October 2013

Child sexual abuse via the Internet on the rise

Published: October 30, 2013

Sexual abuse of children and adolescents can have serious health consequences for victims. Early studies have revealed that child sexual abuse is associated with an increased risk of later mental and physical health problems and risk-taking behavior. The Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Zurich, the Psychosomatics and Psychiatry Department at Zurich’s University Children’s Hospital and the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at University Hospital Zurich discovered that sexual abuse is alarmingly widespread in a representative sample of more than 6,000 9th grade students in Switzerland.

Sexual harassment via the Internet is mentioned most frequently

Among the study participants, mainly between 15 and 17 years old, roughly 40 percent of girls and 17 percent of boys reported they had experienced at least one type of child sexual abuse. Relative to boys, sexual abuse without physical contact was reported twice as often in girls and sexual abuse with physical contact without penetration three times more often. Both genders reported “sexual harassment via the Internet” as the most frequent form of abuse. This form of sexual abuse was experienced by roughly 28 percent of girls over the course of their lifetimes and by almost 10 percent of boys. At just under 15 percent for girls versus 5 percent for boys, “molested verbally or by e-mail/text message” was the second most common form of abuse. Just under 12 percent of the surveyed girls and 4 percent of the surveyed boys reported having been kissed or touched against their will. Approximately 2.5 percent of the girls had already experienced sexual abuse with penetration (vaginal, oral, anal or other); among boys, this figure was 0.6 percent.

The results of the Zurich study are comparable to those of an earlier Swiss study which was conducted in Geneva between 1995 and 1996 in a similar age group asked similar questions. The prevalence of sexual abuse with physical contact is almost unchanged today. However, sexual abuse without physical contact occurs far more frequently. “We believe that this difference can be attributed to harassment via the Internet, e-mail, or text messaging. This type of sexual abuse was not surveyed back then”, explains Dr. Meichun Mohler-Kuo, senior research scientist at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Zurich.

The majority were victimized by juvenile perpetrators

Just over half of the female victims and more than 70 percent of the male victims reported that they had been abused by a juvenile perpetrator. Furthermore, most of the victims of sexual abuse with physical contact knew the perpetrator – for instance, they were partners, peers, or acquaintances. “This new trend towards the majority being juvenile perpetrators, and being peers and acquaintances, is in contrast to the Geneva study, and might indicate increased violent behavior among adolescents”, explains Dr. Ulrich Schnyder, Head of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at University Hospital Zurich. And he adds: “Our results also differ considerably from official police reports, according to which perpetrators are usually adult, male relatives.” This would seem to indicate significant under-reporting of abuse to officials.

The majority did not disclose sexual abuse

Only about half of victimized girls and less than one-third of victimized boys disclosed their sexual abuse experiences. The disclosure rate is even lower with more severe forms of sexual abuse. Most victimswho do disclose, do so to their peers; less than 20 percent to their families. Fewer than 10 percent of victims reported the sexual abuse to police. “Compared to similar studies from other countries, the disclosure figures in the Swiss study are low. The reluctance in reporting incidents of this kind to family members or authorities makes timely intervention more difficult,” concludes Dr. Schnyder.

ᔥhttp://www.mediadesk.uzh.ch

America’s favorite cookie” is just as addictive as cocaine – at least for lab rats

Published: October 16, 2013

Are Oreos Addictive? Research at Connecticut College Says Yes. And guess what even rats eat the middle first!

Photo by Bob MacDonnell, courtesy of Connecticut College.
Researchers at Connecticut College tested lab rats and found eating Oreos activated more neurons in the brain’s “pleasure center” than exposure to drugs of abuse.

Connecticut College students and a professor of neuroscience have found “America’s favorite cookie” is just as addictive as cocaine – at least for lab rats. And just like most humans, rats go for the middle first.

In a study designed to shed light on the potential addictiveness of high-fat/ high-sugar foods, Professor Joseph Schroeder and his students found rats formed an equally strong association between the pleasurable effects of eating Oreos and a specific environment as they did between cocaine or morphine and a specific environment. They also found that eating cookies activated more neurons in the brain’s “pleasure center” than exposure to drugs of abuse.
Schroeder, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Connecticut College, will present the research next month at the Society for Neuroscience conference in San Diego, Calif.

“Our research supports the theory that high-fat/ high-sugar foods stimulate the brain in the same way that drugs do,” Schroeder said. “It may explain why some people can’t resist these foods despite the fact that they know they are bad for them.”
Schroeder said he and his students specifically chose to feed the rats Oreos because they wanted a food that is palatable to humans and contributes to obesity in the same way cocaine is pleasurable and addictive to humans.

The research was the brainchild of neuroscience major Jamie Honohan, who graduated in May. She worked with Schroeder and several other students last year to measure the association between “drug” and environment.

On one side of a maze, they would give hungry rats Oreos and on the other, they would give them a control – in this case, rice cakes. (“Just like humans, rats don’t seem to get much pleasure out of eating them,” Schroeder said.) Then, they would give the rats the option of spending time on either side of the maze and measure how long they would spend on the side where they were typically fed Oreos.

While it may not be scientifically relevant, Honohan said it was surprising to watch the rats eat the famous cookie. “They would break it open and eat the middle first,” she said.

They compared the results of the Oreo and rice cake test with results from rats that were given an injection of cocaine or morphine, known addictive substances, on one side of the maze and a shot of saline on the other. Schroeder is licensed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to purchase and use controlled substances for research.

The research showed the rats conditioned with Oreos spent as much time on the “drug” side of the maze as the rats conditioned with cocaine or morphine.

Schroeder and his students then used immunohistochemistry to measure the expression of a protein called c-Fos, a marker of neuronal activation, in the nucleus accumbens, or the brain’s “pleasure center.”
“It basically tells us how many cells were turned on in a specific region of the brain in response to the drugs or Oreos,” said Schroeder.

They found that the Oreos activated significantly more neurons than cocaine or morphine.
“This correlated well with our behavioral results and lends support to the hypothesis that high-fat/ high-sugar foods are addictive,” said Schroeder.
And that is a problem for the general public, says Honohan.

“Even though we associate significant health hazards in taking drugs like cocaine and morphine, high-fat/ high-sugar foods may present even more of a danger because of their accessibility and affordability,” she said.

ᔥ Connecticut College

Understanding the recipe for relationship satisfaction

Published: October 7, 2013

What makes some people more prone to wedded bliss or sorrow than others? Researchers at UC Berkeley and Northwestern University have found a major clue in our DNA. A gene involved in the regulation of serotonin can predict how much our emotions affect our relationships, according to a new study that may be the first to link genetics, emotions, and marital satisfaction. The study was conducted at UC Berkeley

“An enduring mystery is, what makes one spouse so attuned to the emotional climate in a marriage, and another so oblivious?” said UC Berkeley psychologist Robert W. Levenson, senior author of the study published online today (Oct. 7) in the journal Emotion. “With these new genetic findings, we now understand much more about what determines just how important emotions are for different people.”

Specifically, researchers found a link between relationship fulfillment and a gene variant, or “allele,” known as 5-HTTLPR. All humans inherit a copy of this gene variant from each parent. Study participants with two short 5-HTTLPR alleles were found to be most unhappy in their marriages when there was a lot of negative emotion, such as anger and contempt, and most happy when there was positive emotion, such as humor and affection. By contrast, those with one or two long alleles were far less bothered by the emotional tenor of their marriages.

“We are always trying to understand the recipe for a good relationship, and emotion keeps coming up as an important ingredient,” said Levenson, who heads up a longitudinal study that has tracked over 150 married couples for more than 20 years.

The new findings don’t mean that couples with different variations of 5-HTTLPR are incompatible, the researchers note. Instead, it suggests that those with two short alleles are likelier to thrive in a good relationship and suffer in a bad one. The results of the study, which looked at the genotypes of more than 100 spouses and observed how they interacted with their partners over time, bore this out, they said.

“Individuals with two short alleles of the gene variant may be like hothouse flowers, blossoming in a marriage when the emotional climate is good and withering when it is bad,” said Claudia M. Haase, assistant professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University and lead author of the study, which she conducted as a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley. “Conversely, people with one or two long alleles are less sensitive to the emotional climate.”

“Neither of these genetic variants is inherently good or bad,” Haase added. “Each has its advantages and disadvantages.”

Participants in the study belong to a group of 156 middle-aged and older couples whose relationships Levenson and fellow researchers have followed since 1989. Every five years, the couples have come to UC Berkeley to report on their marital satisfaction and interact with one another in a lab setting while researchers code their conversations based on facial expressions, body language, tone of voice and topic of discussion.

More recently, 125 of the study participants provided DNA samples, and researchers matched their genotypes with their levels of marital satisfaction and the emotional tenor of their interactions in the lab setting.

For spouses with two short 5-HTTLPR alleles, who made up 17 percent of the spouses studied, researchers found a strong correlation between the emotional tone of their conversations and how they felt about their marriage. For the 83 percent of spouses with one or two long alleles, on the other hand, the emotional quality of their discussions bore little or no relation to their marital satisfaction over the next decade.

The link between genes, emotion and marital satisfaction was particularly pronounced for older adults. “One explanation for this latter finding is that in late life – just as in early childhood – we are maximally susceptible to the influences of our genes,” Levenson said.

ᔥ Berkley University of California