Young children are naturally inclined to help others, revealed a new study that also underscored the one exception when they stop showing compassion.

When kindness came at a personal cost, it reduced compassionate responding, researchers also found.

The research, published on Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science, assessed the nature of over 280 four- and five-year-old children to help others.

Scientists, including James Kirby from The University of Queensland in Australia, conducted experiments to determine what factors facilitated and inhibited compassionate behaviour in them.

Compassion is a widely studied behaviour that is strongly linked to how people help and comfort others.

The trait comes with a complex motive and sensitivity to one’s own suffering as well as to others, along with a commitment to alleviate or prevent it.

Previous studies have shown that children tend to have a natural tendency to show compassion whenever they can.

It has, however, remained unclear under what conditions they can drop out of helping others.

In the new study, scientists sought to examine what factors may facilitate greater compassionate behaviour in young children and what conditions may lead to them being less helpful to others.

Researchers asked children to play a puzzle game, on the completion of which they received a sticker as a reward.

Before being introduced to the games, the children picked their three favourite stickers from a large selection.

They played the games alongside adults or puppets – Millie the Monkey, Ellie the Elephant and George the Giraffe – who did not have sufficient pieces to finish the task.

The children became visibly distressed in three different ways after being unable to receive stickers.

“This allowed three opportunities for the child to help,” scientists explained in the study.

“If the child helped after the suffering was shown by the puppet, it was operationalised as compassionate behaviour,” they added.

The tasks were ended either when the child helped or after three prompts when the child did not help.

Researchers found the children helped across all the studies whenever they had extra puzzle pieces.

But when they had only enough pieces to complete the puzzle themselves, they were found to not help others.

“We found strong evidence that cost reduces compassionate responding,” researchers explained.

Scientists also found that the recipient of compassion did not influence the children’s behaviour as they were equally likely to help a human adult and a puppet.

The findings suggested that in children who are four and five years of age, personal cost could be a “greater inhibitor” to responding compassionately than to who the compassion is directed.

Researchers also tried to vary study conditions to understand what factors may increase the chances of children giving up the puzzle piece and forgoing their sticker reward.

They did this by telling the children in a separate experiment that they could share pieces, adding that they were on the same team with the puppet or adult. However, this too was without success, researchers said.

“It is possible that children saw the ‘finite’ amount of resources available in the shared bucket and realised they had to get the pieces they needed before the puppet,” researchers added.

Taken together, the results of the experiments suggest that personal cost is a key inhibitor to compassionate behaviour in children, implying that reducing this cost may facilitate compassion.

The findings, according to the scientists, can help facilitate compassionate behaviour in young children.

New research from New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYITCOM) could help explain how the sense of smell is impacted in individuals with autism.

Individuals with autism have an "insistence on sameness," and often avoid unfamiliar elements, including new smells and foods, which can impact their quality of life. While many studies have focused on the behavioral features of autism, additional research is needed to help explain its sensory aspects.

Now, a study led by NYITCOM Assistant Professor of Biomedical Sciences Gonzalo Otazu, Ph.D., published in the journal Nature Communications, analyzes a mouse model of autism and reports differences in the neurological processes responsible for smell.

The team trained two groups of mice—one group with a mutation in a gene linked to autism (CNTNAP2 knockout mice) and one neurotypical group—to recognize familiar scents. When they successfully identified the target scent, the mice were rewarded with a sip of water. Both groups succeeded in identifying the target.

Then, the mice were given a more challenging task: identifying target scents as unfamiliar odors were introduced in the background. Otazu, an electrical engineer, likens this task to Internet captchas, which require humans to visually identify letters and numbers set in a busy or obscured background. While the neurotypical mice were able to "filter out" new background odors and identify the target scents, the CNTNAP2 knockout mice struggled to do so.

To better understand where the processing error was occurring in the brains of the CNTNAP2 knockout mice, the researchers visualized the neural activity at the input of each animal's olfactory bulb, the part of the brain that initially processes smell. An imaging technique called intrinsic optical imaging was used to visualize neural activity near the surface of the olfactory bulb. Here, "scent signals" are transmitted to other parts of the brain for further processing, playing a key role in how the brain computes smell.

However, the input signals were very similar between the CNTNAP2 knockout mice and neurotypical mice. This suggests that scent processing in the autism model was impaired at a later step—after signals were processed at the olfactory bulb input. This finding was also replicated when the researchers "reverse-engineered" the brain's processes for identifying target scents in unfamiliar backgrounds.

Leveraging machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence that uses algorithms to replicate the brain's processes, the team applied the olfactory bulb input signals to a sophisticated algorithm that matched the high performance of neurotypical mice. The neurotypical mice filtered out novel background scents and identified targets, but this complex processing was impaired in CNTNAP2 knockout mice.

"We speculate that the olfactory bulbs in the mouse model of autism might be more easily overwhelmed by processing new background odors," said Otazu. "These findings illustrate why more studies related to the sensory aspect of autism are so important. By documenting the neural processes in the mouse model of autism, our findings may help to explain the brain circuitry of humans with autism and one day lead to advancements that Excellerate these individuals' quality of life."

A medication that is already on the market may help people who binge drink, new research shows.

The medication, naltrexone, is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat alcohol use disorder as well as opioid use disorder, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA.

When taken for alcohol use disorder, naltrexone is taken daily in pill form.

A new study published in December in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that taking naltrexone prior to an expected episode of binge drinking, as opposed to taking it daily, can help curb the amount of alcohol consumed.

Binge drinking is defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a "pattern of drinking that brings a person's blood alcohol concentration to 0.08 grams percent or above."

That typically means consuming five or more drinks in a two-hour period for men and four or more drinks in a two-hour period for women, according to the CDC.

The new research, first reported by The New York Times, looked at young men who took the pill one hour before they expected to drink.

In addition to the medication, the participants also received education on reducing alcohol use.

After 12 weeks, participants who took naltrexone prior to drinking reported consuming less alcohol than the participants who received a placebo.

The participants who took naltrexone also reported its effect lasting up to six months, according to the study.

The medication works by binding endorphin receptors in the body, which helps block the "effects and feelings of alcohol," according to SAMHSA.

"Naltrexone reduces alcohol cravings and the amount of alcohol consumed," the agency states on its website, adding that with alcohol use disorder, the treatment typically lasts for three to four months. "Once a patient stops drinking, taking naltrexone helps patients maintain their sobriety."

Binge drinking on the rise

The new research on naltrexone for helping to curb excessive alcohol use comes amid an increase in binge drinking in the United States.

The annual number of binge drinks among adults who reported binge drinking jumped on average from 472 in 2011 to 529 in 2017, a 12% increase, according to a CDC study published in 2020.

Increases in binge drinking were most prominent in people 35 or older and those with lower educational levels and household incomes, according to the CDC data.

One in 6 adults in the U.S. binge drinks about four times a month, consuming about seven drinks per binge, and binge drinking is twice as common among men than among women, according to the CDC.

Drinking a steady amount of alcohol in a short amount of time has a different impact on your body than drinking, for example, one glass of wine each night over the course of one week, according to Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC News chief medical correspondent and a board-certified OBGYN.

For women, a moderate alcohol intake per week is defined as seven servings of alcohol or less. For men, it is 14 servings of alcohol or less per week, according to the CDC.

One serving of alcohol is defined as 5 ounces for wine and just 1 1/2 ounces for hard alcohol, far less than what is typically served in bars, restaurants and people's homes.

Dr. Darien Sutton, a board-certified emergency medicine physician and ABC News medical contributor, said people who are concerned about their alcohol use should speak with their medical provider.

"The first step, I always want to advise patients, is acknowledging to yourself that you might have a problem," he said. "Talk to your physician about your symptoms so that you can get a good gauge on what the issue is and the other possible treatments."

SAMHSA also has a 24/7 free and confidential helpline available at 1-800-662-HELP (4357), and online at samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline.

Cara Murez

Consuming small, sequential doses of boiled peanuts help overcome children’s allergic reactions, according to a new study.

The research, published in the journal Clinical & Experimental Allergy, found that 80 per cent of children with peanut allergy become desensitised to eating peanuts following the trial.

Since up to three per cent of children in Western countries are grappling with peanut allergies, scientists, including those from Flinders University in the US, say the new clinical trial can help develop a novel treatment to reduce the risk of accidental peanut exposure and Excellerate quality of life for peanut-allergic children.

Their new study is based on previous findings that heat affects the protein structure and allergic properties of peanuts, making them potentially less likely to cause severe allergic reactions.

Scientists tested whether a therapy delivering small, increasing doses of boiled peanuts, followed by roasted peanuts, may help children overcome their peanut allergies.

“Small and increasing doses of boiled nuts were first given to children to partially desensitise them, and when they showed no signs of an allergic reaction, increasing doses of roasted peanuts were then provided to increase their tolerance in the next stage of treatment,” study co-author Tim Chataway said in a statement.

Researchers asked 70 peanut-allergic children of ages six to 18 to consume peanuts boiled for 12 hours for 12 weeks, 2 hour boiled peanuts for 20 weeks, and roasted peanuts for 20 weeks.

Scientists found that 56 of the 70 (80 per cent) participants became desensitized to a daily target dose of consuming 12 roasted peanuts without allergic reactions.

While treatment-related adverse events were reported in over 60 per cent of the participants, only 3 withdrew from the trial as a result, the study noted.

“Our clinical trial shows promising early signs in demonstrating that boiling peanuts may provide a safe and effective method for treating peanut-allergic children with sequential doses of boiled and roasted peanuts over an extended period of time,” says Luke Grzeskowiak, another author of the study, said.

However, scientists caution that this method of therapy may not work for everyone, but add that they are in the process of better understanding what factors can influence how people respond to treatment.

While these findings hold “great promise”, researchers add that the results also require confirmation in a larger definitive clinical trial.

This study seeks to evaluate whether combining two FDA-approved medications can effectively reduce pain. Participants will be asked to attend five in-person study sessions at the Johns Hopkins Bayview campus.

Researchers are looking for volunteers who are diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis, are at least 45 years old, and are not diagnosed with any other serious medical condition. You can earn up to $1,475 for completing all study-related activities. Volunteers will have sensory testing and complete physical function testing, and will take the study's medications.

Take a screener here to find out if you might be eligible to participate!

For more information about the study, contact Jim Stone at 410-550-7906 or email <jstone8@jhmi.edu.