Faculty Bibliography

Dr. [Clyde Francks], who is now at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands, recalls that the discovery made headlines and attracted a great deal of attention, the more so because this gene was also found disproportionately in people with schizophrenia, even though none of these connections are simple or well understood. 'We're not looking for a gene for handedness or a gene for schizophrenia,' he said. 'We're looking for subtle relationships.' The gene affects the ways that neurons communicate with one another, he said, but its mechanisms still need to be studied. Dr. Daniel Geschwind, a professor of human genetics, neurology and psychiatry at University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine, is interested in the connections between language and handedness, and the ways that handedness can help us understand the evolution of the human brain. 'Handedness has a genetic basis, but like other complex traits -- height, weight -- it is complex,' he said. 'It's not a single gene that leads to it. There's a strong environmental component, too. It's a very tricky problem.' A colleague's husband, Anthony Gentile, a fund manager who is 41 and grew up outside Cincinnati, said that though he was always left-handed, he was taught to write with his right hand -- though he can form the letters, he could never learn to hold the pencil correctly in that hand. 'I can hold the pencil properly in my left hand, but I don't have the coordination to write,' he said. 'It looks like I'm holding the pencil properly, but I am unable to make any letters.'

Because left-handedness has been seen as a key to the complex anatomy of the brain, researchers continue to look for -- and debate -- links to many other conditions, including immune disorders, learning disabilities and dyslexia, reduced life expectancy and schizophrenia

[...] searching the archives of the journal Pediatrics, I found only a single reference to sleepovers, one that will make perfect sense to all those parents who distrust 'strangers': the academy recommends that after a sleepover, you check your child for head lice

[...] I got so worried the child was dehydrated that I told her to go to the emergency room. [...] when she got there, she told them she was scared because the child had a high fever. [...] fever does not harm the brain or the body, though it does increase the need for fluids.

'There's a lot we still don't know,' said Bruce F. Pennington, a professor of psychology at the University of Denver and an expert on the genetics and neuropsychology of attention disorders. 'But we know enough to say it is a brain-based disorder, and we have some idea about which circuits are involved and which genes.' Dr. [Maximilian Muenke] brought up 'Der Struwwelpeter' ('Slovenly Peter'), the 1845 book by Heinrich Hoffmann, which contains the story of 'Zappel-Philipp,' or 'Fidgety Philip.' (One English translation was done by Mark Twain, that great chronicler of boys.) The circumstances of modern life can give rise to the false belief that a culture full of electronics and multitasking imperatives creates the disorder. 'People have this idea that we live in a world that gives people A.D.H.D.,' Dr. [David K. Urion] said. Of course one shouldn't drive and text at the same time, he continued, but for 'a harbor pilot bringing a huge four-masted sailing vessel into Boston Harbor, paying attention was a good idea then, too.'

What we're specifically talking about in kids with attention deficit is a problem compared to age- and gender-based peers in selective attention -- what do you glom onto and what do you ignore? [...] the disorder occurs along a broad spectrum, from mild to extreme

Doctors can be too quick to dismiss complaints about belly troubles. The stomachache people look with some envy at the headache people. 'For some reason people respect headaches,' said Carlo Di Lorenzo, a professor of clinical pediatrics at Ohio State. 'I've never seen a parent or a pediatrician tell a child complaining of a headache, 'You don't have a headache -- it's not real.' Bellyache is just as real as headache.' 'We think in terms of a biological psychological social model,' for pain said Joel R. Rosh, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Goryeb Children's Hospital in Morristown, New Jersey, and an associate professor of pediatrics at New Jersey Medical School, 'When a child says, 'My belly hurts,' what drives me crazy is people say, 'No it doesn't.' Why would people say that? You're feeling something! How much is biological, how much is psychological, how much is social?' Our patient said she didn't want to see any more doctors. She didn't want any more blood tests, and she didn't want tests she had heard about that involved tubes. Her mother didn't really want those tests either, since as she said, they never find anything wrong. Neither was enthusiastic about seeing a counselor, but they finally agreed. It's an appropriate strategy. 'It's very disempowering to have this alien living in your belly,' Dr. Rosh said. 'How about if I learn that my belly doesn't have to run my life?'

Klass reviews PULSE: VOICES FROM THE HEART OF MEDICINE--THE FIRST YEAR edited by Paul Gross and Diane Guernsey

The diagnostic term for this common and perplexing condition is 'functional abdominal pain': recurrent stomachaches, as the American Academy of Pediatrics put it in 2005, with no 'anatomic, metabolic, infectious, inflammatory or neoplastic disorder' to explain them. Miranda A. L. van Tilburg, a psychologist who is assistant professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina, was the lead author of a study published a year ago in Pediatrics, which showed good effects from a treatment called guided imagery

[...] many of these issues of prenatal influences and prenatal origins lead to complexities; pursuing the question of stress on the mother and its effect on the fetus, for example, leads to studies of the aftermath of pregnancy in a time of catastrophe.