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Manhattan Adult
Attention Deficit Disorder Support Group |
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www.maaddsg.org |
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Information For Adults With Add/Adhd |
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ADD/ADHD In The News: |
| Thursday,
April 17, 2003 · Last updated 3:07 p.m. PT |
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Study: Noise Affects
Brain Development |
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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS |
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WASHINGTON -- The high
noise of modern life may affect speech and language development in the
very young, according to a study that found the auditory parts of the
brains of young mice are slower to organize properly in the presence of
continuous sounds. |
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Researchers at the
University of California, San Francisco, reared a group of rats in an
environment of continuous background noise and found that their brain
circuits that receive and interpret sound did not develop at the same
rate as animals that were raised in a quieter environment. |
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Edward F. Chang and
Michael Merzenich, co-authors of the study appearing in the journal
Science, said that the continuous noise delayed the organization of
auditory neurons during a critical two- to three-week period after the
rat pups were born. |
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For rats not exposed to
the noise, the auditory cortex neurons during this period gathered into
a smaller area and began developing a selective response to sounds. |
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But for the noise-exposed
rats, this organization was slowed, causing a delay in the development
of the ability to discriminate specific sound tones. The researchers
said it took three or four times longer for the rats raised in a noisy
environment to reach the basic benchmarks of auditory development seen
in the rat pups not exposed to noises. |
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Although the rat is not a
perfect model for what happens in humans, the authors note, the study
does suggest that high levels of noise might possibly affect some
language learning in infants. |
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"These findings suggest
that environmental noise, which is commonly present in contemporary
child-rearing environments, can potentially contribute to auditory and
language-related development delays," the authors write in Science. |
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The authors noted that
although the brain development was delayed in rats exposed to the noise,
their brains did eventually mature normally. |
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