Effects of Early Psychosocial Deprivation on the Development of Memory and Executive Function

This study investigated the effects of early institutional care on memory and executive functioning. Subjects were participants in the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) and included institutionalized children, children with a history of institutionalization who were assigned to a foster care intervention, and community children in Bucharest, Romania. Memory and executive functioning were assessed at the age of 8 years using the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test and Automated Battery (CANTAB). As expected, children with a history of early institutional care performed worse on measures of both visual memory and executive functioning compared to their peers without a history of institutional care. In comparing children randomly assigned to the foster care intervention with their peers who had continued care in the institution, initial comparisons did not show significant differences on any of the memory or executive functioning outcomes. However, for one of the measures of executive functioning, after controlling for birth weight, head circumference, and duration of time spent in early institutional care, the foster care intervention was a significant predictor of scores. These results support and extend previous findings of deficits in memory and executive functioning among school-age children with a history of early deprivation due to institutional care. This study has implications for the millions of children who continue to experience the psychosocial deprivation associated with early institutional care

Lectotype designations in the Buprestidae collection of the National Museum of Natural History (Coleoptera)

Lectotypes are designated for the following species: A. aureocoerulans Obenberger, A. auroguttatus Schaeffer, A. cannulus Obenberger, A. carinellifer Obenberger, A. dolli Schaeffer, A. exclusus Obenberger, A. ferrisi Dury, A. huachucae Schaeffer, A. optatus Obenberger, A. pictithorax Obenberger, A. simillipictus Obenberger, A. subtropicus Schaeffer, Aphanisticus peninsulae Obenberger, Brachys fascifera Schwam, Buprestis adducta Casey, B. caliginosa Casey, B. disruptans Casey, B. fastidiosa Casey, B. flavopicta Casey, B. fulgens Casey, B. fusca Casey, B. graminea Casey, B. gravidula Casey, B. leporina Casey, B. maculipennis deficiens Casey, Chalcophora angulicollis montana Casey, C. laurentica Casey, Cinyra prosternalis Schaeffer, Conognatha fisheri Hoscheck, C. neutra Hoscheck, Cypriacis obscura Casey, C. venusta Casey, Endelus bakerianus Obenberger, E. belial Obenberger, Gyascutus amplus Casey, G. compactus Casey, G. fidelisCasey, G. pistorius Casey, Hippomelas grossus Casey, H. planicauda Casey, Meliboeus carbonicolor Obenberger, Meliboeus pravus Obenberger, Pachyschelus caeruleus Schwam, P. orientalis Obenberger, Poecilonota cupripes Casey, P. parviceps Casey, Polycesta arizonica Schaeffer, Rhaeboscelis texana Schaeffer, Sambus delicatulus Obenberger, Stereosa cribripennis Casey, Stictocera laticornis Casey, S. pollens Casey, Texania bisinuata Casey, Trachys fisheri Obenberger, T. isolata Obenberger, T. scriptella Obenberger, T. subaenella Obenberger, T. (Habroloma) bakeriana Obenberger, T. (H.) singaporensis Obenberger, Tyndaris chamaeleonis Skinner and T. olneyae Skinner

Neuronal networks in the developing brain are adversely modulated by early psychosocial neglect

The brain's neural circuitry plays a ubiquitous role across domains in cognitive processing and undergoes extensive re-organization during the course of development in part as a result of experience. In this paper we investigated the effects of profound early psychosocial neglect associated with institutional rearing on the development of task-independent brain networks, estimated from longitudinally acquired electroencephalographic (EEG) data from <30 to 96 months, in three cohorts of children from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP), including abandoned children reared in institutions who were randomly assigned either to a foster care intervention or to remain in care as usual and never institutionalized children. Two aberrantly connected brain networks were identified in children that had been reared in institutions: 1) a hyper-connected parieto-occipital network, which included cortical hubs and connections that may partially overlap with default-mode network and 2) a hypo-connected network between left temporal and distributed bilateral regions, both of which were aberrantly connected across neural oscillations. This study provides the first evidence of the adverse effects of early psychosocial neglect on the wiring of the developing brain. Given these networks' potentially significant role in various cognitive processes, including memory, learning, social communication and language, these findings suggest that institutionalization in early life may profoundly impact the neural correlates underlying multiple cognitive domains, in ways that may not be fully reversible in the short term

Secure Network-Centric Aviation Communication (SNAC)

The existing National Airspace System (NAS) communications capabilities are largely unsecured, are not designed for efficient use of spectrum and collectively are not capable of servicing the future needs of the NAS with the inclusion of new operators in Unmanned Aviation Systems (UAS) or On Demand Mobility (ODM). SNAC will provide a ubiquitous secure, network-based communications architecture that will provide new service capabilities and allow for the migration of current communications to SNAC over time. The necessary change in communication technologies to digital domains will allow for the adoption of security mechanisms, sharing of link technologies, large increase in spectrum utilization, new forms of resilience and redundancy and the possibly of spectrum reuse. SNAC consists of a long term open architectural approach with increasingly capable designs used to steer research and development and enable operating capabilities that run in parallel with current NAS systems

On a method to resolve the nuclear activity in galaxies as applied to the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC1358

Nuclear regions of galaxies generally host a mixture of components with different exitation, composition, and kinematics. Derivation of emission line ratios and kinematics could then be misleading, if due correction is not made for the limited spatial and spectral resolutions of the observations.The aim of this paper is to demonstrate, with application to a long slit spectrum of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 1358, how line intensities and velocities, together with modelling and knowledge of the point spread function, may be used to resolve the differing structures. In the situation outlined above, the observed kinematics differs for different spectral lines. From the observed intensity and velocity distributions of a number of spectral lines and with some reasonable assumptions to diminish the number of free parameters, the true line ratios and velocity structures may be deduced. A preliminary solution for the nuclear structure of NGC 1358 is obtained, involving a nuclear point source and an emerging outflow of high exitation, as well as a nuclear emission line disk rotating in the potential of a stellar bulge and expressing a radial excitation gradient. The method results in a likely scenario for the nuclear structure of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 1358. For definitive results an extrapolation of the method to two dimensions combined with the use of integral field spectroscopy will generally be necessary.Comment: Accepted for Publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Timing of Intervention Affects Brain Electrical Activity in Children Exposed to Severe Psychosocial Neglect

Background: Early psychosocial deprivation has profound effects on brain activity in the young child. Previous reports have shown increased power in slow frequencies of the electroencephalogram (EEG), primarily in the theta band, and decreased power in higher alpha and beta band frequencies in infants and children who have experienced institutional care. Methodology/Principal Findings: We assessed the consequences of removing infants from institutions and placing them into a foster care intervention on brain electrical activity when children were 8 years of age. We found the intervention was successful for increasing high frequency EEG alpha power, with effects being most pronounced for children placed into foster care before 24 months of age. Conclusions/Significance: The dependence on age of placement for the effects observed on high frequency EEG alpha power suggests a sensitive period after which brain activity in the face of severe psychosocial deprivation is less amenable to recover

Psychosocial Deprivation, Executive Functions, and the Emergence of Socio-Emotional Behavior Problems

Early psychosocial deprivation can negatively impact the development of executive functions (EFs). Here we explore the impact of early psychosocial deprivation on behavioral and physiological measures (i.e., event-related potentials; ERPs) of two facets of EF, inhibitory control and response monitoring, and their associations with internalizing and externalizing outcomes in the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP; Zeanah et al., 2003). This project focuses on two groups of children placed in institutions shortly after birth and then randomly assigned in infancy to either a foster care intervention or to remain in their current institutional setting. A group of community controls was recruited for comparison. The current study assesses these children at 8-years of age examining the effects of early adversity, the potential effects of the intervention on EF and the role of EF skills in socio-emotional outcomes. Results reveal exposure to early psychosocial deprivation was associated with impaired inhibitory control on a flanker task. Children in the foster care intervention exhibited better response monitoring compared to children who remained in the institution on the error-related positivity (Pe). Moreover, among children in the foster care intervention those who exhibited larger error-related negativity (ERN) responses had lower levels of socio-emotional behavior problems. Overall, these data identify specific aspects of EF that contribute to adaptive and maladaptive socio-emotional outcomes among children experiencing early psychosocial deprivation