The Child Protection eNewsletter

Scientists discover way to reverse loss of memory…

Scientists performing experimental brain surgery on a man aged 50 have stumbled across a mechanism that could unlock how memory works. Read More The accidental breakthrough came during an experiment originally intended to suppress the obese man's appetite, using the increasingly successful technique of deep-brain stimulation.

Electrodes were pushed into the man's brain and stimulated with an electric current. Instead of losing appetite, the patient instead had an intense experience of déjà vu. He recalled, in intricate detail, a scene from 30 years earlier. More tests showed his ability to learn was dramatically improved when the current was switched on and his brain stimulated.

Scientists are now applying the technique in the first trial of the treatment in patients with Alzheimer's disease. If successful, it could offer hope to sufferers from the degenerative condition, which affects 450,000 people in Britain alone, by providing a "pacemaker" for the brain.

Three patients have been treated and initial results are promising, according to Andres Lozano, a professor of neurosurgery at the Toronto Western Hospital, Ontario, who is leading the research. Professor Lozano said: "This is the first time that anyone has had electrodes implanted in the brain which have been shown to improve memory. We are driving the activity of the brain by increasing its sensitivity – turning up the volume of the memory circuits. Any event that involves the memory circuits is more likely to be stored and retained."

For more stories about memory see Volume 2, Issue 41.

Principal Accused of Sex Assault, Photographing Boy…

An elementary school principal in Texas was arrested for sexually abusing a boy he once tutored after a suspicious colleague feared he was "getting way too close" to another young student, police said. Read More Recently promoted Michael Alcoser, 41, was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child. The charges stem from allegations that he molested and photographed a 13-year-old boy inside the school and at his home two years ago.

The boy, now 15, had kept the secret until one of Alcoser's colleagues called the boy's mother a week ago to say that she was concerned that Alcoser was "getting way too close" to another male student at the school, according to police. The colleague also told the mother that she had heard a rumor about Alcoser and her son.

Police searched Alcoser's home last week and took computers, digital cameras and videos as part of an investigation that was prompted by a mother's complaint, according to an arrest affidavit. Read More The mother claimed a school employee told her of rumors that Alcoser had "done something" to her son.

The affidavit said police confiscated images of the alleged victim, two compact discs that "depicted adult men having sex with adolescent male children" and handwritten notes from children that were "inappropriate and sexual in nature."

Police also seized pictures of other unidentified children. "In these cases, historically, we are never done with one victim," Police Sergeant Gabe Trevino said. "Odds are good there may be more victims."

In other news…

A new study shows that children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are almost four times as likely as others to be bullies. Read More And, in an intriguing corollary, the children with ADHD symptoms were almost 10 times as likely as others to have been regular targets of bullies prior to the onset of those symptoms, according to the report in the February issue of the journal Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology. The study followed 577 children — the entire population of fourth graders from a municipality near Stockholm — for a year. The researchers interviewed parents, teachers and children to determine which kids were likely to have ADHD. Children showing signs of the disorder were then seen by a child neurologist for diagnosis. The researchers also asked the kids about bullying.

A teacher at a Tokyo school has been arrested for making a group of boys undress at knifepoint and stealing their underpants. Read More A group of eight boys, aged 12 to 13, were playing in school grounds earlier this month when the 26-year-old man, who teaches at a different school, approached them, Kyodo news agency said. Two of the boys ran away but he made the other six take off their trousers and underpants, Kyodo quoted local police as saying. The knife touched one boy, causing minor injuries, Kyodo reported.

Infection with the common Toxoplasma gondii parasite -- carried by cats and farm animals -- may increase a person's risk of schizophrenia, a U.S. study suggests. Read More Publishing in the January issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry, researchers from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and Johns Hopkins Children's Center found that 7 percent of the 180 schizophrenia patients in the study had been infected with toxoplasma before their diagnosis, compared to 5 percent of 532 people without schizophrenia. That means that those exposed to toxoplasma had a 24 percent greater risk of developing schizophrenia. While this represents a small increase in risk, it's important because it may offer new clues about how the disease occurs in some of the 2 million cases of schizophrenia in the United States, the study authors said. That may help lead to new treatments. "Our findings reveal the strongest association we've seen yet between infection with this very common parasite and the subsequent development of schizophrenia," researcher Dr. Robert Yolken, a neurovirologist at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, said in a prepared statement.

A Pennsylvania teacher who was upset because she didn't get her preferred classroom assignment left more than a dozen scribbled threats at her elementary school and a suspicious device in a student's desk, authorities said. Read More Susan Romanyszyn, 45, was charged with 17 counts of making terroristic threats in connection with the incidents at Longstreth Elementary School in Warminster in October. Authorities said the fourth-grade teacher scribbled messages on school walls and on paper that threatened bomb and gun violence. The messages were written in sloppy handwriting with numerous misspellings and some with crudely drawn cartoons, police said. A prosecutor said the actions stemmed from Romanyszyn's assignment to teach fourth grade rather than fifth grade. "She was upset or disgruntled at not getting the classroom assignment she wanted," Bucks County District Attorney Michelle Henry said.

A 13-year-old runaway returned home with a horrific account of being forced into prostitution by the kind of person who should have instead come to her aid: a city detective. Read More The teenager thought she was being offered a job dancing at parties, according to prosecutors. She soon found herself a captive of Wayne Taylor and Zelika Brown, who forced the teen to prostitute herself at parties, with the detective threatening to make her sell herself on the streets if she tried to escape, prosecutors said. "This case is every parent and every child's worst nightmare," Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said in a statement. The teenager told police she ran away from her Brooklyn home on January 10 and met someone who offered to get her work dancing for money at parties. That person then introduced her to Brown, who told the girl she had "purchased" her for $500 and she had to work off the debt, prosecutors said. Taylor and Brown, 29, took the girl to parties throughout the city, where she was told to have sex with about 20 men in exchange for money given to the pair, prosecutors said. He told the girl an alarm on the house would alert him if she tried to leave, they said. The girl escaped to her family, who took her to a police precinct, police said.

The Idaho Attorney General's office says a report it released last week on the number of child sexual abuse prosecutions in Idaho contains errors, though it is unsure how many. Read More The report to the Legislature is intended to guide lawmakers in deciding public policy, but errors found relating to Twin Falls County have led to questions about the entire report. "Something went wrong here and obviously we need to fix it," Deputy Attorney General William von Tagen told The Times-News, which helped discover the errors. "It is very much of a concern if the numbers weren't accurate in this instance. We're not sure this indicates they are inaccurate across the state." The report counts the number of child-abuse prosecutions statewide from July 1, 2006, to June 30, 2007. After receiving a copy, The Times-News questioned Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs on why he had filed only 17 charges involving child sexual abuse during a year's time, and why there was a downward trend in the county in such prosecutions. Loebs checked his records and said his office actually handled 82 child sex abuse charges during that period, and that the number of charges filed each year has been rising. "I don't know where they got their information," Loebs said.

A 7-year-old Texas boy is in critical condition after being found hanging by his shirt collar from a clothing hook in a charter school's dressing room, and police tried to determine whether it was an attack or an accident. Read More The shirt collar cut off the boy's oxygen, and he was unconscious when a teacher found him, said Police Lieutenant Mark Spangler. He was in critical condition at a hospital. "We're not ruling anything out. We can't rule anything in at this point," Spangler said about the investigation. "Nothing is stepping out to us to say that there is some predator out there. ... We just don't know yet."

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