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The developing hippocampus is particularly sensitive to early environmental influences, including during pregnancy. This longitudinal neuroimaging study examined associations between prenatal maternal physical activity and depression, maternal education, and hippocampal development from early childhood to early adolescence.
Children's development is dependent on a range of factors influencing their life course outcomes. Protective and challenging social and cultural determinants impact how Indigenous families support their children's developmental foundations. However, there is a lack of international evidence investigating Indigenous child development interventions.
Food environments are significant drivers of obesity and diet-related diseases, making them key targets for interventions that support healthier food choices. The role of Local Government Authorities is pivotal in shaping community food environments.
Severe microcephaly, or head circumference at least 3 standard deviations below the mean for age and sex, is a rare condition with diverse etiology, making diagnosis challenging. Following the 2015 to 2016 Zika virus outbreak, surveillance studies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom and Ireland were conducted to monitor severe microcephaly. We describe the etiology, clinical features, and diagnostic investigations of severe microcephaly among children aged younger than 1 year.
Early life nutrition is associated with child behaviour; however, the interplay with genetic vulnerability is understudied. We hypothesised that psychiatric genetic risk interacted with early nutrition to predict behavioural problems in childhood and adolescence.
Debbie Palmer BSc BND PhD Head, Nutrition in Early Life debbie.palmer@uwa.edu.au Head, Nutrition in Early Life Areas of research expertise: Maternal
Early childhood wheeze is a major risk factor for asthma. However, not all children who wheeze will develop the disease. The airway epithelium has been shown to be involved in asthma pathogenesis. Despite this, the airway epithelium of children with acute wheeze remains poorly characterized.
Chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM), sometimes referred to as chronic otitis media, is a chronic inflammation and often polymicrobial infection (involving more than one micro-organism) of the middle ear and mastoid cavity, characterised by ear discharge (otorrhoea) through a perforated tympanic membrane.
Language development is critical for children's life chances. Promoting parent-child interactions is suggested as one mechanism to support language development in the early years. However, limited evidence exists for a causal effect of parent-child interactions on children's language development.
The interaction of genetic and environmental contributions to immunological traits and their association with atopic disease remain unclear. Flow cytometry and in vitro cytokine responses were used to characterize immune profiles from 93 school-aged twin pairs. Using an established twin pair analytical strategy, the genetic and environmental influences on immunological traits were evaluated, along with their association with atopy. Our findings suggest strong genetic influence on several traits, particularly B cell abundance. In contrast, cytokine responses from in vitro stimulations appeared mainly shaped by environmental exposures.