News by Subject Social & Behavior

Adverse outcomes from childhood exposures to lead and mercury are on the decline in the United States, likely due to decades of restrictions on the use of heavy metals, a new study finds.

Researchers from King's College London have shown that the brains of young adult Romanian adoptees who were institutionalized as children are around 8.6% smaller than the brains of English adoptees who have not suffered this form of deprivation.

A mother's obesity in pregnancy can affect her child's development years down the road, according to researchers who found lagging motor skills in preschoolers and lower IQ in middle childhood for boys whose mothers were severely overweight while pregnant. At age 7, the boys whose mothers were overweight or obese in pregnancy had scores 5 or more points lower on full-scale IQ tests. No effect was found in the girls.

A mother's obesity in pregnancy can affect her child's development years down the road, according to researchers who found impaired motor skills in preschoolers and lower IQ in middle childhood for boys whose mothers were severely overweight while expecting them. A team of nutrition and environmental health researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Columbia University found that the differences are comparable to the impact of lead exposure in early childhood.

People with specific brain attributes are more likely than others to benefit from targeted cognitive interventions designed to enhance fluid intelligence, scientists report in a new study. Fluid intelligence is a measure of one's ability to adapt to new situations and solve never-before-seen problems.

In a surprising finding using the standard animal model of Down syndrome (DS), scientists were able to correct the learning and memory deficits associated with the condition -- the leading genetic cause of cognitive disability and the most frequently diagnosed chromosomal disorder in the US -- with drugs that target the body's response to cellular stresses.

Why do some people learn music more quickly than others? Intelligence could play a role, according to a Michigan State University study that investigated the early stages of learning to play piano.

A child's temperament is affected by the early stages of their life. Researchers from the University of Warwick, the University of Tennessee, University of Southampton and Kings College London have found children who were born very preterm (under 32 weeks gestation) or very low birthweight (under 1500g) had similar temperamental difficulties in controlling their impulses, to children who experienced institutional deprivation.