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January 28, 2002        News Morgue Search  www.feat.org/search/news.asp

RESEARCH

·        Brain Regions Involved in Learning by Imitation Found

 

PUBLIC HEALTH

·        Ties to Drug Company Raise Vaccine Questions

 

EDUCATION

·        Educators Look To Help Spec Ed Students In Transition

From School To Life

·        Reader’s Posts

 

 

Brain Regions Involved in Learning by Imitation Found

euroscientists searching for roots of empathy find brain regions involved in

learning by imitation

[Lack of empathy, in various degrees depending on the individual, is

one of the more pronounced attributes of being on the autism disorder

spectrum.]

http://www.newswise.com/articles/2002/1/IMITATE.UWA.html

 

In a pair of pioneering studies, a French and American team of social-cognitive neuroscientists have identified a network of brain regions that are involved in human imitation and specific brain areas that enable a person to distinguish the self from others.

The research is part of a larger effort to find the neurological basis of social interaction, particularly empathy, a basic part of human nature that allows most, but not all, people to care about others.

The team is headed by neuroscientist Jean Decety of France’s Institut de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale and a visiting scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for Mind, Brain & Learning, and developmental psychologist Andrew Meltzoff, co-director of the center.

“This work is important because imitation is a natural procedure. We don’t learn to imitate. It is part of our biological nature and we are born to imitate,” said Decety.

“A 3-year-old feels empathy and will pat another child on the shoulder or comfort his mom when she’s crying,” added Meltzoff. “We believe empathy has roots early in life. It may be linked to imitation, which we know babies do from a very early age.”

In the two studies, which are being published in the January and February issues of the journal NeuroImage, the researchers used positron emission tomography (PET) to explore the neural mechanisms of imitation by measuring increases in blood flow in the brain.

In the first study the researchers look at imitation from the point of view of a teacher (the person demonstrating a task) versus the point of view of a student (the person learning the task). Eighteen right-handed male subjects were asked to perform five tasks involving small, different colored objects. Their heads were held stationary while the PET scans made images of their brains, but they could move their right hands and watch a demonstrator’s hands reflected in a mirror.

Subjects were first asked to watch the demonstrator move the objects and then imitate the action with their hand. In the second task, they were told to move the objects first and watch the demonstrator copy them. The other three tasks were control experiments in which subjects were allowed to freely manipulate the objects any way they wanted to, just watch the demonstrator move the objects, and move the objects and then watch the other person perform different movements.

The researchers discovered a consistent pattern of increased brain activity involving the superior temporal gyrus, as well as differential activity in the two hemispheres within the inferior parietal cortex when imitation was involved. The left inferior parietal cortex showed increased activity when the subjects were imitating another person. When the subjects were being imitated by the other person, however, the right inferior parietal cortex was more activated.

Decety and Meltzoff believe the inferior parietal cortex may play a key role in whether a person attributes an action to the self or to another person.

“By imitation we may feel what another person felt, which is the very definition of human empathy,” said Decety.

“Imitation also is nature’s way of conveying culture,” said Meltzoff.  “It naturally occurs in a variety of settings, such as learning to play music and sports, or when a mother teaches her daughter how to tie her shoelaces. The mother ties a shoelace and the child follows, trying to imitate the action. We would expect the same kind of lateralized brain activity in learning to tie shoelaces as there was in our experimental task.”

The second study, which involved 10 right-handed subjects, employed a physical setup that was similar to the one used in the first study. This time, however, subjects were shown video clips of another person choosing, grasping and moving a Lego block into a new position and then leaving the Lego in the new position.

In the first of six tasks, subjects had to duplicate the entire manipulation. Next they were only shown part of a video clip that showed the other person’s hand leaving the Lego in its final position and the subjects had to manipulate the block to achieve that “goal.” Subjects also viewed a clip that only showed “means,” or the manipulations of a block, and had to duplicate the movements they observed. Three control tasks also were performed. Subjects again watched the clips showing the entire manipulation, as well as just the goal and the means, and were asked to freely move their Lego in any way they choose.

This paper is unique because it is believed to be the first neuroimaging study to show that imitation can be split into two complementary components, the goal of an action and the means to achieve it.

Decety said the researchers found that not only can the components of imitation (the goal and the means) be separated, but each involves specific brain regions. Increased brain activity was detected in the medial prefrontal cortex during imitation of the means, while increased activity in the left premotor cortex was associated with imitation of the goal.

“This supports the idea that when observing someone’s action, the underlying intention is equally or perhaps more important than the surface behavior itself,” the authors write.

These findings have widespread potential applications in typical and atypical child development, educational practice and artificial intelligence.

“In child development, reading others’ goals or intentions from their actions is necessary for human interaction. If you are just literal, you will not have deep understanding of other people,” said Meltzoff. “It is also important to know what brain regions control actions and intentions.  They may not develop at the same time in humans.”

“Educators sometimes pay too much attention to the means without the goal or to the goal without giving children the means, or the steps, to accomplish something,” Decety said.

A high-resolution image showing brain activation involved in imitation

is available on the Web at

http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/news/images/imitate.jpg

 

 

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Ties to Drug Company Raise Vaccine Questions

[By Jim Ritter in the Chicago Sun-Times.]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/health/cst-nws-pox27.html

Next fall, thousands of Illinois schoolchildren are likely to have to get a chickenpox vaccine, under orders from the state health department.

The department followed the recommendation of a panel of experts, its Immunization Advisory Committee, while rejecting the advice of others who thought the decision should be left to parents and pediatricians.

But in what critics consider a conflict of interest, 5 of the committee’s 18 members have financial ties to Merck, which makes the chickenpox vaccine.

Two members of the committee have given talks for Merck, receiving up to $750 per speech. A third member directs a nonprofit group that has received $20,000 in grant money from the company. And two other members own stock in Merck, including one who has owned as much as $16,000 worth.

Though only one of these five members of the committee participated in the vote to recommend making the vaccine mandatory, the others participated in the discussion, committee member Fran Eaton said.

Last year, the Illinois House and Senate unanimously passed a bill that would have banned anyone with financial ties to pharmaceutical companies from serving on the committee. But Gov. Ryan, who has received $9,000 in campaign contributions from Merck, vetoed the bill, and the Senate failed to override the veto. The bill was sponsored by Sen. Patrick O’Malley (R-Palos Park), who is running for governor.

Since 1994, Merck has contributed $75,050 to political candidates in Illinois, including Ryan.

Merck spokesman Christopher Loder said Merck seeks to “have a voice in the debate about the most effective means to achieve the goal of improving the state of health care.” Mandating the chickenpox vaccine, he said, “is good public policy.”  When Ryan vetoed the bill last year, he said the restrictions on financial ties to drug companies would have severely limited the number of pediatricians, infectious disease specialists and other experts who could serve on the committee. Ryan noted that members are required to disclose financial interests in drug companies that exceed $5,000 and abstain from votes if they have a conflict of interest.

“The people who do this work are principled people,” said committee member Robyn Gabel, executive director of the Illinois Maternal and Child Health Coalition. “The amount of money they get from the companies is not enough to do something that is harmful.”  But critics say the financial ties damage the committee’s credibility. “It’s outrageous that Gov. Ryan vetoed this,” said Dr. Linda Shelton, an Oak Lawn pediatrician. “If you have even the appearance of impropriety, people won’t trust you.”  On the federal level, members of committees that advise the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine policy also often have conflicts of interest, according to a report of the House Government Reform Committee. The FDA approves vaccines, and the CDC issues guidelines for their use.

The federal report examined the financial interests of expert advisers who endorsed a rotavirus vaccine to prevent childhood diarrhea. Shortly after the vaccine was approved, it was pulled from the market after being linked to severe bowel obstructions in babies that caused vomiting and bloody stools and sometimes required surgery.

The House committee report documented that members of the FDA and CDC advisory committees held stock in vaccine companies, owned vaccine patents, received grants and research funds from vaccine manufacturers and were paid speaking and consulting fees. Some of these members abstained from the vote to approve the rotavirus vaccine, but still participated in committee discussions, the report said.

“We’ve taken a good hard look at whether the pharmaceutical industry has too much influence over these committees,” said committee chairman Dan Burton (R-Ind.) “From the evidence we found, I think they do.”  The issue is part of a larger debate over whether the pharmaceutical industry wields too much clout over the nation’s medical practices and health policy. Drug companies routinely give doctors free meals, medical textbooks, drug samples and generous speaking and consulting fees. Companies that develop new drugs pay for the studies that determine whether the drugs will be approved for use. Drug companies also are a major source of advertising dollars for medical journals, and they help pay for medical conferences.

Eaton, a non-medical member of the state immunization advisory committee and the only member to vote against the chickenpox vaccine, said she was “amazed at the number of lobbyists from pharmaceutical companies that attend these meetings.” Industry representatives, she added, are on a first-name basis with committee members and sometimes participate in discussions.

In April 2000, the committee voted 6-1 to recommend requiring the chickenpox vaccine. Seven members were absent, three abstained and one recused himself, citing a conflict of interest. Eight months later, the health department received conflicting advice. The state Board of Health voted 4-3 against making the vaccine mandatory.

Health board member Ernst Ott said people who attended three public hearings expressed overwhelming opposition to requiring the vaccine. And board member Colin McRae said there is no “far-reaching public health issue” to justify a mandatory vaccine.

Last October, Dr. John Lumpkin, the state’s public health director, decided to make the vaccine mandatory. He said he weighed the advice from both committees, along with recommendations in favor of the vaccine from the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians and his staff.

“It would not be fair to say that one committee had more weight than

the other,” said Lumpkin, whose order still must be reviewed by a

legislative committee. “It was the sum total of all the information and

recommendations.”  Copyright © The Sun-Times Company

 

 

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Educators Look To Help Spec Ed Students In Transition From School To Life

[By Brian S. Schubert in the Newington Town Crier, Connecticut.]

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=3091658&BRD=1647&PAG=461&dept_id=1

1410&rfi=6

School officials are seeking nearly $50,000 in Connecticut funding for an experimental program to aid special education students in their transition from high school to daily life.

The program, “Enhancing Transition Programs for Secondary Students with Disabilities,” is part academic instruction, part daily-living preparation, and part introduction to the work world.

In its statement of need to the state Board of Education, officials wrote: “Newington High School is in a state of unpreparedness to offer a life-centered, integrated transition program designed to meet the mandates of ‘transition law’ and the needs of these special students. Our need is critical and immediate.”

In years past, the few students in Newington who needed such a program were transferred to other districts with more appropriate resources. The need in Newington has grown, officials say, to begin developing a program such as this one.

The program will be instituted during the next school year if approved. Officials have called the program “state of the art,” and they hope a group of seven to nine high school students with severe learning disabilities will ground the program sufficiently so that it may in the future grow to include students with autism, physical or visual handicaps.

For students participating in the program, half of their day would be spent in the Transition Learning Center, which educators call an “experimental classroom setting.”

A sizable portion of the grant request will go to purchase any number of household and workplace appliances for the TLC including a television-VCR, nine palm pilots, four desktop computers, a refrigerator, a stove, dishwasher, microwave, vacuum cleaner, and washer-dryer.

Due to the fact that a primary component of the program is to increase social and interpersonal skills as well as technical ones, officials plan numerous field trips to banks, Laundromats, beauty salons, restaurants, museums, and movie theaters.

Lastly, the program will reach out to area civic and business groups and enroll students in vocational training programs.

“Newington educators believe that productive integration of our students with disabilities within the community workplace will be the greatest measure of success of the Transition Learning Program,” the grant application states.

The school board is expected to address the grant application at its

meeting Wednesday night. ©Newington Town Crier 2002

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