A sedentary lifestyle and too much tasty but high-calorie food are fattening America's children to an alarming degree, doctors and researchers agree. Now, some researchers are trying to determine how that trend affects children with disabilities. Children with disabilities are just as tempted by food and the lure of television as those without…

Background: Kinship theory (or the genomic conflict hypothesis) proposes that the phenotypic effects of genomic imprinting arise from conflict between paternally and maternally inherited alleles. A prediction arising for social behaviour from this theory is that imbalance in this conflict resulting from a deletion of a maternally imprinted gene,…

Genetically informative data can be used to address fundamental questions concerning the measurement of behavior in children. The authors illustrate this with longitudinal multiple-rater data on internalizing problems in twins. Valid information on the behavior of a child is obtained for behavior that multiple raters agree upon and for…

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student centered approach whereby students deal with ill-structured problems while working in small groups. In this study, a path model was utilized to model the relationships among reasoning ability, learning approach, prior knowledge, motivational variables, and achievement in genetics in PBL classes. 126 eighth…

Through associative learning, cues for biologically significant reinforcers such as food may gain access to mental representations of those reinforcers. Here, we used devaluation procedures, behavioral assessment of hedonic taste-reactivity responses, and measurement of immediate-early gene (IEG) expression to show that a cue for food engages…

Background: It is widely believed that there are reciprocal links between reading achievement and reading exposure: children who read more do better at reading, and reading achievement itself promotes reading. We tested the hypotheses that these links arise because children's genetically influenced reading performance is correlated with their…

The genetic and environmental etiologies of 3 aspects of low mathematical performance (math disability) and the full range of variability (math ability) were compared for boys and girls in a sample of 5,348 children age 10 years (members of 2,674 pairs of same-sex and opposite-sex twins) from the United Kingdom (UK). The measures, which we…

Empirical data suggest that there is at most a very small sex difference in general mental ability, but men clearly perform better on visuospatial tasks while women clearly perform better on tests of verbal usage and perceptual speed. In this study, we integrated these overall findings with predictions based on the Verbal-Perceptual-Rotation (VPR)…

Few autistic brain samples are available for study, limiting investigations into molecular and histopathological abnormalities associated with this common disease. To facilitate distribution of samples, we have constructed a tissue array containing cerebral and cerebellar cores from 5 autistic children, 1 girl with Rett syndrome, and 5 age-matched…

We report a practical class designed for undergraduate students of Marine Sciences as a part of the Genetics course. The class can also be included in undergraduate studies of food technology. The exercise was designed to emphasize the application of molecular biology techniques to fish species authentication and traceability. After a simple and…

DNA microarray technology is revolutionizing biological science. DNA microarrays (also called DNA chips) allow simultaneous screening of many genes for changes in expression between different cells. Now researchers can obtain information about genes in days or weeks that used to take months or years. The paper activity described in this article…

Gene-culture interactions have largely been modelled employing population genetic-type models. Moreover, in the most notable application to date, the "interactive" modes have been one way rather than bidirectional. This paper suggests using game theoretic, fully interactive models. Employing the logic utilized in population ecology for coevolution…

Williams syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic disorder that results in severe visual-spatial cognitive deficits coupled with relative sparing in language, face recognition, and certain aspects of motion processing. Here, we look for evidence for sparing or impairment in another cognitive system--object recognition. Children with WS, normal mental-age…

The field of genetics and the process of testing for genetic disorders have advanced considerably over the past half century, ushering in significant improvements in certain areas of medical diagnosis and disease prediction. However, genetic discoveries are accompanied by many social, emotional, and psychological implications, and counseling…

Background: Roifman syndrome (OMIM 300258) is a multi-system disorder with a physical phenotype that includes B-cell immunodeficiency, intra-uterine and postnatal growth retardation, spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia, retinal dystrophy and characteristic facial dysmorphism. So far, six cases, all boys, have been reported in the literature. Roifman…