PsychBriefs: January 6-12, 2008

Our weekly wrap-up of news, interesting research, and noteworthy happenings in the worlds of psychiatry, psychology, and social work.

Study Shows Teens Widely Abuse Cough Syrup
The most recent survey on teen drug use shows that 3.1 million teens and young adults aged 12 to 25 have used non-prescription cough syrup to get high. This number exceeded the number of youth who had tried methamphetamines and was on par with those who had tried LSD. White youth were most likely to report cough syrup abuse, at an overall rate of 6.2 percent. Interestingly, girls were more likely to use cough syrup to get high among youth aged 12 to 17, while males were more likely to abuse the drug among 17- to 25-year-olds.
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Divorce Widens Gap Between Teens and Fathers
A five-year study of teens shows that relationships with fathers suffer significantly more in divorced families. Forty-eight percent of teens whose parents remained married during the study reported being close to their fathers compared to just 25 percent of teens from divorced families.
[ARTICLE]

Newly Discovered Genetic Links to Autism
Scientists have linked a chain of 25 missing or duplicated genes affecting brain development to autism. In some instances the defect, which occurs on chromosome 16, appeared to be inherited, but was most often the result of a random error in DNA duplication. This cause is thought to account for approximately one percent of all cases of autism.
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