Latest news with #braindevelopment
Forbes
17-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Investing In Early Childhood Builds A Stronger Workforce
Kendra Davenport is the President and CEO of Easterseals. We talk a lot about the future of the workforce—about building pipelines, recruiting talent and reskilling employees to meet the demands of a rapidly changing economy. But we often overlook when the foundation of that future truly begins: the first five years of life. Did you know that most brain development occurs before the age of five? This lays the critical foundation for learning, behavior and health. For corporate leaders concerned with long-term productivity, talent pipelines and even the health of local economies, supporting early learning is smart business. Our organization sees this connection every day. Through our Head Start and Early Head Start programs, we provide no-cost, high-quality preschool education to children from low-income families. We prepare children from ages 0-5 with and without disabilities to succeed in kindergarten and beyond. But just as importantly, we provide parents with services that enable children to participate in early childhood education programs, including housing and employment assistance, food security and transportation. Why Should Early Childhood Education Matter To Employers? When families can access reliable early childhood programs, they're able to stay in the workforce. If not for certain early childhood programs, the cost of childcare could push many parents out of the workforce altogether. That's not an isolated issue. The U.S. economy loses an estimated $78 billion annually due to insufficient childcare—through lost earnings, productivity and tax revenue. Businesses alone absorb over $13 billion of that loss in absenteeism. We're paying the price for not investing in our youngest learners. But the benefits of high-quality early education go far beyond workforce participation. Decades of research have shown its ripple effects on educational attainment, public health and economic mobility. For example, an MIT study of Boston's universal preschool program revealed that children who won a preschool seat through a randomized lottery were significantly more likely to graduate from high school, enroll in college on time and avoid suspension or juvenile detention. The academic outcomes are just as compelling. One study found that "children who participate in two years of Head Start (as opposed to one year) have stronger academic, cognitive, and social literacy skills upon exiting" the program and going to kindergarten. These are more than just kindergarten milestones; they're the building blocks for lifelong learning and employability. According to Georgetown University, by 2031, 72% of U.S. jobs will require a college degree. High-quality early childhood education puts kids on a trajectory toward success. For business leaders thinking about the workforce of tomorrow, the lesson is clear: If we want a pipeline of skilled, healthy and resilient workers, we need to start building these foundational skills in preschool. Supporting Early Childhood Education Investing in early childhood programs is a critical way businesses can ensure they are investing in the future of the workforce, but they can also support early childhood education in many impactful ways beyond direct investment in programs. Employers can provide childcare benefits or subsidies that make quality care affordable for working parents, offer flexible work schedules to accommodate caregiving needs and create partnerships with local early learning centers to expand access. Some companies invest in community early education initiatives or sponsor parental education programs to strengthen family engagement. By adopting family-friendly workplace policies and supporting early learning broadly, businesses not only stabilize their workforce but can also help foster healthier communities that sustain long-term economic growth. Support for early childhood is a vital investment in talent development, employee stability and community resilience. It's a strategy that yields returns in workforce readiness, economic growth and stronger families, and it's our nation's hardest-hitting tool for building a workforce that works for everyone. Forbes Nonprofit Council is an invitation-only organization for chief executives in successful nonprofit organizations. Do I qualify?
CTV News
26-06-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Early childhood study brings active play into Montreal daycares
A Montreal daycare is trying a pilot project called 'active play' that experts say is helping with brain development. A new pilot project in Montreal is using something simple — movement — to help preschoolers build lifelong skills before they even step foot in a classroom. At the Pré-maternelle de la petite italie in the Little Italy neighbourhood, children are running, jumping, stretching, and laughing as part of a project that researchers hope will strengthen both body and brain during the most critical stage of development. 'About 90 per cent of brain development happens before age six,' said Sylvana Côté, a professor at Université de Montréal's School of Public Health and a researcher at the CHU Sainte-Justine. 'When children start school, they should already have acquired several basic skills in order to really benefit from everything school has to offer.' Sylvana Côté Professor Sylvana Côté says that about 90 per cent of brain development happens before age six. (CTV News) Côté is leading the research project, which aims to help young children develop motor, cognitive, and social skills through structured active play. Educators are supported over 14 weeks to integrate movement into daily routines, even in spaces that may lack ideal infrastructure. 'Our goal is to give educators simple, effective tools,' said Côté. 'We offer a portfolio of active games that can be done anywhere, in any weather — even if the daycare doesn't have a backyard or is far from a park.' The project is currently running its pilot in two Montreal daycares, with a planned expansion to 60 centres involving about 2,000 children over the next two years. The goal is to measure not just how much children move, but how their abilities and attitudes toward physical activity change over time. Active children The children at two Montreal daycares are engaged in active play, which is said to develop the brain as well as the body. (CTV News) The long-term aims include improving kids' coordination, balance, and posture, but the broader ambition is to build confidence, enjoyment of movement, and a foundation for lifelong health. 'We do what we like to do, it's a cycle,' said Côté. 'Learning to enjoy movement because we know how to do these movements, that's one of the greatest pleasures in life.' She said these skills shouldn't be taken for granted. 'A little practice and support can make a big difference in how much children enjoy physical activity.' At the Little Italy daycare, educator Marilyn Harper said the impact on children was almost immediate. 'They're very into it; every morning they ask what we're going to play,' said Harper, who's worked at the centre for nine years and has a three-year-old daughter enrolled there. Marilyn Harper Marilyn Harper says the impact on children involved in active play was immediate. (CTV News) 'It's very special to bring this to them and to see the emotions when they're playing more, especially with all their friends.' She said the project is also allowing her to broaden her toolkit as an educator. 'Before, kids would mostly be left to play on their own, but now I have specific things to work on with them, like posture and balance,' said Harper. 'And I can already see they're more attentive and active.' The focus isn't just on movement for movement's sake. According to Côté, active play also teaches children how to manage emotions and navigate social situations by setting boundaries. 'They learn how to communicate their frustrations,' she said. 'Even if someone is their friend, they can say, 'This time, I need my space.' Those kinds of social skills are really useful for life.' At home, parents have noticed changes too. Geneviève Woods, a mother of four — two of whom attend the daycare — said her younger children have been more engaged and independent since the program started. 'It's such a challenge being able to fulfill their needs on a daily basis — like how they want me to play with them all the time, but meanwhile I have to prepare snacks and everything,' she said. 'Now, I see them playing games together, and it's not coming from me telling them how to do it. I can just meet them there, and my older kids also join in because it looks fun.' Woods said the program gave her new ideas and models to engage with her kids, and brought a boost in energy and happiness across the board. 'At the end of the day, I see them and their educators being happier,' she said. 'It brings something really positive and for parents, it's also helped us spend more quality time with them.' To track the impact, children in the study wear actimeters — devices that measure physical activity — for a week at the beginning and end of the program. Researchers will also observe school readiness and assess basic motor skills, with final results expected in two years. But for Côté, the mission is already clear: 'We want to give the kids a strong start.'
Gizmodo
15-06-2025
- Health
- Gizmodo
Climate Disasters Hit the Brain Before Babies Are Even Born, Study Suggests
When Superstorm Sandy made a beeline for New York City in October 2012, it flooded huge swaths of downtown Manhattan, leaving 2 million people without electricity and heat and damaging tens of thousands of homes. The storm followed a sweltering summer in New York City, with a procession of heat waves nearing 100 degrees. For those who were pregnant at the time, enduring these extreme conditions wasn't just uncomfortable—it may have left a lasting imprint on their children's brains. That's according to a new study published on Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One. Using MRI scans, researchers at Queens College, City University of New York, found that children whose mothers lived through Superstorm Sandy had distinct brain differences that could hinder their emotional development. The effects were even more dramatic when people were exposed to extreme heat during their pregnancy, in addition to the tropical storm, the researchers found. 'It's not just one climate stressor or one isolated event, but rather a combination of everything,' said Donato DeIngeniis, the lead author of the study and a doctoral student in neuropsychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. DeIngeniis' study is the first of its kind to examine the joint effects of natural disasters and extreme heat—events that often coincide. A few years ago, scientists dubbed summer 'danger season' since it's a time of colliding risks, including heat, hurricanes, wildfires, and toxic smoke. And summertime temperatures keep climbing to new heights. The study analyzed brain imaging data from a group of 34 children, approximately 8 years old, whose mothers were pregnant during Superstorm Sandy—some of whom were pregnant at the time that Sandy made landfall, and some of whom were exposed to heat 95 degrees F or higher during their pregnancy. While the researchers didn't find that heat alone had much of an impact, living through Superstorm Sandy led to an increase in the basal ganglia's volume, a part of the brain that deals with regulating emotions. While that larger size could be a compensation in response to stress, changes in the basal ganglia have been linked to behavioral challenges for children, such as depression and autism, DeIngeniis said. 'What we are seeing is compelling evidence that the climate crisis is not just an environmental emergency, it is potentially a neurological one with consequence for future generations who will inherit our planet,' said Duke Shereen, a co-author of the study and the director of the MRI facility at CUNY Graduate Center, in a press release. Global warming made Superstorm Sandy more damaging as a result of rising sea levels and higher ocean temperatures that might have amped up its rainfall. Yoko Nomura, a co-author of the study and a psychology professor at the Queens College, CUNY, said that the time before birth is 'very, very sensitive' for development because the fetus' body is changing so drastically. The human brain grows the most rapidly in the womb, reaching more than a third of its full adult volume before birth, according to the study. Any added stress at that time, even if small, 'can have a much bigger impact,' Nomura said. But that extra-sensitive period also presents a window of opportunity. 'Developmental science, including the science in this paper, is exciting because it not only tells us what we can do to protect children from the effects of climate change, but it also tells us when we can step in to protect children to make the greatest difference,' Lindsey Burghardt, chief science officer at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, said in an email. Although there's a lot of evidence that prenatal stress generally can affect child brain development, according to DeIngeniis, research on climate-related stress specifically is lacking. 'It is still a field that has potential for explosive growth,' said Jennifer Barkin, a professor at Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon, Georgia, who is studying the effects of last year's Hurricane Helene on maternal health. DeIngeniis' study offers concrete evidence of how climate-charged events can affect the brain, Barkin said. 'People have a hard time sometimes with mental health, because it's not like you can take an X-ray and see a broken bone.' But it's easier to understand imaging showing a difference in brain volume based on exposure to environmental stress, she said. Barkin, who developed an index for measuring maternal health after childbirth, says that people are beginning to pay more attention to mothers and their mental health—not just in terms of delivering a healthy baby, but over the long term. 'We tend to focus things on the child's outcome, which is important, but to keep the child healthy, the mother has to be healthy, too,' she said. 'Because when Mom's struggling, the family's going to struggle.' This article originally appeared in Grist at Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at
Reuters
13-06-2025
- Health
- Reuters
Health Rounds: Air pollution exposure alters fetal brain development
June 13 (Reuters) - (This is an excerpt of the Health Rounds newsletter, where we present latest medical studies on Tuesdays and Thursdays. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox for free sign up here.) Brain development in the womb is affected by the mother's level of exposure to air pollution, researchers have found, although it's not clear whether the brain structure differences observed will cause any issues later. Researchers in Barcelona analyzed data collected between 2018 and 2021 from 754 mother-fetus pairs. During the third trimester of pregnancy, participants underwent transvaginal neurosonography, a specialized ultrasound that allows the analysis of fetal brain shape and structures. Higher prenatal exposure to nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and black carbon in pregnant women's homes, workplaces, and commuting routes was associated with an increase in the volumes of multiple brain regions that contain cerebrospinal fluid, the researchers reported in The Lancet Planetary Health, opens new tab. Higher exposure to black carbon was also linked with a reduction in the depth of a groove in the brain called the lateral sulcus, which the researchers said might suggest less maturation of the brain. All measurements of brain structures were within the range considered normal, however. 'At this stage, we can only report having observed differences in the brains of fetuses with higher exposure to pollution compared to those with lower exposure,' senior study author Jordi Sunyer of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health said in a statement. 'Additional research is needed to determine whether these effects are reversible after birth or if they persist, and whether they have any implications for neurodevelopmental outcomes in later stages.' Scientists have been wrong about how acetaminophen eases pain, a discovery that could lead to new pain management approaches, researchers reported in PNAS, opens new tab. For decades, scientists believed that acetaminophen, the main ingredient in Tylenol - known in some countries as paracetamol - relieved pain by working only in the brain and spinal cord. But researchers have discovered the drug also works outside the brain, in the nerves that first detect pain. After the drug is ingested, the body processes it into a metabolite called AM404. The new study found in laboratory experiments that AM404 is produced in pain-sensing nerve endings, where it shuts off specific channels that help transmit pain signals to the brain. By blocking these sodium channels, AM404 stops the pain message before it even starts, the researchers said. 'This is the first time we've shown that AM404 works directly on the nerves outside the brain,' study leader Alexander Binshtok of Hebrew University in Israel said in a statement. 'It changes our entire understanding of how paracetamol fights pain.' The discovery could lead to new types of painkillers that mimic the effects of AM404, the researchers suggested. Because AM404 targets only the nerves that carry pain, such drugs may avoid some of the side effects of traditional painkillers, they said. U.S. appendix cancer rates, while still low, have been climbing dramatically in younger adults, according to a report published in Annals of Internal Medicine, opens new tab. Appendix cancer rates were three times higher among people born between 1975 and 1985, and four times higher among those born between 1981 and 1989, than among people born in the 1940s, based on national U.S. population data. The conclusions are drawn from the nearly 4,900 adults who were diagnosed with appendix cancer in the United States between 1975 and 2019. The pattern of increasing cancer rates held true, to varying degrees, for all tumor types, including nonmucinous, mucinous, goblet cell, or signet ring cell carcinoma, the researchers said. Rates of colon cancers and other gastrointestinal malignancies have also been rising in younger adults, for reasons that remain unclear, the researchers noted. 'It really struck our curiosity... Would we observe similar patterns in rare appendiceal cancers?" said study leader Dr. Andreana Holowatyj of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. "And certainly the answer was yes,' 'The big question remains as to why is this happening,' she added. 'But what's most important is that as these higher-risk birth cohorts continue to age, it's likely these rates will continue to increase.' (To receive the full newsletter in your inbox for free sign up here)
Japan Times
13-06-2025
- Health
- Japan Times
Natural disasters may be shaping babies' brains
Climate disasters are known for damaging homes, disrupting power and displacing residents. But even after the lights come back on and people return to their homes, their effects can linger — including in the brains of children born afterwards, a new study suggests. Climate stressors, and the effect they have on pregnant people, appear to affect the brain development of their babies, according to the study published in PLOS One on Wednesday, which relied on brain imaging conducted years after 2012's Superstorm Sandy hit the New York City metro area. The study evaluated a sample of 34 children, 11 whose parents were pregnant during Superstorm Sandy. By the time of assessment, the kids were roughly eight years old. Those who had been exposed to Sandy in utero had a significant enlargement in a part of the brain known as the basal ganglia. Parts of the basal ganglia were as much as 6% larger than in unexposed children, a change that could have negative implications for the children's behavior. The parents living through the disruptions from a storm that displaced more than 23,000 people and suspended electric services in the area for days to weeks may have affected their offspring's neurodevelopment, the researchers say. The findings signal how new generations of children may be marked by climate crises that occur before they were born, and speak to a need to better evaluate and educate pregnant people about climate risks, the researchers say. They contribute to a growing consensus about pregnant people's vulnerability to climate change, with extreme heat, air pollution and natural disasters posing risks like preterm births. "This is something which people who are going to get pregnant should know and be prepared,' says Yoko Nomura, an author of the PLOS One research and a professor at Queens College at the City University of New York. "Society as a whole has to have a strategy to protect those pregnant people.' Non-climate-related stress can affect pregnancies and influence fetal brain development. But studies typically haven't examined how natural disasters may work in the same way. Project Ice Storm, a project examining the aftermath of a devastating 1998 storm in Canada, found that stress had an effect on everything from kids' temperament to their IQ. Superstorm Sandy, which hit New York and New Jersey in October 2012, devastated coastal areas, leading to around 120 deaths and billions in damages. Queens College, in Flushing, New York, served as a shelter. Nomura, who was already on the faculty there at the time, observed how distressed storm evacuees in the on-campus gym were. Many of them were pregnant, and facing stressors like losing power and being displaced from their homes. That inspired Nomura to look into how the experience might affect their unborn babies. While the team hasn't yet determined how the changes they observed in the basal ganglia may affect participating children in the day-to-day, that part of the brain is involved in functions including emotional regulation. Other studies have linked the basal ganglia to conditions like depression and autism. Demonstrators, including mothers and babies, take part in a protest in London in October 2019. | Reuters "We do think that those changes we're seeing could lead to negative outcomes for the children's behavior,' says Donato DeIngeniis, the study's lead author and a doctoral student in clinical neuropsychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. For a subset of seven children whose parents had been exposed to Sandy and separately, over the course of their parent's pregnancy, extreme heat, the brain differences were more pronounced. Researchers observed that one portion of the basal ganglia was enlarged while another was reduced. "That might mean one area is impaired, which might lead the other to have to work harder to compensate,' DeIngeniis says, which is common in the brain in instances of brain damage or injury. The cohort of children examined in the study is small, reflecting the cost of brain imaging and the fact that the study's recruitment was interrupted by the COVID-19 crisis. Even after recruitment resumed in 2021, participants were reluctant to visit for in-person imaging. Burcin Ikiz, chair of the Neuro Climate Working Group, part of Columbia University's Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education, calls the study "small but mighty.' It's increasingly important to understand how different climate stressors may together affect human health, she says. For instance, children in New Delhi are experiencing both air pollution and extreme heat. "And this is one of the first studies — that's why it's a trailblazing study — that looks at these joint things,' she says. But she added that additional work still needs to be done to address limitations of the study such as the small sample size, and to examine the effect of heat with more depth. While the researchers used statistical methods to ensure the accuracy of their findings, it's still possible that other factors could explain the differences seen in the kids' brains, like genetic variability or socioeconomic status. The research team is now in the process of conducting a similar, larger study, with around 80 participants so far. But rather than wait to release those results, Nomura says the team felt it was important to release earlier findings more quickly to raise awareness among the public.
