News

Children with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) who start on treatment with growth hormone in the first year of life tend to have more normal growth parameters like height and weight, a new study reports. “This longitudinal study showed that younger children with PWS may benefit greatly from [growth hormone] treatment…

Too much insulin — a hormone that controls sugar in blood — may set off weight gain and excessive eating (known as hyperphagia) in children with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), a study suggests. High levels of insulin occurred hand in hand with high levels of leptin, a hormone that controls…

EMO-T, a new emotional skill training program, helped children with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) express, recognize, understand, and regulate emotions, a study suggested. After EMO-T, scores related to emotional expression and comprehension matched those of control participants without PWS. Regulating and expressing emotions requires prerequisite emotion skills, said the researchers,…

Early treatment with Jintropin, a form of human growth hormone, was associated with improvements in cognition and appeared to slow the decline in motor function among children with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), a new study reports. “The present findings of this study add to the growing evidence that [human growth…

Neuren Pharmaceuticals will test its therapeutic candidate NNZ-2591 in children with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) in a new Phase 2 clinical trial, the company announced in a press release. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave Neuren the go-ahead to conduct the trial following the company’s…

Children with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) have less lean body mass and grip strength, and spend more time inactive compared to healthy children or those with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, a pilot study in Canada has found. “These findings are relevant as early detection of deficits in muscle strength and…

A boy was found to manifest “blended” symptoms of both Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) and a form of hereditary spastic paraplegia caused by a double copy of a faulty chromosome he inherited from his mother, according to a report from the U.S. The report, “Blended Phenotype of Prader-Willi Syndrome…

The Foundation for Prader-Willi Research has awarded a two-year, $141,444 grant to help fund the development of a patient-reported questionnaire to assess the impact of hunger for people with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS). The project is being led by Elisabeth Dykens, PhD, a professor of psychology…

Compared to their typically developing peers, children with Prader-Willi syndrome show marked differences in the shapes and sizes of many structures in the brain, including some important for regulating hunger, a new study reports. Changes seen in patients were not seen in obese children who didn’t have Prader-Willi, indicating…

Researchers have determined that the role of the chemical messenger oxytocin in Prader-Willi syndrome could be associated with its function in astrocytes, a type of nerve support cell in the brain. By counting the number of oxytocin-producing cells and receptors for the molecule in the brain, brain regions and cell…