SoCal Minds

For Kids and Seniors, Paths to Psychological Care

From USC & CSULB

For the young and old alike, the stresses of the modern world sometimes can be overwhelming and professional help can be a balm and a boon, researchers say. But for the growing population of the elderly, there's a dearth of psychologists with the skills and training needed -- and this care shortfall will only increase, dramatically, as the giant Baby Boom generation advances into old age. While the elderly population is expected to increase to 20%, only 3% of psychologists in a 2002 survey said they treat mostly older patients. Geropsychologists have formulated recommendations for their profession to address these needs, including educating practitioners about their own age bias, as well as cluing them in to how their diverse patients react to aging. Meantime, in Long Beach, an educational psychology graduate clinic celebrates its 40th anniversary of providing lower-cost care to children of students. These critical services have included counseling, tutoring and psycho-educational assessment.

Preparing Psychologists to Care for the Aged  

For 40 Years, Educational Psychology Clinic Helps Kids

In the IE, Hip Hoppers and Gamelan Players

From UCR

Hip hoppin', rappin' and gamelan chimin', too? Urban life and the sounds of Indonesia will ring out in Riverside this week, at Califest '09 -- a festival exploring how hip hop theater artists see and explore the world and how the world sees them -- and at a Javanese ensemble concert, featuring performers linked to the university. The three-day hip hop fest is free; there's a small fee and parking charges for the Friday gamelan ensemble performance.

Festival Focuses on Hip Hop, Theater

Gamelan Ensemble In Concert

You've Got Rhythm -- And It's a Healthy Matter

From UCI & Caltech

Tick, tick boom? The body has a powerful inner regulator, a circadian clock, which just can't be ignored, researchers say. Though information about the body's timed cycles has been around since the ancient Greeks, researchers say they're finding that as many as 15% of genes are affected by rhythmic regulation that can't be disrupted without peril -- afflictions such as depression, cancer, obesity, heart disease and insomnia, to name a few. Deeper knowledge about these timely molecular switchings will be key to not only maintaining health but also to better treatment, especially in drug developments. Meantime, in Pasadena, reseachers employing rat experiments are urging a rethinking about a function in the hippocampus, a part of the brain key to memory. They think that brain rhythms, called theta oscillations, sweep there rather than being in sync, as if coordinated by a central pacemaker. This may provide clues to a role for these rhythms to play in spatial memory and how the hippocampus relays information to other parts of the brain.

Keeping Watch on a Clock That Really Matters

A Double-Barreled Dose of Nitty-Gritty of the City

From UCLA

Sounds like a busy week for those in the university who are deeply involved in life in the city, too. In one presentation Tuesday, parents and experts will try to figure what role families must play to break the cycle of juveniles returning from the justice system. More than 20,000 Los Angeles youths annually -- the most in the nation -- are part of the probation system; nationally, the recidivism rates for young offenders run as high as 50% to 80%. Meantime, this afternoon (Monday), the spotlight will shine on former gangsters turned poets, as there will be readings of works by kids from Homeboy Industries, the noteworthy Eastside gang intervention program. Novelist Leslie Schwartz has edited a volume of the youthful poets, "Homeboy Review."

What's the Family Role in Juvenile Justice?

Homeboy Poetry Reading in Westwood  

Even in Tough Times, a Push for Preschool Plans

From RAND

California could boost its preschooler education programs, even in these rotten economic times, by taking some simple steps that could increase the efficiency of their funding and operation and could pay bigger dividends in more flush times, researchers say. They suggest the state target its money toward kids who could see the most benefit -- 4-year-olds families deemed very poor and 3-year-olds from impoverished families. They also say the state could revise its contract rules for government-subsidized programs to ensure more money gets spent on kids and less gets tied up in bureaucracy. And it could streamline the preschool enrollment process, even while improving the quality rating efforts and conducting more routine inspections.

A Call to Boost Preschool Plans, Even in Tough Times

Click Here to Get Full RAND Report

For the Aged, Concerns on Alzheimer's, Dementia

From USC

While it's clear that cognition declines with age and dementia poses big problems for the oldest of the old, Alzheimer's does not seem to be a normal part of aging and instead, researchers say, is a pathologic process. At a recent gathering of prominent experts in gerontology -- many of them from the region -- researchers said they see clear differences in brain images of those afflicted by Alzheimer's and these differ from those who simply are old. The numbers of elderly with dementia and Alzheimer's is expected to rise in the years ahead.

For Very Old, Concerns on Alzheimer's, Dementia

A Dip in Learning for Women at Menopause

From UCLA

It's something that many women knew intuitively but now has some research support: Just before and in the early stages of menopause, women may see an impairment in the ability to learn. Memory difficulties seem to be a special bane during this time, researchers say, adding that hormone treatments helped with verbal memory and processing speed. The reduced learning capacity is temporary; hormone treatments don't help much with learning, memory and other such skills if administered in later parts of the menopausal transition, researchers say, adding this data should be interpreted cautiously. Their results were based on their study of 2,362 women ages 42 to 52.

Menopausal Women May Suffer Temporary Learning Decline

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A Sobering Evaluation of Global Drug War

From RAND

Even as California lawmakers tiptoe toward a possible legalization of marijuana as part of a major shift in tactics in the "war" on drugs, researchers say there's little progress to report in a decade's worth of data about international efforts to curtail illegal drug use and sales. In a study for the European Commission, in fact, researchers say that pot has become ubiquitous; half of the youths born after 1980 in Australia, Switzerland and the United States will have smoked it by age 21. Opium production has remained stable since 2006, with big increases since, though, in Afghanistan. Global heroin and cocaine use is up. More spots in the world are emphasizing drug treatment and use-reduction programs, rather than eradication and crack downs. 

Global Drug War Yielding Little Positive News 

Click Here to Get Full RAND Report  

Why That Key Moment Sticks in the Brain

From UCI

Cells in a part of the brain can capture singular, fleeting moments as effectively as repeated, frequent ones, researchers say, after conducting experiments that may prove helpful in treating diseases that affect the memory, such as Alzheimer's. They focused their study on the hippocampus -- an area of the brain known to be key in memory and learning -- and particular types of neurons, finding that these special nerve cells can be activated by both brief and repetitive experiences. Researchers note that many key events in human lives occur just once -- but they are decisive and distinctive, making memory of them all that much more crucial.

A New Glimpse Into How the Brain Records Key, Brief Memories