Monday, May 17, 2004

Medco study reveals pediatric spending spike on drugs to treat behavioral problems
PR Newswire press release reprinted at PsycPORT - "Spending on drugs primarily used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) surged 369 percent for children under age 5 as the number of kids taking one or more prescription medicines to treat behavior-related conditions hit nearly 9 percent for those children taking as least one medication overall, according to new data released today at the Medco Health Solutions, Inc. 2004 Drug Trend Symposium..."  
  

Imaging study shows brain maturing
NIH/National Institute of Mental Health press release at EurekAlert - "The brain's center of reasoning and problem solving is among the last to mature, a new study graphically reveals. The decade-long magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study of normal brain development, from ages 4 to 21, by researchers at NIH's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) shows that such "higher-order" brain centers, such as the prefrontal cortex, don't fully develop until young adulthood. A time-lapse 3-D movie that compresses 15 years of human brain maturation, ages 5 to 20, into seconds shows gray matter – the working tissue of the brain's cortex – diminishing in a back-to-front wave, likely reflecting the pruning of unused neuronal connections during the teen years. Cortex areas can be seen maturing at ages in which relevant cognitive and functional developmental milestones occur. The sequence of maturation also roughly parallels the evolution of the mammalian brain, suggest Drs. Nitin Gogtay, Judith Rapoport, NIMH, and Paul Thompson, Arthur Toga, UCLA, and colleagues, whose study is published online during the week of May 17, 2004 in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "