An invitation to grieve: reconsidering critical incident responses by support teams in the school setting

This paper proposes that consideration could be given to an invitational intervention rather than an expectational intervention when support personnel respond to a critical incident in schools. Intuitively many practitioners know that it is necessary for guidance/counselling personnel to intervene in schools in and following times of trauma. Most educational authorities in Australia have mandated the formulation of a critical incident intervention plan. This paper defines the term critical incident and then outlines current intervention processes, discussing the efficacy of debriefing interventions. Recent literature suggests that even though it is accepted that a planned intervention is necessary, there is scant evidence as to the effectiveness of debriefing interventions in stemming later symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. The authors of this paper advocate for an expressive therapy intervention that is invitational rather than expectational, arguing that not all people respond to trauma in the same way and to expect that they will need to recall and retell what has happened is most likely a dangerous assumption. A model of invitation using Howard Gardner’s (1983) multiple intelligences is proposed so that students are invited to grieve and understand emotionally what is happening to them following a critical incident

Wild Chimpanzees Exchange Meat for Sex on a Long-Term Basis

Humans and chimpanzees are unusual among primates in that they frequently perform group hunts of mammalian prey and share meat with conspecifics. Especially interesting are cases in which males give meat to unrelated females. The meat-for-sex hypothesis aims at explaining these cases by proposing that males and females exchange meat for sex, which would result in males increasing their mating success and females increasing their caloric intake without suffering the energetic costs and potential risk of injury related to hunting. Although chimpanzees have been shown to share meat extensively with females, there has not been much direct evidence in this species to support the meat-for-sex hypothesis. Here we show that female wild chimpanzees copulate more frequently with those males who, over a period of 22 months, share meat with them. We excluded other alternative hypotheses to exchanging meat for sex, by statistically controlling for rank of the male, age, rank and gregariousness of the female, association patterns of each male-female dyad and meat begging frequency of each female. Although males were more likely to share meat with estrous than anestrous females given their proportional representation in hunting parties, the relationship between mating success and sharing meat remained significant after excluding from the analysis sharing episodes with estrous females. These results strongly suggest that wild chimpanzees exchange meat for sex, and do so on a long-term basis. Similar studies on humans will determine if the direct nutritional benefits that women receive from hunters in foraging societies could also be driving the relationship between reproductive success and good hunting skills

Hippocampal Atrophy as a Quantitative Trait in a Genome-Wide Association Study Identifying Novel Susceptibility Genes for Alzheimer's Disease

With the exception of APOE ε4 allele, the common genetic risk factors for sporadic Alzheimer's Disease (AD) are unknown., which can be considered potential “new” candidate loci to explore in the etiology of sporadic AD. These candidates included EFNA5, CAND1, MAGI2, ARSB, and PRUNE2, genes involved in the regulation of protein degradation, apoptosis, neuronal loss and neurodevelopment. Thus, we identified common genetic variants associated with the increased risk of developing AD in the ADNI cohort, and present publicly available genome-wide data. Supportive evidence based on case-control studies and biological plausibility by gene annotation is provided. Currently no available sample with both imaging and genetic data is available for replication.Using hippocampal atrophy as a quantitative phenotype in a genome-wide scan, we have identified candidate risk genes for sporadic Alzheimer's disease that merit further investigation

Stable Mutated tau441 Transfected SH-SY5Y Cells as Screening Tool for Alzheimer’s Disease Drug Candidates

The role of hyperphosphorylation of the microtubule-associated protein tau in the pathological processes of several neurodegenerative diseases is becoming better understood. Consequently, development of new compounds capable of preventing tau hyperphosphorylation is an increasingly hot topic. For this reason, dependable in vitro and in vivo models that reflect tau hyperphosphorylation in human diseases are needed. In this study, we generated and validated an in vitro model appropriate to test potential curative and preventive compound effects on tau phosphorylation. For this purpose, a stably transfected SH-SY5Y cell line was constructed over-expressing mutant human tau441 (SH-SY5Y-TMHT441). Analyses of expression levels and tau phosphorylation status in untreated cells confirmed relevance to human diseases. Subsequently, the effect of different established kinase inhibitors on tau phosphorylation (e.g., residues Thr231, Thr181, and Ser396) was examined. It was shown with several methods including immunosorbent assays and mass spectrometry that the phosphorylation pattern of tau in SH-SY5Y-TMHT441 cells can be reliably modulated by these compounds, specifically targeting JNK, GSK-3, CDK1/5, and CK1. These four protein kinases are known to be involved in in vivo tau phosphorylation and are therefore authentic indicators for the suitability of this new cell culture model for tauopathies

Natural parenting : back to basics in infant care

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