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The Radio weblog of Hal Rager

Thursday, May 2, 2002

New Language Learning Linked To Early Language Experience The results of the study, which will appear in the May 2 issue of the prestigious journal Nature, show that deaf and hearing adults who experience language in early life perform similarly well in learning a new language later in life - whereas deaf adults who had little language experience in early life showed low levels of performance in a later learned language. These findings are not affected by whether the early language or the later language was signed or spoken. "The timing of our initial language experience during our development - whatever the form of those experiences - strongly influences our capacity to learn language throughout our lives," said Mayberry [Rachel Mayberry of McGill University]." [Science Daily] What then explains the sharp roll-off in language acquisition skills in late childhood? 9:48:17 PM    comment   trackback []

Placebo, Antidepressant May Lift Depression Via Common Mechanism "Using functional brain imaging, Helen Mayberg, M.D., and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, have found increased activity in the cortex accompanied by decreases in limbic regions in patients who responded to either the popular antidepressant fluoxetine or to a placebo. They propose that this pattern of changes may be necessary for therapeutic response. However, patients who responded to fluoxetine also experienced unique changes in lower areas -- brainstem, striatum and hippocampus -- thought to confer additional advantage in sustaining the response long term and preventing relapse. The researchers report on their Positron Emission Tomography (PET scan) study in the May 2002 American Journal of Psychiatry. "Our findings do not support the notion that antidepressants work merely via a placebo effect," cautioned Mayberg, who has since moved to the Rotman Research Institute at the University of Toronto. "Patients on active medication who failed to improve did not sustain the brainstem, striatal and hippocampus changes unique to antidepressant responders."" [Science Daily] 9:39:47 PM    comment   trackback []