processing and memory retrieval. The connectivity was on the other hand decreased in patients in salience and attentional networks, and in a wide cerebello-occipital network. Our study was the first investigation of food-related neural response in atypical AN. Our findings support higher somatosensory processing in patients in response to HC food images compared with controls, however HC food was less efficient than LC food in engaging patients' bottom-up salient responses, and was not associated with connectivity increases in inhibitory control regions. These findings suggest that the psychopathological mechanisms underlying food restriction in atypical AN differ from full-threshold AN. Elucidating the mechanisms underlying the development and maintenance of eating behavior in atypical AN might help designing specific treatment strategies.
PDF
