puberty in Biological News

Evidence now suggests eating soy foods in puberty protects against breast cancer

... three human studies that tracked soy use during puberty and later breast cancer development, and two of ... rats demonstrated that use of genistein in puberty cut the number of so-called terminal end buds in ... do that, so the shorter time there is between puberty and pregnancy, the greater that protection may ...

Family conditions may affect when girls experience puberty

... Early puberty in girls has been found to negatively affect ... adolescents are at increased risk for early puberty in order to develop effective early intervention ... of family ecology in speeding up or slowing down puberty in girls. According to Belskys theory, childrens ...

New study shows compounds from soy affect brain and reproductive development

... changes in the structure of the brain, resulting in early-onset puberty and symptoms of advanced menopause in research animals, according to a new ... of the hypothalamus a brain region that is essential to the regulation of puberty and ovulation. The study also shows that the phytoestrogens could cause ...

Scientists alter sexual orientation in worms

... young males and hermaphrodites is rewired during the worm equivalent of puberty the fourth larval stage to make the males attracted to hermaphrodites. ... attraction was impaired. But when the nerve cells were zapped before puberty in fourth-stage larvae, they grew into adults with normal attraction to ...

Genetic contributions to human brain morphology and intelligence

... that may be essential to optimal adult functioning. Around the onset of puberty gray matter volume starts to decrease, while white matter volume is still ... may play a role in later stages during puberty, around the onset of puberty brain volumes are already highly heritable. Genetic influences and ...

ICSI or IVF: Babies born from frozen embryos do just as well

... studies," she said. "When you think about it, the reproductive medical field has created a new sub-population. These children are now reaching puberty and their fertility status still remains to be assessed. Therefore, the continuous monitoring of children generated through artificial conception is ...

Genes that influence start of menstruation identified for first time

... early menstruation and both height and BMI." She added: "The study takes us nearer to understanding the biology of the processes involved in puberty and early growth and to understand what constitutes 'normal' in growth and development." Fellow author John Perry, also from the Peninsula Medical ...

Liking sweets makes sense for kids

... decline as children age, so does their preference for highly sweet solutions." Other biological factors associated with adolescence, such as puberty or sex hormone levels, were not associated with sweet preference. "We now know that sweet preference is related to physical growth. The next ...

Why do women store fat differently from men?

... eating, resulting in more fat being stored around the body. The likely reason is to prime women for childbearing, the review suggests. "Female puberty and early pregnancy times of increased oestrogen could be seen as states of efficient fat storage in preparation for fertility, foetal development ...

NTP finalizes report on Bisphenol A

... humans," Bucher said. The report also expresses "minimal concern" that BPA exposure will affect development of the mammary gland or accelerate puberty in females. The NTP expressed "negligible concern" that exposure of pregnant woman to BPA will result in fetal or neonatal mortality, birth defects ...

UC Davis researchers define characteristics, treatment options for XXYY syndrome

... general population. Boys with XXYY syndrome usually come to the attention of physicians because of unique facial features, developmental delays, late puberty and behavioral problems. It was once thought to be a variant of Klinefelter syndrome, in which males have one extra X chromosome. While the two ...

MIT: Why men are more prone to liver cancer

... scientist in MIT's Division of Comparative Medicine. Male and female livers are inherently different, with most of the differences arising during puberty when male livers are exposed to periodic bursts of growth hormone. This prompts male livers to express different genes than female livers, which ...

New studies on schizophrenia, depression, trauma and autism highlight annual meeting

... times for medication to take effect. (Embargoed until 9:00 a.m. EST December 8) Study Finds Brain Differences in Adolescents with Mental Illness puberty may have an impact on areas of the brain that contribute to bipolar disorder or schizophrenia in youth, according to new research. Investigators ...

Lupus gene finding prompts call for more DNA samples

... can be difficult. There is currently no cure for the disease, which can be triggered by viral infections, sunlight, trauma or stress, as well as puberty and childbirth. In research published online today in the journal Nature Genetics, Professor Tim Vyse from Imperial College London, and colleagues ...

Exercise improves thinking, reduces diabetes risk in overweight children

... their leaner peers. Insulin resistance is an early sign of diabetes risk that appears before glucose levels start to rise. Growth associated with puberty can temporarily increase insulin resistance, Dr. Davis notes, so because some of the children were beginning puberty, they made adjustments for the ...

Study identifies pathway required for normal reproductive development

... in a series of investigations by the MGH group into the genetic basis of idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (IHH), a rare condition in which puberty does not take place naturally. IHH occurs when a structure in the brain called the hypothalamus fails to develop neurons that secrete ...

Brain cell growth diminishes long before old age strikes, animal study shows

... news isn't entirely negative, though it seems to be at first glance," Gould said. "The silver lining here is that neurogenesis continues long past puberty and does not stop entirely, even in older primates. What's more, it can be stimulated with experience." For rodents, some of the ways adult ...

News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience

... Bodo, John G. Hohmann, Maria N. Pavlova, Alex D. Rohde, Donald K. Clifton, Robert A. Steiner, and Emilie F. Rissman Long before their role during puberty and adulthood becomes manifest, gonadal hormones exert influence on the development of sexual dimorphism in the brain. This week, Kauffman et al. ...

A gene's first 'kiss' sets off that affair known as puberty

... of the brain called the hypothalamus just as puberty begins, according to a study published in this ... questions about human development: What causes puberty to begin? How is it that the full repertoire of ... for instance, help prevent precocious or delayed puberty from occurring in some children," noted the ...

Scientists find hormone activity explains adolescent mood swings

... The "raging hormones" of puberty are known to produce mood swings and stress for most teenagers, making it ... has very low expression, but increases dramatically at the onset of puberty in the part of the brain that regulates emotion. Paradoxically, THP ...

Does a peptide affect the heart's response to social isolation?

... changes in adult female prairie voles exposed to social isolation. While there are limitations to the study, including the lack of spontaneous puberty and estrous cycles in female prairie voles (unlike their human counterpart), the results serve as a springboard into better understanding the ...

Fertility hope as study shows eggs survive in older ovaries

... with a finite number of oocytes (eggs). Two years ago, international researchers speculated that mice could continue to produce eggs throughout puberty and adulthood. Although their speculation caused debate throughout the scientific community, the scientists could not produce evidence to confirm ...

Genes affecting blood pressure change as children become adults

... he says. Despite conventional thinking, this scientist who focuses on genetics, was not totally surprised to see the novel genes show up during puberty ?although the amount of change surprised him ?but suspects gene expression may be consistent from that point onward. "We need to know what the ...

Animal models show that anabolic steroids flip the adolescent brain's switch for aggression

... hamsters behaved when another hamster was put into their cages. Normally mild-mannered hamsters still defend their turf, learning aggression during puberty by play-fighting, much like humans. Their roughhousing normally includes wrestling and nibbling ?pretty tame stuff. However, hamsters injected ...

Parents need to be educated about HPV vaccinations for daughters

... cancers worldwide. "If the current vaccinations that are being developed are approved for use, then they could be used to vaccinate girls at puberty in order to prevent HPV infection. By preventing HPV infection, this could have the effect of preventing the pre-cancerous and cancerous changes ...

Researchers find gland that tells fruit flies when to stop growing

... Enlarging the prothoracic gland produces much smaller-than-normal adult fruit flies, Riddiford said. "In humans, it would be as if you reached puberty when you were 6 years old." In the research, Mirth determined the critical weight for fruit flies to begin metamorphosis, and examined when larvae ...

Suppressing growth hormone in early adulthood may prevent cancer

... 12-15 percent. "Besides reducing the incidence of cancer in these rats, we found that a modest suppression of plasma IGF-1 beginning shortly after puberty and continued throughout life reduces the incidence of kidney disease and increases lifespan," Sonntag said. ...