News

Whole body diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW MRI) may aid in the assessment of cancer treatment response in children and youth at much lower levels of radiation than current approaches, suggests a small study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

High school students who began classes roughly an hour later than students at neighboring schools slept an average of 43 minutes more per night, according to a study funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), part of the National Institutes of Health. The study authors wrote that the later morning start times accommodated the teens’ natural sleep period, which begins about two hours later than that of younger children.

Research on the causes of and effective treatments for endometriosis is a high priority for NICHD. Our grantees share their findings and ongoing research.

Exercise during pregnancy stimulates fetal production of brown fat, which boosts metabolism and burns calories, even after birth, suggests a mouse study funded by the National Institutes of Health. When fed a high-fat diet, mice born to mothers who exercised had less weight gain than mice whose mothers did not exercise.

Adolescents with chronic pain—persistent or recurrent pain for an extended period of time—may be less likely than adolescents without chronic pain to attain a high school or college degree and have a job with employer-provided benefits, according to a study funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Drug labels for doxycycline, clindamycin and caffeine citrate now include better information for healthcare providers on recommended usage and dosage in pediatric populations.

James A. Griffin, Ph.D., named new Chief of NICHD’s Child Development and Behavior Branch

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered in mice what they believe is the first known genetic mutation to improve cognitive flexibility—the ability to adapt to changing situations.

Researchers have developed a test to measure the expressive language skills of people with Fragile X syndrome, a genetic disorder that may result in intellectual disability, cognitive impairment and symptoms of autism spectrum disorder. Expressive language refers to the use of words to convey meaning to others. The work was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health.

A research team funded by the National Institutes of Health has updated an online tool to provide information for clinicians and parents on outcomes for extremely preterm infants. The key change in the update was the incorporation of data from the hospital where the infant was born, which the researchers found was as important as gestational age in determining infant outcome.

Antioxidant supplements do not improve semen quality among men with infertility, according to a new NICHD-supported study.

The NIH Toolbox Cognitive Battery—an assessment of cognitive functioning for adults and children participating in neuroscience research—can be adapted to people with intellectual disabilities by modifying some test components and making accommodations for the test-takers’ disabilities, according to researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health. The adaptations ensure that the battery can be used to assess the cognitive ability of people with intellectual disabilities who have a mental age of 5 years and above, providing objective measures that could be used in a wide variety of studies.

Duane Alexander, M.D., a former director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), died on February 16, 2020, from Alzheimer’s disease. He was 79 years old.

Human milk oligosaccharides found in breastmilk may influence a child’s growth from infancy through early childhood, according to an NICHD-supported study.

NICHD funded Cohen’s award-winning work on growth factors for most of his career.

NICHD marks a 10-year partnership with WALTHAM® PetCare Science Institute, a division of Mars, to support research exploring the impact of interactions between animals and human companions.

Despite similar rates of enrollment into medical care, youth with HIV have much lower rates of viral suppression—reducing HIV to undetectable levels—compared to adults, according to an analysis funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Homicide is a leading cause of death among pregnant and postpartum women in Louisiana, according to an analysis of birth and death records from 2016 and 2017. The study, appearing as a research letter in JAMA Pediatrics, was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), part of the National Institutes of Health.

NICHD has launched a partnership with Safe Kids Worldwide, a global non-profit working to protect kids from preventable injuries through a network of more than 400 coalitions.

To expand the reach of its crowdsourcing pregnancy research project, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently launched a Spanish version of PregSource®.