Can how a baby cries predict his or her future language skills?

Thanks for this piece of wisdom, which reminds me of the first question on the Snowdrop language development profile.  "Did your child have differentiated cries in response to his / her varying needs?"

------------------------------------------------------

According to a Japanese proverb: “A crying child thrives.” A recent studythat examines the complexity of an infant’s cries in relation to his or her language development seems to offer a scientific basis for this folk wisdom.

For babies whose cries exhibited complex melodies by the age of two months, the study, published in the The Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Journal, says the probability of a language delay greatly decreases. Those whose cries were less complex had a greater chance of  language delays by two years.

In addition, the study examined the language development in infants with cleft lip and cleft palate. The findings suggest distinguishing characteristics heard in the cries of those infants with a cleft and those without. This research is important because the findings may offer new treatments to help language development for infants with clefts.

The psychology of crying is nothing new. In study after study, scientists have documented thecatharsis that only a good cry can bring. For infants, crying is the sole form of communication and there are three distinct types: A “basic cry” is a rhythmic pattern consisting of a cry followed by silence; an “anger cry” is similar to a basic cry but with more volume due to the release of excessive air through the infant’s vocal chords; and a “pain cry” is a loud cry followed by periods of breath holding.

Infants also exhibit what is called a “simple cry melody” – a crying arc consisting of a single rise and then a fall. According to researchers, it is the segmentation of these melodies by momentary pauses and respiratory movement that leads to syllable production.

-------------------------------------------

Tell us something we don't know!!

Time-Lapse Imaging Charts The Change Taking Place In Brain Circuitry During Development

Although it annoys me when people refer to autism as a 'disease,' this research in its references to the effect of environmental inputs upon the developing brain, supports everything we do at Snowdrop when we provide programmes of increased environmental stimulation for children who have neuro-developmental disabilities like cerebral palsy and autism.  With thanks to Medical News Today.


----------------------------------


Dr. Ed Ruthazer is a mapmaker but, his landscape is the developing brain - specifically the neuronal circuitry, which is the network of connections between nerve cells. His research at The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital - The Neuro at McGill University, reveals the brain as a dynamic landscape where connections between nerves are plastic, changing and adapting to the demands of the environment. Dr. Ruthazer is the winner of the inaugural Young Investigator Award from the Canadian Association for Neuroscience, which recognizes outstanding research achievements. His laboratory uses time-lapse imaging to chart the changes that take place in brain circuitry during development in the hope of advancing treatments for injuries to the central nervous system and therapies for developmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. These diseases are widely held to result from errors in brain wiring due to a disruption of the complex interactions between genetic and environmental influences during brain development. 

Astoundingly, nearly one out of every 100 Canadians suffers from one of these disorders, which have been estimated to cost the Canadian economy over $10 billion annually in addition to inflicting a devastating impact on patients and their families. Two of Dr. Ruthazer's recent publications in prominent science journals advance our knowledge of how the brain develops, which is vital to developing advanced therapies, treatments and even early intervention. 

Nature versus nurture 

His new study, published in the prestigious journal Neuron, vividly illustrates the effect of environmental inputs on the developing brain. Exposure to just 20 minutes of intensive visual stimulation during development led to enhanced visual acuity and higher sensitivity to finer and smaller visual targets than non-conditioned controls. 

"There is no room for inaccuracy in the mature brain," says Dr. Ruthazer. In the developing brain, there is an initial overproduction of imprecise connections between nerve cells. During development and learning, these connections are pruned, leaving connections that are stronger and more specific. This refinement occurs in response to inputs from the environment. "Our study shows that intense visual stimulation renders nerve cells more receptive to subsequent learning and refinement." 

Importantly, Dr. Ruthazer's group identified the molecular mechanisms underlying the changes in the nervous system. Environmental stimulation activates the production of a protein called Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor, or BDNF, which plays a major role in the plasticity of neurons and has two forms: proBDNF facilitates the weakening of inaccurate or poorly targeted connections and mature BDNF strengthens appropriate, effective connections. In this case, in response to environmental activity, these processes led to refinement of nerve cell connections involved in the visual system and required for visual acuity. "This indicates that sensory experience during development leads to rapid production of key proteins used at nerve cell connections to confer long-term stability and increased efficacy at appropriate connection points, while simultaneously helping to eliminate inappropriate connections." 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Anyone wanting more information about the Snowdrop programme should email snowdrop_cdc@btinternet.com or visit the Snowdrop website.

Brain Needs Vitamin C to Function

Personally, I think it is just a bit of a 'leap' to assume that just because GABA receptors in the retina function better with high doses of vitamin C, that this automatically applies to the rest of the brain. However, GABA receptors do supply inhibition so it would be interesting to see what effect vitamin C had on some children on the Snowdrop programme.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nerve cells in the eye require vitamin C in order to function properly — a surprising discovery that may mean vitamin C is required elsewhere in the brain for its proper functioning, according to a study by scientists at Oregon Health & Science Univ. recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

"We found that cells in the retina need to be 'bathed' in relatively high doses of vitamin C, inside and out, to function properly," says Henrique von Gersdorff, a senior scientist at OHSU's Vollum Institute and a co-author of the study. "Because the retina is part of the central nervous system, this suggests there's likely an important role for vitamin C throughout our brains, to a degree we had not realized before."

The brain has special receptors, called GABA-type receptors, that help modulate the rapid communication between cells in the brain. GABA receptors in the brain act as an inhibitory "brake" on excitatory neurons in the brain. The OHSU researchers found that these GABA-type receptors in the retinal cells stopped functioning properly when vitamin C was removed.

Because retinal cells are a kind of very accessible brain cell, it's likely that GABA receptors elsewhere in the brain also require vitamin C to function properly, von Gersdorff says. And because vitamin C is a major natural antioxidant, it may be that it essentially 'preserves' the receptors and cells from premature breakdown, von Gersdorff says.

The function of vitamin C in the brain is not well understood. In fact, when the human body is deprived of vitamin C, the vitamin stays in the brain longer than anyplace else in the body.
"Perhaps the brain is the last place you want to lose vitamin C," von Gersdorff says. The findings also may offer a clue as to why scurvy — which results from a severe lack of vitamin C — acts the way it does, von Gersdorff says. One of the common symptoms of scurvy is depression, and that may come from the lack of vitamin C in the brain.

The findings could have implications for other diseases, like glaucoma and epilepsy. Both conditions are caused by the dysfunction of nerve cells in the retina and brain that become over excited in part because GABA receptors may not be functioning properly.

"For example, maybe a vitamin C-rich diet could be neuroprotective for the retina — for people who are especially prone to glaucoma," von Gersdorff says. "This is speculative and there is much to learn. But this research provides some important insights and will lead to the generation of new hypotheses and potential treatment strategies."

Source: Oregon Health and Science Univ.