Children with serious anger problems can be helped by a simple video game that hones their ability to regulate their emotions, a pilot study at Boston Children's Hospital has found.

Noticing that children with anger control problems are often uninterested in psychotherapy, but
very eager to play video games, Jason Kahn, PhD, and Joseph Gonzalez-Heydrich, MD, at Boston Children's Hospital developed "RAGE Control" to motivate children to practice emotional control skills that they can later use in challenging life situations.

The fast-paced game involves shooting at enemy spaceships while avoiding shooting at friendly ones. As children play, a monitor on one finger tracks their heart rate and displays it on the computer screen. When heart rate goes above a certain level, players lose their ability to shoot at the enemy spaceships.

To improve their game, they must learn to keep calm.

"The connections between the brain's executive control centres and emotional centres are weak in people with severe anger problems," explained Gonzalez-Heydrich, chief of Psychopharmacology at Boston Children's and senior investigator on the study.

"However, to succeed at RAGE Control, players have to learn to use these centres at the same time to score point," he noted.

The study, led by first author Peter Ducharme, MSW, a clinical social worker at Boston Children's, compared two groups of 9- to 17-year-old children admitted to the hospital's Psychiatry Inpatient Service who had high levels of anger. To qualify for the study, the children had to have a normal IQ and not need a medication change during the five-day study period.

One group, with 19 children, received standard treatments for anger including cognitive-behavioural therapy, presentation of relaxation techniques and social skills training for five consecutive business days. The second group, with 18 children, got these same treatments, but spent the last 15 minutes of their psychotherapy session playing RAGE Control.

After five sessions, the video gamers were significantly better at keeping their heart rate down. They showed clinically significant decreases in anger scores on the State Trait Anger Expression Inventory-Child and Adolescent (STAXI-CA), and specifically on: the intensity of anger at a particular time the frequency of angry feelings over time, expression of anger towards others or objects.

The gamers also had a decrease in suppressed, internalized anger that reached marginal statistical significance. In contrast, the standard-treatment group showed no significant change from baseline on any of the above measures.

The video gamers gave their therapy experience high marks for helpfulness (5 to 6 on a scale of 7).

"Kids reported feeling better control of their emotions when encountering day to day frustrations on the unit. While this was a pilot study, and we weren't able to follow the kids after they were discharged, we think the game will help them control their emotions in other environments," said Ducharme.

The research team plans another clinical trial to test whether letting children take RAGE Control home, to play with parents and siblings, will increase its effect.

In addition, Kahn is spearheading a team effort to develop toys to enhance emotional regulation skills in children too young for RAGE Control. These toys include racing cars that stop if a child gets too excited and, for even younger children, a cooperative game where children try to help each other stack blocks (if heart rate goes up, the table becomes wobbly and the blocks topple).

Results were published online October 24 in the journal Adolescent Psychiatry.

Just two glasses of wine a day could be harmful to the brain, new research suggests.

Even moderate drinking can decrease the production of adult brain cells by as much as 40 per cent, researchers from Rutgers Unviersity in the US have found.

The researchers said the findings showed there is a fine line between moderate and binge drinking.

Lead author Megan Anderson said: 'Moderate drinking can become binge drinking without the person realising it.

'In the short term there may not be any noticeable motor skills or overall functioning problems, but in the long term this type of behaviour could have an adverse effect on learning and memory.'

Ms Anderson, a graduate fellow in the department of neuroscience and cell biology, used rats to model moderate to heavy drinking in humans.

Creating a blood alcohol level of 0.08 per cent in the rats, the legal driving limit in the US, they found this disrupted the production of brain cells.

This level of alcohol intake was not enough to impair the motor skills of the rats or prevent them from associative learning in the short-term.

But the number of nerve cells in the hippocampus of the brain were reduced by nearly 40 percent compared to those in the sober group of rodents.

This substantial decrease in brain cell numbers over time could have profound effects on the adult brain, said Ms Anderson.

That's because these new cells communicate with other neurons to regulate brain health.

'If this area of your brain was affected every day over many months and years, eventually you might not be able to learn how to get somewhere new or to learn something new about your life,' said Ms Anderson.

It's something that you might not even be aware is occurring.

The study is available online in the journal Neuroscience.

A new research has suggested that antibiotics are not effective in treating cough due to the common cold in children.

The study found that when children with acute cough were treated with either antitussive medication or antibiotics, antibiotics alone showed a lower percentage of cough resolution.

"In our experience, antibiotics are often prescribed by the general practitioner to treat cough in children, many times to pacify parents," said lead study author Francesco de Blasio, MD, FCCP, Clinic Center Private Hospital, Naples, Italy.

"However, antibiotics show very little effectiveness at treating cough due to your average head cold," he revealed.

To understand how antibiotics were being used in a clinical pediatric setting, Dr. de Blasio and colleagues from the University of Bologna and Dompe SPA in Italy observed the treatment and outcomes of 305 children who required pediatric consultation due to acute cough from the common cold.

Of the children, 89 received antibiotics only, while 38 received a combination of antibiotics and antitussives; central (codeine and cloperastine) in 16 cases, and peripheral (levodropropizine) in 22 children. Forty-four and 79 children received only central or peripheral antitussives, respectively, without antibiotics; 55 children did not receive medication.

Observational results showed no difference in percentage of cough resolution between children treated with antitussive alone vs children receiving a combination of antibiotics and antitussives.

On the contrary, children treated with antibiotics only had a lower percentage of cough resolution than children treated with antitussive only. Furthermore, the use of the peripheral antitussive levodropropizine demonstrated a significant beneficial effect in terms of cough resolution compared with centrally acting antitussive drugs.

"Few drugs are effective as cough suppressants, and antibiotics are no more effective in relieving cough than the use of no medication. However, peripheral antitussives, such as levodropropizine, appear to be the best option at relieving cough," he said.

Although antibiotics may not be an effective therapy for cough, they can be useful in treating underlying infections that may produce cough, noted Dr. de Blasio.

But he warned that antibiotics should not be overuse indicating that repeated use of it, especially when they are ineffective, can lead to adverse allergic reactions or a resistance to the medications.

The study was presented at CHEST 2012, the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.

Second-hand smoke, such as that found in smoke-filled rooms or cars, can impair breathing within 20 minutes, new research suggests.

Even after just a few minutes of exposure, people exposed to the smoke showed near immediate physiological changes that caused their airways to narrow, making it more difficult for the body to take in the oxygen it needs.

Lead reseacher Panagiotis Behrakis, of the University of Athens, said: 'Bars and cars are places where high concentrations of fine particles usually occur because of smoking.

'Non-smokers are then forced to inhale extreme amounts directly into their lungs.

'These results tell us that even a short exposure is indeed harmful for normal airways.'

Although exposure to second-hand smoke appears to be slightly less harmful than direct smoking, Dr. Behrakis believes second-hand smoking should be recognised as a global health issue.

He said: 'Second-hand smoking is the most widespread form of violence exerted on children and workers on a global level. The whole issue needs to be recognised as a global problem of human rights violation.'

The British Lung Foundation says around 300,000 GP visits a year result from the exposure of children to second-hand smoke.

In order to test the effects of short-term second-hand smoke exposure, Dr Behrakis and his colleagues from the Harvard School of Public Health, exposed 15 healthy participants to air heavily concentrated with smoke particles within an exposure chamber - simulating a bar or moving car - for 20 minutes.

Results showed that short-term exposure to concentrated second-hand smoke significantly and immediately impacted participants' airways, making them narrow and reducing the body's oxygen intake.

The Greek study was presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.

Commenting on the research, Dr Penny Woods, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation said: 'This research suggests that just a short exposure to concentrated second-hand smoke, of the kind you might experience when travelling in a car in which someone has smoked, can be enough to cause your airways to narrow, making it more difficult for your body to take in the oxygen it needs.

'Findings such as these are of particular significance to children travelling in cars in which an adult has smoked, as their breathing is faster, their lungs and immune systems less developed, and the effects of narrowing likely to be greater on their smaller airways.'

This research is the latest in a series of studies into the short and long- term effects of passive smoke in confined spaces, which have united the medical community and charities such as the British Lung Foundation in calling for legislation to ban smoking in cars with children on board.

Dr Woods added: 'Legislation is scheduled to be discussed in the House of Commons next week, and we hope MPs take this opportunity to protect the health of our children - just as they helped protect the health of adults in the workplace with the smoking ban in 2007.'

Last month scientists at Northumbria University reported that non-smokers regularly exposed to second-hand smoke were at risk of damaging their memory. The study was the first of its kind first to explore the relationship between second-hand smoke and memory problems.

They compared a group of current smokers with two groups of non-smokers - those regularly exposed to second-hand smoke and those who were not.

Non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke forgot almost 20 per cent more than the non-smokers who were not exposed.

With more than 600 dengue cases reported in Delhi so far, the residents in this Congress-ruled state are in a state of panic and seeking urgent medical advice to save themselves from the fast spreading vector-borne infection.

The death of legendary filmmaker Yash Chopra due to dengue combined with the report of the Deputy Director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) falling victim to it has further left many Delhiites panicky.

AIIMS Deputy Director Vineet Choudhary is currently undergoing treatment. However, with a large number of fresh dengue case being reported every day, a typical blame-game between the state and local bodies has also begun with the two refusing to take responsibility for the situation.

When asked to comment on measures being taken, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit shifted the question to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. "Please ask the MCD," she replied.

Resident doctors in many government and private hospitals have reported a sharp rise in calls from patients suffering from suspected or confirmed dengue infection, seeking admission to the hospital.

Reacting to the situation, Delhi Health Minister AK Walia said, "I would request the residents of Delhi to take care and precaution. Don't let water stagnate and sprinkle diesel or kerosene on it if there is any. We have to get together and take these precautions."

As per reports, the number of dengue patients has doubled in the year 2012. On Monday, 33 new cases of the vector-borne infection were reported, taking the total number of those afflicted to 682.