Caffeine consumed during pregnancy can change important brain pathways that could lead to behavioral problems later in life, according to new research.
Researchers analyzed thousands of brain scans of nine and 10-year-olds, and revealed changes in the brain structure of children exposed to caffeine in utero.
“I suppose the outcome of this study will be a recommendation that any caffeine during pregnancy is probably not such a good idea.”
“These are sort of small effects and it’s not causing horrendous psychiatric conditions, but it is causing minimal but noticeable behavioral issues that should make us consider long term effects of caffeine intake during pregnancy,” says John Foxe, director of the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, and principal investigator of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development or ABCD Study at the University of Rochester.
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Dr. Amanda Sheffield Morris is a Regents Professor and the George Kaiser Family Foundation Chair in Child Development at Oklahoma State University in the Department of Human Development and Family Science. She is also an adjunct professor at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research (LIBR) and a co-investigator on the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) national study. Dr. Morris is a developmental scientist with research interests in parenting, socio-emotional development, early life adversity, and risk and resilience. She is the Editor in Chief for the Journal of Research on Adolescence and is an Associate Editor for the journal Adversity and Resilience Science: Research and Practice published by Springer/Nature. She is co-author of the recently published book Adverse and Protective Childhood Experiences: A Developmental Perspective published by the American Psychological Association.
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Even after accounting for differences in income, education, caregiver support, special education services and parental reports of misbehavior and family conflict, elementary school-age Black children are 3.5 times more likely to be suspended or placed in detention than their white peers, a new study finds.
The results were unsettling even to the researchers themselves, who were familiar with previous research into racial disparities in school discipline. Previous studies primarily used school records, but this study was able to use a nationwide self-reported dataset, with data collected as part of a long-term investigation into how the brain develops through the preteen and teen years into early adulthood.
Date Time
Study shows racial disparities in elementary school disciplinary actions
Even after accounting for differences in income, education, caregiver support, special education services and parental reports of misbehavior and family conflict, elementary school-age Black children are 3.5 times more likely to be suspended or placed in detention than their white peers, a new study finds.
The results were unsettling even to the researchers themselves, who were familiar with previous research into racial disparities in school discipline. Previous studies primarily used school records, but this study was able to use a nationwide self-reported dataset, with data collected as part of a long-term investigation into how the brain develops through the preteen and teen years into early adulthood.