Former medical humanities chair honored for inspiring students

Oct. 8, 2013

Suzanne Bennett Johnson, PhD, a Distinguished Research Professor at the Florida State University College of Medicine and the 2012 President of the American Psychological Association, is one of ten professors in the United States to receive $25,000 from the Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award Trust in 2013.

The trust focuses on awarding professors who have inspired their former students to make a difference in the community.

“I am deeply grateful to Suzanne for the opportunity to learn from her as my mentor, and I believe she is high deserving of this prestigious recognition. To this day, 20+ years later, Suzanne continues to inspire me to make a difference,” said Kenneth Terckyak, PhD, former student at University of Florida College of Public Health & Health Professions and nominator of Dr. Johnson.

The trust was established in 2008 under the will of Gail McKnight Beckman in honor of her mother Dr. Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman. Dr. Beckman was an educator, a renowned author and a pioneer in the field of psychology. The Beckman Award Trust has granted $1.3 million to 52 professors and/or faculty members to date.

Dr. Johnson, along with the nine other 2013 Beckman Trust Recipients, will be honored Saturday, November 9 in Atlanta at The Carter Center.

Foundation Honors Professors $1.3M To Date

Atlanta… This fall, 10 notable professors from universities across the United States will each receive a $25,000 cash award from the Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award Trust for inspiring a former student to make a difference in his or her community. Since its inception, the Beckman Award Trust has awarded $1.3 million to 52 professors and/or faculty members to date. This year’s award ceremony will take place at The Carter Center in Atlanta on Saturday, November 9, 2013.

The trust was established in 2008 under the will of Gail McKnight Beckman in honor of her mother Dr. Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman. Dr. Beckman was an educator, a renowned author and a pioneer in the field of psychology. She was one of the first female psychology professors at Columbia University and later taught at the University of Pennsylvania. Below is a list of the 2013 recipients.

Recipients must be current or former professors or instructors at a college, university, junior college, community college or technical school in America. Preference is given to those who teach in the fields of psychology, medicine, or law.

Each year the award committee prescreens the nominees for qualification. The former students of those nominees who are deemed eligible will be invited to apply for the award. The committee is composed of Dr. Andrew Davidson, Columbia University, Dr. Ruth Lindeborg, Bryn Mawr College, Dr. Melba Vasquez, American Psychological Association, Phyllis Silverstein, Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. and Kimberly Pruett, Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (Secretary).

The Trust is supported by the Wells Fargo’s Philanthropic Services group. For more information, visit: www.wellsfargo.com/privatefoundationgrants/beckman.

CONTACT: Ron Hartung, College of Medicine
(850) 645-9205; ronald.hartung@med.fsu.edu

October 2013

$1 MILLION GRANT COULD HELP PUT BRAKES ON CANCER

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A Florida State University researcher’s study of the mechanics of cell division may one day help put the brakes on cancer.

Yanchang Wang, associate professor in the College of Medicine’s Department of Biomedical Sciences, received a four-year, $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue his ongoing study.

“This research,” he said, “will potentially uncover new targets for cancer diagnosis and treatment.”

To help nonscientists better understand his work, Wang compared it to the troubleshooting conducted by a car mechanic.

“The segregation of DNA into daughter cells during cell division requires the correct attachment of chromosomes by spindle microtubules,” Wang said. “A surveillance mechanism, named the checkpoint, monitors the mistakes in this attachment process and delays cell division to allow mistake correction. The checkpoint is similar to the brake of a car, and loss of function of this ‘brake’ in a cell leads to chromosome missegregation, which directly contributes to cancer development.”

The specific question he’s asking in this project is: After the mistakes in the attachment process have been corrected, exactly how is the brake released, thereby allowing cell division to continue? Timing is everything, since a premature “brake release” also results in chromosome missegregation.

The completion of this NIH-sponsored project, Wang said, will provide the first detailed view of the process of checkpoint silencing or “brake releasing.”

Earlier this year, Wang’s paper exploring the protein Slk19’s impact on chromosome attachment was published in Molecular Biology of the Cell. One of his co-authors, Senior Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Programs Myra Hurt, explained what was at stake: “The most important thing that happens in terms of life on this planet is the 100 percent accurate duplication of the genome and the absolutely perfect segregation of those copies into two cells. The cell has lots of machinery to make sure that happens correctly.”

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CONTACT: Doug Carlson
(850) 645-1255; doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu

Oct. 18, 2013

DANCE MARATHON TO PRESENT CHECK TO FSU COLLEGE OF MEDICINE

Dance Marathon at Florida State University and Children’s Miracle Network at UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital will present a check for more than $330,000 to the Florida State University College of Medicine for the benefit of children throughout Gadsden and Leon counties.

The proceeds are part of the record $701,000 raised in 2013 by Dance Marathon, the largest student-run philanthropy on the Florida State campus. Children’s Miracle Network at UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital distributes part of the money raised to the Florida State College of Medicine for use in pediatric outreach programs.

The College of Medicine is using part of the proceeds to pay for a school-based health program in Gadsden County designed to address health care disparities among area children. Other projects funded include equipment for the pediatrics unit at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital and bereavement services for children at Big Bend Hospice.

Scheduled to participate are Dr. John P. Fogarty, dean of the FSU College of Medicine; Dr. Scott Rivkees, pediatrics department chair at UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital; nurse-practitioner Susan LaJoie, who oversees the Gadsden school-based clinic; members of the Dance Marathon student executive committee; and students from the medical school’s pediatrics Interest Group. The presentation will take place:

MONDAY, OCT. 21

NOON

FSU COLLEGE OF MEDICINE

1115 W. CALL ST.

TALLAHASSEE, FLA.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 7, 2013
Contact: AHCA Communication
AHCAcommunications@ahca.myflorida.com
(850) 412-3623

MEDIA ADVISORY

AHCA, Tallahassee Memorial Hospital and Florida State University College of Medicine to Host Event Highlighting Florida’s New Statewide Residency Program

Tallahassee, Fla.—On Friday, November 8, the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), Tallahassee Memorial Hospital and the Florida State University College of Medicine will host supporters of health care and education as they recognize Florida’s commitment to graduate medical education through the new Statewide Residency Program. For the first time, hospitals are receiving a supplemental payment specifically for graduate medical education, which was made possible by the $80 million appropriation recommended by Governor Scott in the Florida Families First Budget.

WHO:
Mr. Mark O’Bryant, President & CEO
Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare

Ms. Liz Dudek, Secretary,
Agency for Health Care Administration

Senator Bill Montford,
Vice Chair for the Appropriations Subcommittee on Education

Donald Zorn, M.D., Director,
Tallahassee Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program

Marlisha Edwards, M.D., Third-year Resident,
Tallahassee Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program

John P. Fogarty, M.D., Dean,
Florida State University College of Medicine

WHEN:
Friday, November 8, 2013 at 10:00 a.m.

WHERE:
Tallahassee Memorial Hospital Atrium (Ground Floor),
1300 Miccosukee Road, Tallahassee, FL
Parking is available in the main parking deck

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________________________________________
2013 Agency for Health Care Administration

CONTACT: John Reynolds, Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy
(850) 644-8825; john.reynolds@fsu.edu

Alice Pomidor, College of Medicine
(850) 644-0352; apomidor@admin.fsu.edu

By Jill Elish
November 2013

SURVEY: FEW OLDER DRIVERS DISCUSS DRIVING SAFETY WITH PHYSICIAN

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Although motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of injury-related deaths among adults 65 years and older, very few older Floridians have discussed driving safety with a physician, according to a new survey conducted by Florida State University to support the Florida Department of Transportation’s Safe Mobility for Life Program.

Only 5 percentage of survey respondents, all over age 50, said a physician or other health professional talked with them about their ability to drive safely, despite the fact that 15 percent of them had been involved in a crash in the past five years, according to John Reynolds, the Eagles Professor of Sociology and director of Florida State’s Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy. Reynolds received grants from FDOT to conduct the 2013 Florida Aging Road User Survey and analyze the results.

“Physicians and other health professionals are in a unique position to spot changes related to aging that can make driving riskier,” Reynolds said. “This reticence on the part of health professionals and their older adult patients is an important missed opportunity for prevention.”

Dr. Alice Pomidor, a physician and professor of geriatrics at the FSU College of Medicine who helped design the survey, agreed.

“All health professionals should be asking their patients about how they are getting around the community, just like we ask how well they are getting around their homes,” Pomidor said. “Physicians can help patients identify and treat health issues to help extend their ability to drive safely, such as drug side effects, vision problems, arthritis or diseases that affect the brain and nerves. We can also help caregivers recognize when driving ability is limited so they can prepare to use other transportation as needed.”

Further, only 13 percent of survey respondents (8 percent of the younger group and 18 percent of those 65 and older) said they have planned ahead for the day when they can no longer safely drive. When asked what the most likely way they would get around if they couldn’t safely drive, 65 percent said they would rely on family and friends.

What’s more, 71 percent of respondents said they were not interested in receiving information about safe driving and transitioning from driving.

The findings reflect a serious issue in Florida — and across the nation — that older drivers are at a disproportionate risk for being involved in a fatal vehicular crash, Reynolds said. To address the problem, FDOT has awarded the Pepper Institute grants totaling $875,000 since 2010 to support its multidisciplinary statewide Safe Mobility for Life Coalition as the coalition implements the Aging Road User Strategic Safety Plan.

“The core aim of the coalition is to reduce crash-related injuries and fatalities involving older adults in Florida,” Reynolds said. “This is the key outcome, and in 2011 they have declined despite an increasing number of older drivers in Florida.”

The number of fatalities involving drivers 65 and older declined from 270 in 2007 to 241 in 2011 and the number of serious injuries dropped from 1,681 to 1,577 during that same period, according to Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicle data. The number of deaths and serious injuries to others from crashes involving a driver over 65 also declined.

More than 1,000 Floridians participated in the Florida Aging Road User Survey, which will help the coalition monitor the success of the strategic safety plan and identify additional needs. Of those survey participants, about half ranged in age from 50 to 64 years old, while the other half were 65 and older. The telephone and Internet survey was conducted in summer 2013.

“We hope to see more awareness among Florida's older adults of the existing programs that help them maintain their mobility and evidence that family members are talking to one another and to medical professionals about older driver safety and alternatives to driving,” Reynolds said.

Florida leads the nation with more than 17 percent of the state’s population 65 and older, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By the year 2030, more than 27 percent of the state’s population will be 65 and older, compared to 19 percent for the rest of the nation.

“As the population of citizens 65 and older increases, an increasing proportion of licensed drivers also are getting older,” said Gail Holley, program manager for the Safe Mobility for Life Program at FDOT. “The coalition, with the support of FSU’s Pepper Institute, is helping Floridians remain safe and mobile throughout their lifetime.”

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 8, 2013
Contact: AHCA Communication
AHCAcommunications@ahca.myflorida.com
(850) 412-3623

Secretary Dudek Highlights Impact of Florida’s New Statewide Residency Program
-Program provides more than $80M for graduate medical education statewide-

Tallahassee, Fla. – Today, Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Liz Dudek was joined by education, health care and business stakeholders to highlight Florida’s new Statewide Residency Program. For the first time, hospitals are receiving a supplemental payment specifically for graduate medical education, which was made possible by the $80 million appropriation recommended by Governor Scott in the Florida Families First Budget.
The Agency for Health Care Administration is committed to better health care for all Floridians. The Agency administers Florida’s Medicaid program, licenses and regulates more than 45,000 health care facilities and 37 health maintenance organizations, and publishes health care data and statistics at www.FloridaHealthFinder.gov. Additional information about Agency initiatives is available via Facebook (AHCAFlorida), Twitter (@AHCA_FL) and YouTube (/AHCAFlorida).

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact Information:
Marcus Oaks, MS, SSBB
Publisher
404-358-0712 (work)
mdoaks5@blackhealthmag.com

Tamika Swain, MBA
Communications Manager
404-358-0712 (work)
404-797-5151 (cell)
tswain@blackhealthmag.com

Black Health Magazine: Announces its 6th Annual Black History Month’s Commemorative Issue honoring 15 of the Top African American Medical Educators in the U.S.

ATLANTA—Black Health Magazine, a quarterly healthy living publication releases its Top 15 Most Influential African American Medical Educators in its 6th Annual Commemorative Black History Month issue. The commemorative issue goes on sale nationwide beginning February 6, 2014.

“It’s amazing how so few African Americans Medical Educators occupy senior management or executive level positions at many of these institutions of higher learning. As we conducted our research, It felt like our backs were against the wall and we kept striking out as we went from university to university trying to find these remarkable individuals” says Marcus Oaks, Publisher of Black Health Magazine.

“I am exceptionally proud of this year’s Black History Month Issue. The focus is on medical educators creating a legacy for future generations of African American doctors and health professionals: These 15 individuals have demonstrated through their body of work, education and lifetime achievements what it takes to make history and are carving cornerstones for our children and grandchildren, says Oaks.” George Washington Carver once said “since new developments are the products of a creative mind, we must therefore stimulate and encourage that type of mind in every way possible.”

One of the Magazine’s objectives in creating this issue is to expose other career opportunities to high school and college students that are aiming to become doctors or health professionals. Black Health believes this commemorative issue will serve as an empowerment tool to stimulate a student or recent graduate interest in medicine and/or healthcare.

“I started my career with the intent of always helping other people, my community and making their lives better. While it never crossed my mind that I would ever become a candidate for Black History, it is certainly a pleasure to know that your life’s work is recognized on some level, says Dr. Robert L. Johnson, Dean of the New Jersey Medical School, a unit of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey,” and one of this year’s honorees.

History doesn’t just evolve or think itself into existence, but is rather a process that involves a cumulative series of events coupled by hardships, failures, disappointments and ultimately triumphs. The 15 Top African American Medical Educators exemplify the celebration of Black History Month and this 6th Annual Commemorative issue. Through this issue our children and grandchildren will read about African American Medical Educators that were deans, professors and leaders of some of the most prestigious Medical Schools in the world such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell and Stanford and others.

The complete 2014 Honoree list is enclosed below:

1. Dr. Ingrid Allard – Associate Dean for Community Outreach and Medical Education, Associate Professor of Medical Education and Pediatrics, Albany Medical College
2. Dr. Sheryl Allen – Associate Dean and Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics Indiana University School of Medicine
3. Dr. Carol Brown – Associate Attending Surgeon, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Associate Professor OB-GYN, Cornell University Weill Medical College
4. Dr. Gary Butts - Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer for the Mount Sinai Health System and Senior Associate Dean for Diversity Programs, Policy and Community Affairs for the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
5. Dr. Andre Churchwell – Professor of Medicine (Cardiology), Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Associate Dean for Diversity, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
6. Dr. Carol Storey-Johnson – Senior Associate Dean of Education, Weill Cornell Medical College
7. Dr. Mark Johnson – Dean of the College of Medicine, Howard University School of Medicine
8. Dr. Robert Johnson – Dean of New Jersey Medical School, a unit of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
9. Dr. Byron Joyner – Professor of Urology and Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education, University of Washington School of Medicine
10. Dr. Alma Littles – Chief Academic Officer, Florida State University College of Medicine
11. Dr. Albert Reece – Vice President of Medical Affairs and Dean of Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine
12. Dr. Joan Reede – Dean for Diversity and Community Partnership and Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
13. Dr. Anne Taylor – Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
14. Dr. Hannah Valantine – Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and the Senior Associate Dean for Diversity and Leadership, Stanford School of Medicine
15. Dr. Clyde Yancy – Magerstadt Professor of Medicine, Professor of Medical Social Sciences, and Chief of Cardiology, Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Associate Director of Clinical Programs, Northwestern Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute

For more information or interviews with Publisher or any honoree, please contact Marcus Oaks at 404-358-0712 or mdoaks5@blackhealthmag.com or Tamika Swain at 404-358-0712 or tswain@blackhealthmag.com.

CONTACT: Doug Carlson
(850) 645-1255 or (850) 694-3735; doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu

By Doug Carlson
February 2014

ALMA LITTLES NAMED A TOP AFRICAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL EDUCATOR

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — When her second-grade teacher first told Alma Littles that she should become a doctor one day, it clicked.

“From that point on, when somebody asked what I wanted to be, I would tell them I wanted to be a doctor,” Littles said.

Littles did grow up to become a doctor and then a medical educator with a key role in preparing legions of future physicians at the Florida State University College of Medicine.

Now, Black Health Magazine has named Littles one of the nation’s Top 15 Most Influential African-American Medical Educators. The list appears in the magazine’s Black History Month commemorative issue, which goes on sale nationwide Feb. 6.

“The focus is on medical educators creating a legacy for future generations of African-American doctors and health professionals,” said Marcus Oaks, publisher of Black Health Magazine. “These 15 individuals have demonstrated through their body of work, education and lifetime achievements what it takes to make history and are carving cornerstones for our children and grandchildren.”

Littles was the youngest of 12 children in a family of farmworkers in Gadsden County, a rural community located about 30 minutes west of Tallahassee.

“I was encouraged by my parents, teachers and others to reach beyond what I saw in my community growing up and aspire to something greater,” said Littles, senior associate dean for medical education and academic affairs at the College of Medicine. “I was also admonished to never forget where I came from and to remember that there would always be others who need a helping hand or a word of encouragement.”

As her vision of becoming a physician came into sharper focus, she resolved to care for underserved populations — those who lacked access to or couldn’t afford adequate care.

“I lost my father to a second heart attack when I was 14. I lost a sister later on who died after childbirth, and I had seen a nephew die of dehydration,” she said. “The more I learned about medicine and health care, the more it seemed the things I had witnessed should have been preventable.”

After becoming the first in her family to graduate from college, she was admitted to the University of Florida College of Medicine. Upon completion of medical school and after graduating from the Tallahassee Memorial Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program in 1989, Littles set up practice as a family physician in Quincy.

There, she taught medical students and residents while also caring for many patients she had known growing up.

“She has throughout her career personified the best of our medical profession and has taught and influenced a generation of local physicians at the medical school and residency level,” said FSU College of Medicine Dean John P. Fogarty. “There could be no better role model of the ethical and compassionate physician who looks at all patients, rich or poor, with the same patient-focused care and skill.”

The decision to enter academic medicine was a difficult one for Littles, who was named Family Physician of the Year by the Florida Academy of Family Physicians in 1993. She gave up her private practice to join the family medicine residency program at TMH, where she became the director in 1999.

“I felt that I could have a greater impact influencing future physicians who would have a more far-reaching influence on the care of patients than I could ever have alone,” she said.

In 2002, she was named chair of the Department of Family Medicine and Rural Health at the FSU College of Medicine, which accepted its first students in 2001.

Littles, who still lives in Quincy, said she never forgot the advice to remember where she came from.

“I have carried those sentiments with me throughout my own education and career paths,” she said. “Knowing that just one student might benefit from my achievements and be encouraged to reach higher goals themselves provides me with a great sense of pride and motivates me to continue doing what I do — not for individual recognition but because I know that my students and mentees will ultimately do much more for society than I could ever do alone.”

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CONTACT: Doug Carlson
(850) 645-1255 or (850) 694-3735; doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu

Ron Hartung, FSU College of Medicine
(850) 645-9205; ronald.hartung@med.fsu.edu

February 2014

SMART TECHNOLOGY HELPS DOCTORS SPOT AUTISM EARLIER
FSU Autism Institute Wins $2.5 Million NIH Grant To Screen Infants

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Someday your doctor may be able to examine your infant, notice a telltale physical characteristic and say, “Your child has autism — but we’ve caught it early, so don’t worry.”

For now, that kind of autism biomarker doesn’t exist, and most autism is not discovered until a child is 4 or 5 years old, when the brain is fairly set in its ways.

But with the help of a five-year, nearly $2.5 million National Institutes of Health grant, Florida State University researchers are spearheading a project that will screen infants who are only 12 months old using smart technology that can search simultaneously for both autism and communication delays.

FSU College of Medicine Distinguished Research Professor Amy Wetherby, director of the FSU Autism Institute, is leading the research.

The project will establish a network of frontline doctors who will ask the parents of every infant they examine to answer 10 online questions designed to identify delays in communication skills. The answers automatically will trigger as many as 20 additional, autism-specific questions, which are designed to instantly indicate whether the child is at risk for communication delays or autism so that early intervention can begin as soon as possible.

“If we can catch it early, we can treat it early,” Wetherby said. “Our goal is that all or most children with autism can go to regular kindergarten if we catch it early.”

The diagnostic tool they’re using is the Smart ESAC (Early Screening for Autism and Communication Disorders). Developed by Prometheus Research in New Haven, Conn., it can work on a smart phone, an iPad, a notebook computer or a regular computer. To save time, parents can even fill in the answers before the doctor’s appointment.

The Autism Institute is also working with Prometheus and the Florida Center for Interactive Media to develop online training that will use hours of video clips to teach parents, physicians and early-intervention providers what autism looks like. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurobiological disorder defined by impairments in reciprocal social interaction and verbal and nonverbal communication, accompanied by restricted interests and repetitive behaviors.

Wetherby and her team plan to recruit as many as 32 primary-care physicians in the Florida Panhandle, then screen roughly 8,400 infants and follow them for two years. They predict about 10 percent will have communication delays and about 1 percent will have autism spectrum disorder. Throughout the project, they’ll keep fine-tuning the online questions to make them more effective.

“They’ll get screened at 12 months, get an automatic reminder at 18 months and again at 24 months,” Wetherby said. “You need to keep rescreening because the early signs actually unfold gradually from 9 to 18 months. So if you screen too early, you can miss it.”

Catching a communication delay is as important as catching autism, according to Wetherby.

“Most children who have school-age reading problems, other language problems and academic challenges have a history of a language delay in preschool,” she said. “So this is trying to catch those children earlier as well, and then try to give parents some resources to help foster their child’s development early.”

Among the project’s co-investigators is Heather Flynn, associate professor in the FSU College of Medicine’s Department of Medical Humanities and Social Sciences. She’s an expert in a technique called motivational interviewing, which will be used in this project to engage parents in understanding and addressing their children’s learning challenges.

“We want our methods to really be usable in the community, so that families can actually benefit from advances in science,” Wetherby said. “Autism can get worse as children get older because the autism symptoms themselves interfere with learning and development.

“Children with autism often have incredible talents. We want to minimize the symptoms and prevent the social difficulties that they have. So they can have a happy, productive life — that’s really what it’s all about.”

The Smart ESAC will be part of a suite of research-based resources for professionals and families that the Autism Institute has developed over nearly three decades of study. Florida State is working with a newly formed company, Autism Navigator LLC, which will distribute the free tools, resources and certification courses throughout the United States and internationally.

“We want to help families all over the world and give them hope,” Wetherby said. “There is clearly a window of opportunity to help mitigate the effects of autism spectrum disorder — and it is early diagnosis and intervention. The Smart ESAC and this project are important parts of our mission and vision.”

In addition to Wetherby and Flynn, the research team includes FSU co-investigators Elizabeth Slate, the Duncan McLean and Pearl Levine Fairweather Professor in the Department of Statistics, and Juliann Woods, a professor in the School of Communication Science and Disorders. The lead consortium investigator is David Voccola, chief operating officer at Prometheus Research. Catherine Lord, professor of psychology at Weill Cornell Medical College and founding director of the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain, serves as consultant on the project.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Doug Carlson, College of Medicine
(850) 645-1255; doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu

By Doug Carlson
February 2014

PRENATAL NICOTINE EXPOSURE MAY LEAD
TO ADHD IN FUTURE GENERATIONS

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Prenatal exposure to nicotine could manifest as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children born a generation later, according to a new study by Florida State University College of Medicine researchers.

Professors Pradeep G. Bhide and Jinmin Zhu have found evidence that ADHD associated with nicotine can be passed across generations. In other words, your child’s ADHD might be an environmentally induced health condition inherited from your grandmother, who may have smoked cigarettes during pregnancy a long time ago. And the fact that you never smoked may be irrelevant for your child’s ADHD.

The researchers’ findings are published in the current issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

“What our research and other people’s research is showing is that some of the changes in your genome — whether induced by drugs or by experience — may be permanent and you will transmit that to your offspring,” said Bhide, chair of developmental neuroscience and director of the Center for Brain Repair at the College of Medicine.

Bhide and Zhu, assistant professor of biomedical sciences, used a mouse model to test the hypothesis that hyperactivity induced by prenatal nicotine exposure is transmitted from one generation to the next. Their data demonstrated that there is a transgenerational transmission via the maternal, but not the paternal, line of descent.

“Genes are constantly changing. Some are silenced and others are expressed, and that happens not only by hereditary mechanisms, but because of something in the environment or because of what we eat or what we see or what we hear,” Bhide said. “So the genetic information that is transmitted to your offspring is qualitatively different than the information you got from your parents. This is how things change over time in the population.”

Building on recent discoveries about how things like stress, fear or hormonal imbalance in one individual can be passed along to the next generation, Bhide and Zhu were curious about a proven link between prenatal nicotine exposure and hyperactivity in mice.

Their work at the Center for Brain Repair has included extensive research around ADHD, a neurobehavioral disorder affecting about 10 percent of children and 5 percent of adults in the United States. Researchers have struggled to produce a definitive scientific explanation for a spike in ADHD diagnoses in the last few decades.

“Some reports show up to a 40 percent increase in cases of ADHD — in one generation, basically,” Bhide said. “It cannot be because a mutation occurred; it takes several generations for that to happen.”

One possible contributing factor, though unproven, is that the current spike in ADHD cases correlates in some manner to an increase in the number of women who smoked during pregnancy as cigarettes became fashionable in the United States around the time of World War II and in the decades that followed.

“Other research has shown a very high correlation between heavy smoking during pregnancy and the incidence of kids with ADHD,” Bhide said.

“What’s important about our study is that we are seeing that changes occurring in my grandparents’ genome because of smoking during pregnancy are being passed to my child. So if my child had ADHD it might not matter that I did not have a disposition or that I never smoked.”

Bhide cautions that the work, though conclusive, is based on a study in mice, which have served as a proxy for human phenotypes.

“It’s not that every child born to a mother who smokes has ADHD, and it also isn’t true that every person with ADHD will transmit the genetic material responsible,” he said.

“But our work has opened up new possibilities. The next question is how does transmission to future generations happen? What is the mechanism? And the second question is, if the individual is treated successfully would that stop the transmission to future generations?”

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In addition to Zhu and Bhide, the paper’s co-authors are Kevin P. Lee, a research assistant in the FSU College of Medicine, and Thomas J. Spencer and Joseph Biederman, both of the pediatric psychopharmacology unit of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.