Friday, October 18, 2013

Federal workers back to work after 16-day shutdown

Furloughed park ranger Rich Lechleitner, left, visits with friend Jana Gardiner co-owner of Ashford Creek Pottery Tuesday Oct. 15, 2013 as Mount Rainier National Park in Washington remained closed due to the partial government shutdown. Gardiner, a 33 year resident of Ashford has seen only a trickle of visitors since the shutdown closed Mount Rainier National Park. (AP Photo/The News Tribune, Dean J. Koepfler)







Furloughed park ranger Rich Lechleitner, left, visits with friend Jana Gardiner co-owner of Ashford Creek Pottery Tuesday Oct. 15, 2013 as Mount Rainier National Park in Washington remained closed due to the partial government shutdown. Gardiner, a 33 year resident of Ashford has seen only a trickle of visitors since the shutdown closed Mount Rainier National Park. (AP Photo/The News Tribune, Dean J. Koepfler)







(AP) — Barriers went down at federal memorials and National Park Service sites, and thousands of furloughed federal workers returned to work across the country Thursday after 16 days off the job due to the partial government shutdown.

Among the sites reopening were Gettysburg National Park in Pennsylvania, and the U.S. Capitol visitors center. Hundreds of others across the country were ready to follow suit throughout Thursday.

"Just to be able to get back to serving the public is so important," said Greg Bettwy as he prepared to return to his job in Washington with the Smithsonian Institution's human resource department. Bettwy said he watched his spending carefully during the shutdown — choosing store brands at the grocery store and forgoing a trip to see a Penn State football game.

The Office of Personnel Management announced that workers should return to work on their next regularly scheduled work day — Thursday for most workers. Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of workers have been furloughed since the shutdown began Oct. 1. The office encouraged agencies to be flexible for a smooth transition by allowing telework and excused absences in some cases.

In Washington, the Capitol's visitor center planned to resume tours Thursday, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum was reopening, and the Smithsonian — overseer of many of Washington's major museums — proclaimed on Twitter, "We're back from the (hashtag)shutdown!" The National Zoo was set to reopen Friday, though its popular panda cam was expected to be back online Thursday.

The returning workers' presence will be felt on the roads and rails in the Washington region, where commutes have been less crowded over the past two weeks. The regional transit agency, Metro, reported a 20 percent drop in ridership when the shutdown began and has said it lost a few hundred thousand dollars each day.

Osman Naimyar, a taxi cab driver in Washington, said his business dropped by 15 to 20 percent during the shutdown, and he was pleased to see it end.

"More business. More money," he said.

Workers began filing in well before dawn at the U.S. Geological Survey's campus in Reston, about 20 miles outside of Washington.

"Feels kind of strange," said Kathleen Faison of Ashburn, a training specialist at the survey, as she headed into the office. "I kind of wish they would have kept us out until Monday."

Faison said during the first few days of the shutdown, she followed the news closely, anticipating that she could be called back any day. But by week two, "I just kind of fell into my own personal routine," she said.

She said she considered teleworking for the first day or two but eventually decided "I might as well just get back into the swing of things."

Hydrologist Julian Wayland, carrying his lunch in a paper bag, said he wasn't sure how much work had piled up during the shutdown. His primary job is determining the age of groundwater samples.

"We're definitely behind," he said. "I'm glad it's over."

In Ohio, visitor centers, restrooms and other areas at Cuyahoga Valley National Park were back in service.

The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, also was reopening on a normal basis. It had been open only one day during the shutdown.

Nationwide, the impasse had shuttered monuments and national parks. In Florida, the closure of the Everglades National Park had put almost all Florida Bay off limits, but commercial fishermen were set to return Friday. Parks across the country made similar plans.

The shutdown also mostly closed down NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department. Critical functions of government went on as usual, but the closure and potential default weighed on the economy and spooked the financial markets.

Standard & Poor's estimated the shutdown has taken $24 billion out of the economy.

____

Crary reported from New York. Associated Press writer Matthew Barakat in Reston, Va., contributed to this report.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-10-17-Shutdown-Government%20Reopens/id-92348fbee995406e8872dc36b3bf55b3
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Russia Media Tycoons Expand _ With Kremlin's Help


MOSCOW (AP) — The skinny man in a baggy, wrinkled shirt carting groceries back to his car could have been any Silicon Valley programmer, were it not for the Russian license plate on the car behind him.


The grainy photograph is the first to show NSA leaker Edward Snowden in his new life in Russia after leaving the Moscow airport.


The force behind the scoop? A father-and-son team who like to see themselves as Russia's Murdochs.


With a well-oiled system of paying for scoops, the Gabrelyanovs have been able to crawl into every crevice of Russian life from show business to the security services. Their website Lifenews, which published the photo confirmed authentic by Snowden's lawyer, is part of an expanding empire that has come to dominate Russia's media landscape in the decades since the elder Gabrelyanov started off as a provincial tabloid publisher.


A key reason for their recent success: obsequious loyalty to the Kremlin. The father, Aram Gabrelyanov, refers to President Vladimir Putin as the "father of the nation"— a fealty that was rewarded when one of Putin's oldest friends spent $80 million to become a key shareholder in the Gabrelyanovs' holding company, News Media, providing it with a flood of cash for investment.


Its purchasing power and carefully cultivated contacts are what brought Lifenews its first Snowden exclusive: a picture of the systems analyst leaving the airport after Russia granted him asylum on Aug. 1. That was followed on Oct. 7 by the image of Snowden carrying groceries in Moscow. With its savvy for scoops, the company often works as a de facto arm of Kremlin power — humiliating Putin's opponents by catching them in all sorts of misdeeds.


But it isn't just the Kremlin that values the Gabrelyanovs.


The public feeds on their coverage, too, because they are among the few people in Russian media still able to break news — even if it's with a strong establishment slant — enabling them to generate the clicks and the buzz that sterile state media can no longer muster.


Aram Gabrelyanov, who resembles a miniaturized, fleshier version of James Gandolfini, can usually be found barking orders across the sleek newsroom to his army of young journalists. Born to an Armenian builder father, Gabrelyanov has a warm, southern sense of humor, and it's hard for him to go five minutes without whipping out an anecdote.


He first got the bug for tabloid journalism while at university in Soviet times, where he tricked the KGB agent on campus into letting him into the library where foreign publications were kept.


That exposure served him well when he moved to the provincial town of Ulyanovsk in the late 1980s, where he rapidly moved up in the local publishing world. He then relocated to the capital and, after a few hit-and-miss years, made it big in 2001 with his national tabloid Zhizn — Life — which now has a circulation of 1.6 million.


Today, News Media Holding earns $1.5 billion per year. In addition to Life, they own Izvestia, once the official newspaper of the Soviet government, as well as another tabloid and three websites. The younger son and heir to the empire, 24-year-old Ashot, runs Lifenews.ru and also a new TV station. There is no substantive division between the holding's publications, which freely feed one another information and scoops that are then retailored for each audience. The elder son, 26-year-old Artem, directs their comic book line, with a host of Russified superheroes that includes an Orthodox priest.


The Gabrelyanovs pay their staff extravagantly — in some cases, $10,000 per month — with the understanding that a large chunk of that should be spent on payments to "agents," or the people in law enforcement and hospitals who can feed scoops. Gabrelyanov said he paid between $10,000 and $30,000 for the shots of Snowden leaving the airport, and Life journalists have won some of their biggest breaks by bribing their way into hospitals to film Russian mega-stars on their deathbeds.


Aram Gabrelyanov defends the "agent" system as the key to his empire's success: "We categorically won't retreat from this system, it's our business."


One former Life editor-in-chief even boasted about the tactics.


"Before us nobody had ever done anything as systematic, and paid them for it. We spanned the entire city," said Timur Marder, who started as an intern in Ulyanovsk in 1995 and worked his way up the publication ladder to lead Life in 2005 before quitting in 2009 over a personal dispute.


"There were many times," Marder said, "when our journalists arrived at the scene before investigators, the police or the ambulance."


For many of their scoops, the Gabrelyanovs' publications have been widely believed to have relied on tips from Russia's security apparatus — and many of those officials frequently make a flattering appearance on the pages of his papers.


That proximity to the security services also has been demonstrated by their hardline stance on Russia's opposition movement, to which they take a hatchet much more aggressively than state-controlled media. When protests erupted in Russia following manipulated parliamentary elections in 2011, Lifenews published phone calls of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov insulting his fellow activists and protesters as "hamsters" and "scared penguins." When questioned on the subject, the Gabrelyanovs insisted that they hadn't tapped Nemtsov's phone but had "received" the files — suggesting they came from the security services.


This go-for-the-jugular mentality has allowed Lifenews's star to rise, while viewership of state-controlled television is in steep decline.


Vasily Gatov, an analyst at Novosti Medialab, said state-media have lost their capacity to cover major events. "They think too long about whether we should cover this or not," said Gatov. "He (Gabrelyanov) doesn't wait; he trusts his feelings and his judgment."


Aram Gabrelyanov tries to portray News Media as an outsider organization and insists that it has few high-up contacts and doesn't need them. "You can't recruit the president of the United States," he said, "but you can probably recruit his cleaning lady."


That quip clashes with the fact that Gabrelyanov has spent the last few years cozying up to Kremlin insiders.


It was in the mid-2000s, as Putin was consolidating his power, that Gabrelyanov jumped on the political bandwagon and established one simple rule in his company: Don't mess with Putin. "We do what we can to make him a symbol that unites the country," he said.


The loyalty was rewarded when, in 2008, Putin's old friend Yuri Kovalchuk — dubbed "the Kremlin's banker" — bought just under half the company for $80 million. The resulting cash flow allowed the Gabrelyanovs to expand their empire, by opening the Lifenews website and a host of other outlets in the same year.


Gabrelyanov insists he's won the clout to be an independent voice.


"When some bureaucrat talks to me," he said, "I have a question: Who the hell are you and why should I listen to you?"


Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=236635421&ft=1&f=
Category: ufc   dallas cowboys   fox sports   pharrell   paulina gretzky  

Ben Foster cycles ahead on Lance Armstrong movie

LONDON (AP) — American actor Ben Foster is cycling into the lead as Lance Armstrong in a new movie about the disgraced American cyclist.


Director Stephen Frears said filming started Wednesday on the untitled project, and Foster is already proving to be a champion in the saddle.


Frears claims Foster is a "really, really good actor and now he's a very good cyclist. The cyclists were pleased with him."


The movie follows the rise of Armstrong, his cancer battle, retirement and exposure by journalist David Walsh.


Irish star Chris O'Dowd plays Walsh, with Guillaume Canet and Jesse Plemons in supporting roles.


Frears says Armstrong is endlessly complex and there could be many more films made about him. He spoke at Wednesday's London Film Festival gala for his latest movie, "Philomena," staring Judi Dench.


Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ben-foster-cycles-ahead-lance-armstrong-movie-101157671.html
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Thursday, October 17, 2013

Obama says new U.S. farm bill is near-term priority


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, in a rebuke to proposals by House Republicans for steep cuts in food stamps for the poor, urged Congress on Thursday to pass a farm bill "that protects children and vulnerable adults in time of need."


Obama put the long-delayed bill, more than a year overdue, among three priorities for resolution by end of the year. Also on the list were immigration reform and a budget agreement.


Food stamps, the major U.S. antihunger program, are the make-or-break issue for the $500 billion, five-year farm bill. House Republicans want to tighten eligibility rules and save $39 billion over a decade. The Democratic-run Senate suggested $4.5 billion could be squeezed out by closing certain loopholes.


In remarks at the White House, Obama said "we should pass a farm bill, one that American farmers and ranchers can depend on; one that protects vulnerable children and adults in times of need; one that gives rural communities opportunities to grow and the long-term certainty that they deserve."


The administration has threatened twice to veto large cuts in food stamps. It said Congress should instead end the $5 billion-a-year "direct payment" subsidy to farmers and scale back on federal subsidies for crop insurance.


Obama credited the Senate for writing "a solid, bipartisan" bill. "If House Republicans have ideas that they think would improve the farm bill, let's see them. Let's negotiate. What are we waiting for? Let's get this done," said Obama.


In response, the House Agriculture Committee said the four leaders of the House and Senate committees met on Wednesday to get negotiations moving. The first meeting of the 41 "conferees" from the House and Senate, appointed to write a compromise farm bill, was expected by the end of the month.


An estimated 3.8 million people would lose food stamp benefits in 2014 under the House bill, mostly by shortening the time able-bodied adults can receive benefits and by eliminating a provision, created as part of welfare reform, that allows benefits to people with more assets than usually permitted.


A near-record 47.8 million people received benefits at latest count. Enrollment surged by more than 20 million people since the recession of 2008-09. Republican say continued high enrollment is a sign the program needs reform. Democrats say it shows weak economic recovery.


(Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)



Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-says-u-farm-bill-near-term-priority-214440466--sector.html
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Jamie Foxx to Play Martin Luther King Jr. in New Biopic With Director Oliver Stone


It looks like Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream will live on -- in Jamie Foxx. The Django Unchained actor, 45, has been tapped to play the late iconic civil rights activist in an upcoming biopic directed by Oliver Stone, the Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps filmmaker confirmed to The Wall Street Journal.


PHOTOS: Stars' big screen twins


"We're looking for a way to relate to this extraordinary man," Stone told the Journal of the film, which is described by the paper as an "authorized version" of MLK's life story. According to The Wrap, several members of the King family are expected to serve as executive producers.


PHOTOS: Jamie in Django Unchained, and other Oscar nominated movies


The director/screenwriter -- who has won Academy Awards for his work on Midnight Express, Platoon, and Born on the Fourth of July -- has long been drawn to scripts with historical and political significance. He previously directed 1991's JFK, 1995's Nixon, and 2008's W. (about George W. Bush). He also has a past with Foxx: The two last worked together on the 1999 football drama Any Given Sunday.


PHOTOS: Jamie's most embarrassing role?


Foxx is no stranger to biopics, either. He won an Oscar for bringing Ray Charles to life in the 2004 biopic Ray. He's currently filming the new movie adaptation of Annie with Quvenzhane Wallis.


Tell Us: Do you think Jamie Foxx will be a good Martin Luther King Jr.?


Source: http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/jamie-foxx-to-play-martin-luther-king-jr-in-new-biopic-with-director-oliver-stone-20131710
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Top 10 Cost Effective Home Improvement Projects - Elizabeth Rose ...

Top 10 Midrange Projects

1. Entry Door Replacement (steel) 
Job Cost: $1,076
Resale Value: $902
Cost Recouped: 83.8 %


2. Basement Remodel
Job Cost: $53,757
Resale Value: $44,996
Cost Recouped: 83.7%


3. Minor Kitchen Remodel 
Job Cost: $16,925
Resale Value: $13,665
Cost Recouped: 80.7%


4. Attic Bedroom Remodel 
Job Cost: $42,550
Resale Value: $33,396
Cost Recouped: 78.5%


5. Garage Door Replacement
Job Cost: $1,390
Resale Value: $1,090
Cost Recouped: 78.4%


 6. Deck Addition (wood) 
Job Cost: $8,170
Resale Value: $6,358
Cost Recouped: 77.8%


7. Window Replacement (wood)
Job Cost: $9,909
Resale Value: $7,453
Cost Recouped: 75.2%


8. Siding Replacement (vinyl) 
Job Cost: $9,960
Resale Value: $7,457
Cost Recouped: 74.9%


9. Window Replacement (vinyl) 
Job Cost: $9,038
Resale Value: $6,608
Cost Recouped: 73.1%


10. Major Kitchen Remodel 
Job Cost: $49,530
Resale Value: $36,111
Cost Recouped: 72.9%


Top 10 Upscale Projects

1. Siding Replacement (fiber-cement)
Job Cost: $11,780
Resale Value: $10,074
Cost Recouped: 85.5%


2. Garage Door Replacement
Job Cost: $2,589
Resale Value: $2,073
Cost Recouped: 80.0%


3. Window Replacement (vinyl)
Job Cost: $12,429
Resale Value: $9,738
Cost Recouped: 78.4%


4. Siding Replacement (foam-backed vinyl)
Job Cost: $12,398
Resale Value: $9,545
Cost Recouped: 77.0%


5. Window Replacement (wood)
Job Cost: $15,600
Resale Value: $11,402
Cost Recouped: 73.1%


6. Roofing Replacement
Job Cost: $27,756
Resale Value: $18,788
Cost Recouped: 67.7%


7. Bathroom Remodel
Job Cost: $46,760
Resale Value: $31,257
Cost Recouped: 66.8%


8. Grand Entrance (fiberglass)
Job Cost: $6,851
Resale Value: $4,520
Cost Recouped: 66%


9. Deck Addition (composite)
Job Cost: $31,363
Resale Value: $20,413
Cost Recouped: 65.1%


10. Major Kitchen Remodel
Job Cost: $101,202
Resale Value: $65,182
Cost Recouped: 64.4%


Source: http://www.elizabethroseblogs.com/2013/10/17/top-10-cost-effective-home-improvement-projects/
Category: scarlett johansson   south park   Ozymandias   Wrecking Ball   Ichiro Suzuki  

Recovery from childhood ADHD may depend on the pattern of brain development

Recovery from childhood ADHD may depend on the pattern of brain development


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Public release date: 15-Oct-2013
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Contact: Rhiannon Bugno
Biol.Psych@utsouthwestern.edu
214-648-0880
Elsevier



Reports new study in Biological Psychiatry



Philadelphia, PA, October 15, 2013 Some people grow out of their childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and some don't. In fact, around 50% of individuals diagnosed as children continue to suffer from ADHD as adults.


Researchers are trying to understand the reasons why, and relatedly, whether there are any differences that distinguish the two groups. Gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, and symptom severity have already been ruled out as potentials. So, perhaps there is a distinguishing variable in the brain? Dr. Philip Shaw at the National Human Genome Research Institute and his colleagues conducted a study to find out.


They already knew from prior work that cortical structure is thinner in adults with ADHD, particularly in regions of the brain that play important roles in cognitive functioning and attention. However, that work was cross-sectional, meaning it was conducted at a single point in time, so any changes over time weren't captured. Thus, they focused on those same regions in this study, but conducted a longitudinal study so they could link trajectories of symptoms with trajectories of brain development, particularly the structure of cortical regions that control attention.


They recruited 92 children with ADHD, with a mean age of 11, who underwent repeated structural imaging scans and clinical assessments over the years, including as adults at a mean age of 24 years. For comparison, they also scanned 184 volunteers without ADHD.


They found that ADHD continued into adulthood in 37 (40%) of the participants diagnosed with childhood ADHD, and these individuals showed increased rates of thinning. In contrast, the cortical thickness of individuals who achieved remission of their ADHD developed toward the normal range.


"We find that differences in patterns of brain growth are linked with differences in the adult outcome of childhood ADHD. Differences in these regions specifically a thinner cortex are found in childhood ADHD," Shaw further explained. "However, for the group whose ADHD improved with age, these differences tend to resolve and by adulthood, these regions did not differ significantly from individuals who never had ADHD. By contrast, for the group with persistent ADHD, childhood differences persisted in the 'attention' regions of the brain."


These findings seem to suggest that the trajectory of cortex development differentiates people who recover from childhood ADHD from people whose disorder continues into adulthood.


"The development of the cortex seems to be a critical factor influencing the recovery from childhood ADHD. However, there is much that we do not understand about this relationship," commented Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry. "Cortical thinning may be related to the pruning of connections in the brain, in this case, connections with the prefrontal cortex. The current data would seem to suggest that excessive trimming of connections is a risk factor for the persistence of ADHD into adulthood. But we do not yet understand which connections are being trimmed, why these connections disappear, and how this loss of connections contributes to ADHD symptoms."


More work will be necessary to answer these questions, but Shaw concludes that "understanding how differences in brain development are tied to the course of ADHD is the first step in developing tools to help us predict the outcome of childhood ADHD."


###

The article is "Trajectories of Cerebral Cortical Development in Childhood and Adolescence and Adult Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder" by Philip Shaw, Meaghan Malek, Bethany Watson, Deanna Greenstein, Pietro de Rossi, and Wendy Sharp (doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.04.007). The article appears in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 74, Issue 8 (October 15, 2013), published by Elsevier.



Notes for editors

Full text of the article is available to credentialed journalists upon request; contact Rhiannon Bugno at +1 214 648 0880 or Biol.Psych@utsouthwestern.edu. Journalists wishing to interview the authors may contact Philip Shaw at +1 301 451 4010 or shawp@mail.nih.gov.


The authors' affiliations, and disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available in the article.


John H. Krystal, M.D., is Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine and a research psychiatrist at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. His disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available here.


About Biological Psychiatry

Biological Psychiatry is the official journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, whose purpose is to promote excellence in scientific research and education in fields that investigate the nature, causes, mechanisms and treatments of disorders of thought, emotion, or behavior. In accord with this mission, this peer-reviewed, rapid-publication, international journal publishes both basic and clinical contributions from all disciplines and research areas relevant to the pathophysiology and treatment of major psychiatric disorders.


The journal publishes novel results of original research which represent an important new lead or significant impact on the field, particularly those addressing genetic and environmental risk factors, neural circuitry and neurochemistry, and important new therapeutic approaches. Reviews and commentaries that focus on topics of current research and interest are also encouraged.


Biological Psychiatry is one of the most selective and highly cited journals in the field of psychiatric neuroscience. It is ranked 4th out of 135 Psychiatry titles and 13th out of 251 Neurosciences titles in the Journal Citations Reports published by Thomson Reuters. The 2012 Impact Factor score for Biological Psychiatry is 9.247.


About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, Reaxys, ClinicalKey and Mosby's Suite, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, helping research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.


A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world leading provider of professional information solutions. The group employs more than 30,000 people, including more than 15,000 in North America. Reed Elsevier Group PLC is owned equally by two parent companies, Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. Their shares are traded on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RUK and ENL.


Media contact

Rhiannon Bugno

Editorial Office

+1 214 648 0880

Biol.Psych@utsouthwestern.edu




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Recovery from childhood ADHD may depend on the pattern of brain development


[ Back to EurekAlert! ]
Public release date: 15-Oct-2013
[


| E-mail



| Share Share

]

Contact: Rhiannon Bugno
Biol.Psych@utsouthwestern.edu
214-648-0880
Elsevier



Reports new study in Biological Psychiatry



Philadelphia, PA, October 15, 2013 Some people grow out of their childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and some don't. In fact, around 50% of individuals diagnosed as children continue to suffer from ADHD as adults.


Researchers are trying to understand the reasons why, and relatedly, whether there are any differences that distinguish the two groups. Gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, and symptom severity have already been ruled out as potentials. So, perhaps there is a distinguishing variable in the brain? Dr. Philip Shaw at the National Human Genome Research Institute and his colleagues conducted a study to find out.


They already knew from prior work that cortical structure is thinner in adults with ADHD, particularly in regions of the brain that play important roles in cognitive functioning and attention. However, that work was cross-sectional, meaning it was conducted at a single point in time, so any changes over time weren't captured. Thus, they focused on those same regions in this study, but conducted a longitudinal study so they could link trajectories of symptoms with trajectories of brain development, particularly the structure of cortical regions that control attention.


They recruited 92 children with ADHD, with a mean age of 11, who underwent repeated structural imaging scans and clinical assessments over the years, including as adults at a mean age of 24 years. For comparison, they also scanned 184 volunteers without ADHD.


They found that ADHD continued into adulthood in 37 (40%) of the participants diagnosed with childhood ADHD, and these individuals showed increased rates of thinning. In contrast, the cortical thickness of individuals who achieved remission of their ADHD developed toward the normal range.


"We find that differences in patterns of brain growth are linked with differences in the adult outcome of childhood ADHD. Differences in these regions specifically a thinner cortex are found in childhood ADHD," Shaw further explained. "However, for the group whose ADHD improved with age, these differences tend to resolve and by adulthood, these regions did not differ significantly from individuals who never had ADHD. By contrast, for the group with persistent ADHD, childhood differences persisted in the 'attention' regions of the brain."


These findings seem to suggest that the trajectory of cortex development differentiates people who recover from childhood ADHD from people whose disorder continues into adulthood.


"The development of the cortex seems to be a critical factor influencing the recovery from childhood ADHD. However, there is much that we do not understand about this relationship," commented Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry. "Cortical thinning may be related to the pruning of connections in the brain, in this case, connections with the prefrontal cortex. The current data would seem to suggest that excessive trimming of connections is a risk factor for the persistence of ADHD into adulthood. But we do not yet understand which connections are being trimmed, why these connections disappear, and how this loss of connections contributes to ADHD symptoms."


More work will be necessary to answer these questions, but Shaw concludes that "understanding how differences in brain development are tied to the course of ADHD is the first step in developing tools to help us predict the outcome of childhood ADHD."


###

The article is "Trajectories of Cerebral Cortical Development in Childhood and Adolescence and Adult Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder" by Philip Shaw, Meaghan Malek, Bethany Watson, Deanna Greenstein, Pietro de Rossi, and Wendy Sharp (doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.04.007). The article appears in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 74, Issue 8 (October 15, 2013), published by Elsevier.



Notes for editors

Full text of the article is available to credentialed journalists upon request; contact Rhiannon Bugno at +1 214 648 0880 or Biol.Psych@utsouthwestern.edu. Journalists wishing to interview the authors may contact Philip Shaw at +1 301 451 4010 or shawp@mail.nih.gov.


The authors' affiliations, and disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available in the article.


John H. Krystal, M.D., is Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine and a research psychiatrist at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. His disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available here.


About Biological Psychiatry

Biological Psychiatry is the official journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, whose purpose is to promote excellence in scientific research and education in fields that investigate the nature, causes, mechanisms and treatments of disorders of thought, emotion, or behavior. In accord with this mission, this peer-reviewed, rapid-publication, international journal publishes both basic and clinical contributions from all disciplines and research areas relevant to the pathophysiology and treatment of major psychiatric disorders.


The journal publishes novel results of original research which represent an important new lead or significant impact on the field, particularly those addressing genetic and environmental risk factors, neural circuitry and neurochemistry, and important new therapeutic approaches. Reviews and commentaries that focus on topics of current research and interest are also encouraged.


Biological Psychiatry is one of the most selective and highly cited journals in the field of psychiatric neuroscience. It is ranked 4th out of 135 Psychiatry titles and 13th out of 251 Neurosciences titles in the Journal Citations Reports published by Thomson Reuters. The 2012 Impact Factor score for Biological Psychiatry is 9.247.


About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, Reaxys, ClinicalKey and Mosby's Suite, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, helping research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.


A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world leading provider of professional information solutions. The group employs more than 30,000 people, including more than 15,000 in North America. Reed Elsevier Group PLC is owned equally by two parent companies, Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. Their shares are traded on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RUK and ENL.


Media contact

Rhiannon Bugno

Editorial Office

+1 214 648 0880

Biol.Psych@utsouthwestern.edu




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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/e-rfc101513.php
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