Parent and Teachers Concerns Block Children Playing freely

Prof Anita Bundy

Altering parents' and teachers' notion of risk taking behaviour can significantly increase children's physical activity suggests a study lead by University of Sydney researchers.

The results of the Sydney Playground Project published online in the Preventive Medicine Journal show simple, low cost, additions to a playground can increase physical activity and decreases children's sedentary behaviour during recess times.

However parental and teachers' concerns for safety and being sued remain a concern.

Lead investigator Professor Anita Bundy from the University's Faculty of Health Sciences says the trial may have helped reverse parents and teachers' perception of what constitutes risky play activities by assisting them to understand what can motivate and encourage children to be physically active and socialise with their peers.

Twelve Australian primary schools participated in the project which simultaneously focused on the school children aged between five-to-seven years, their parents and their teachers.

The initial phase of the three-year project involved a 13-week intervention program. The program that introduced new objects such as cardboard boxes, old car tyres, colourful fabrics, and Styrofoam and milk crates into schoolyards, thereby giving children opportunities for creative, outdoor play.

Workshops were also conducted with parents and teachers to discuss play and perceptions around risk taking related to play.

"We wanted to capture children's intrinsic motivations to play, increase their physical activity during break times, while simultaneously helping adults reconsider their views on risky play behaviour," says Professor Bundy.

"What we found was these simple objects coupled with an education program for parents and teachers significantly increased the children's activity levels."

Whether the increases measured can be maintained remains to be seen says Professor Bundy but evidence in one school suggests they can.

"We retested children in one intervention school after two years and they had maintained their gains," she states.

Trial project manager Lina Engelen says schools and preschools are ideal sites for interventions to promote physical activity either within the school's Physical Education curriculum or via breaks such as recess and lunchtime.

"If break times are to promote physical activity in a sustained manner then available activities must be highly motivating, such as active play and have adults' support," Dr Engelen says.

Children of all sizes and shapes were delighted by the playground initiative she adds.

PTSD: Anti-anxiety Drug Calms Fears by Altering Brain Chemistry

An advance in understanding the brain’s fear circuitry has been revealed by a research team. They say it may hold particular promise for people at risk for anxiety disorders, including those suffering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Findings are reported in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

“What is most compelling is our ability to translate first from mice to human neurobiology and then all the way out to human behaviour,” says Ahmad Hariri, a neurobiologist at Duke University. “That kind of translation is going to define the future of psychiatry and neuroscience.”

Read the original study DOI: 10.1038/mp.2012.72

 

The common thread in their studies is a gene encoding an enzyme called fatty acid amide hydrolase, or FAAH.

The enzyme breaks down a natural endo-cannabinoid chemical in the brain that acts in essentially the same way that Cannabis, aka marijuana, does (hence the name endo-cannabinoid).

Earlier studies had suggested that blocking the FAAH enzyme could decrease fear and anxiety by increasing endo-cannabinoids, which is consistent with the decreased anxiety some experience after smoking marijuana.

In 2009, Hariri’s lab found that a common variant in the human FAAH gene leads to decreased enzyme function with affects on the brain’s circuitry for processing fear and anxiety.

In the new study, Andrew Holmes’ group at the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse tested the effects of a drug that blocks FAAH activity in fear-prone mice that had also been trained to be fearful through experiences in which they were delivered foot shocks.

Tests for the ability of those mice to get over their bad experiences found that the drug allowed a faster recovery from fear thanks to higher brain endo-cannabinoid levels.

More specifically, the researchers showed that those drug effects traced to the amygdala, a small area of the brain that serves as a critical hub for fear processing and learning.

To test for the human relevance of the findings, Hariri’s group went back to the genetic variant they had studied earlier in a group of middle-aged adults.

They showed study participants a series of pictures depicting threatening faces while they monitored the activity of their amygdalas using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. They then looked for how the genetic variant affected this activity.

While the activity of the amygdala in all participants decreased over repeated exposures to the pictures. But people who carried the version of the FAAH gene associated with lower enzyme function and higher endo-cannabinoid levels showed a greater decrease in activity.

Hariri says that suggests that those individuals may be better able to control and regulate their fear response.

Further confirmation came from an analysis led by Duke’s Avshalom Caspi and Terrie Moffitt of 1,000 individuals in the Dunedin Study, who have been under careful observation since their birth in the 1970s in New Zealand.

Consistent with the mouse and brain imaging studies, those New Zealanders carrying the lower-expressing version of the FAAH gene were found to be more likely to keep their cool under stress.

“This study in mice reveals how a drug that boosts one of the brain’s naturally occurring endo-cannaboids enables fear extinction, a process that forms the basis of exposure therapy for PTSD,” Holmes says.

“It also shows how human gene variation in the same chemical pathways modulates the amygdala’s processing of threats and predicts how well people cope with stress.”

Studies are now needed to further explore both the connections between FAAH variation and PTSD risk as well as the potential of FAAH inhibition as a novel therapy for fear-related disorders, the researchers say.

More news from Duke University: http://today.duke.edu/