Exposure to flame retardants and pesticides resulted in more than a million cases of intellectual disability in children between 2001 and 2016. However, adverse outcomes from exposure to mercury and lead fell significantly during the same period.
Young adults who faced extreme deprivation as children had, on average, an 8.6% smaller brain size than their peers who did not suffer from deprivation. The deprivation related changes in brain volume were associated with lower IQ and increased ADHD symptoms.
Obesity during pregnancy was associated with lower IQ among boys, but not girls, at age 7. The findings suggest maternal obesity has long=term implications for early cognitive development.
The ability to select specific traits, such as height or IQ, brought about by multiple genes is more complicated than most people realize.
Higher intelligence was associated with higher temporal stability of brain network modularity. Brain regions of the dorsal attention network contributed most to the observed effect.
Study finds an association between acetaminophen use during mid-to-late pregnancy and increased risk of hyperactivity, attention problems, and other behavioral deficits in young children. Boys appear to be more susceptible to the adverse effects acetaminophen use during pregnancy. However, the negative effects only seem to persist during the early years of life.
Maternal exposure to higher levels of air pollution is associated with lower IQ scores in their children. For those whose mothers were in the highest 10% of exposure had IQ score that were, on average, 2.5 points lower than those whose mothers were in the lowest 10%. However, higher maternal folate levels appear to neurtralize the effect of high pollution exposure on offspring.
Children with the APOE E4 gene perform lower on verbal and general IQ tests than their peers without the genetic risk factor. APOE E4 is a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. The study suggests the effects of the gene manifests before adulthood and could be the earliest biomarker for later vulnerability to Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers argue the term "high functioning autism" be abandoned by the scientific community as it is misleading and may create harmful expectations of abilities for children on the autism spectrum. "High functioning autism" is not a diagnostic term. The term is based on IQ assessments rather than functional assessments. While children with ASD may exhibit normal-to-higher IQ for their age, many experience skill based, social and behavioral difficulties that impact their daily lives.
A new neuroimaging study provides an insight into the neurobiology of those willing to commit terrorist acts. Researchers consider the psychological and social factors which also contribute to radicalization, and discuss how inclusive societies could help in the fight against political violence.
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Using artificial intelligence, researchers discover mutations in noncoding regions of the human genome that may result in autism. The noncoding mutations are associated with altered gene regulation in children with ASD. Additionally, the mutations affect gene expression in the brain and genes already linked to autism, such as those responsible for neuron development and migration.
Results provide new insight into evolution, IQ and development of the human brain.
