Sustaining a head injury may make young people more prone to violent behavior in the future, according to a new study.

Furthermore, young people who suffered a recent head injury (within the year) were the most likely to report violent behavior.

The study, conducted by University of Michigan researchers, is one of few that has examined the long-term effects of head injuries in the young adult population.

While the media has focused its attention as of late on youth, college and professional athletes who suffer head injuries and concussions while playing, researchers insist the study has a broader focus.

“These are not necessarily sports-playing injuries,” said lead author Sarah Stoddard, a research assistant professor at the School of Public Health and  research fellow at the U-M School of Nursing, in a press release. “They could be from a car accident or from previous violent behavior, but it does support some of the sports research that’s been going on with concussions.”

The data from the study was compiled from over eight years of research that came from following a large group of ninth-graders in Michigan into young adulthood.  In the fifth and sixth years of study, the participants were asked if they had ever suffered a head injury.

Those who said yes (23 percent) reported more violent behavior in the eighth year of the study.

Additionally, injuries reported in the seventh year were an even stronger predictor of violence in the eighth year.

“We found that the link between a head injury and later violence was stronger when a head injury was more recent, even after controlling for other factors including previous violent behavior,” Stoddard said.

Head injuries were defined in the study as having been knocked unconscious or sustaining a concussion or fractured skull.

An estimated 1.7 million people suffer from head injuries or traumatic brain injuries (TBI) each year – though this number only includes people who get medical care.  About three-quarters of the injuries are mild and therefore do not get medical attention, but doctors say any TBI disrupts brain function.

Long-term impact can include changes in cognition, language and emotion, including irritability, impulsiveness and violence.

The study was published in the journal Pediatrics.

According to a new study, swearing can have a powerful painkilling effect, especially among people who do not normally use expletives, the Telegraph reported.

British researchers had student volunteers place their hands in a bucket of ice water while swearing.  They then had students repeat the exercise, but instead of swearing, had them say a harmless phrase.

The results indicted that students were able to keep their hands submerged in the water for longer when repeating a swear word.  This may suggest a link between swearing and an increase in pain tolerance.

Swearing to relieve pain was about four times more likely to work for volunteers who did not normally use bad language, the researchers added.

They believe this effect occurs because swearing triggers the fight or flight response, accelerating the person’s heartrate, which may increase aggression.  When aggression is increased, people tend to “downplay feebleness in favour of a more pain-tolerant machismo.”

Researchers said the study shows that swearing seems to intiate both an emotional and physical response, which may explain why cursing developed in the first place.

”Swearing has been around for centuries and is an almost universal human linguistic phenomenon,” said Dr. Richard Stephens, study author.  ”It taps into emotional brain centers and appears to arise in the right brain, whereas most language production occurs in the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain.”

Click here to read more from the Telegraph.

If you have a baby, you’re probably familiar with this scenario:  Your baby is crying and you just can’t figure out what will make the tears stop.  Does she want a bottle? Does he need a hug?  Before babies learn how to speak, they usually don’t have any other tools to explain their needs — but these days, some parents are using sign language in the hopes that they’ll be better able to communicate with their babies.

Parents Corina and Eric Douglas have been bringing their 11-month old daughter Claire to the classes for several months. During a break from class, they’re going over some signs for fruits and vegetables they learned in today’s class.

Using plastic replicas, the parents have shown their daughter the sign for peas and are now hiding the peas behind their back.  Eric now asks, “Do you want peas?” while doing the sign for peas.

“We show it to her first and then we’ll do the sign for it,” says mom Corina Douglas. “We try to make sure that we get eye contact since we know that when she has eye contact then that means she can understand it better.” more »