Neonatal abstinence syndrome: Pharmacologic strategies for the mother and infant.

Opioid use in pregnancy has increased dramatically over the past decade. Since prenatal opioid use is associated with numerous obstetrical and neonatal complications, this now has become a major public health problem. In particular, in utero opioid exposure can result in neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) which is a serious condition characterized by central nervous system hyperirritability and autonomic nervous system dysfunction. The present review seeks to define current practices regarding the approach to the pregnant mother and neonate with prenatal opiate exposure. Although the cornerstone of prenatal management of opioid dependence is opioid maintenance therapy, the ideal agent has yet to be definitively established. Pharmacologic management of NAS is also highly variable and may include an opioid, barbiturate, and/or α-agonist. Genetic factors appear to be associated with the incidence and severity of NAS. Establishing pharmacogenetic risk factors for the development of NAS has the potential for creating opportunities for personalized genomic medicine and novel, individualized therapeutic interventions

The contribution of childhood negative emotionality and cognitive control to anxiety-linked neural dysregulation of emotion in adolescence

Adolescence has been identified as a period of heightened emotional reactivity, which is reflected in greater activation in emotion-processing regions of the brain in adolescents relative to children and adults. While elevated emotional reactivity and poor emotion regulation are thought to contribute to the rise in rates of internalizing psychopathology, including anxiety, during adolescence, little research has examined factors predicting individual differences in the neural regulation of emotion that can explain why only a subset of adolescents develop anxiety. The present study examined the contribution of childhood negative emotionality (NE) and cognitive control (CC) to neural processing of emotion in adolescence. A sample of 44 girls (M age = 15.5; SD = .35) were selected from a longitudinal study that included self, parent, and teacher report of NE and CC between 2nd and 7th grades. Following 9th grade, girls completed an emotion regulation functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task. We assessed neural dysregulation of emotion by examining functional connectivity between the amygdala and right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rVLPFC) during emotion regulation and found that NE predicted a less mature pattern of positive amygdala-rVLPFC connectivity while CC predicted a more mature pattern of negative amygdala-rVLPFC connectivity. Additionally, we found an interaction between NE and CC, such that NE predicted emotion dysregulation only at low levels of CC. Neural dysregulation of emotion was associated with anxiety symptoms across the following nine months. These findings identify important individual differences in the development of emotion dysregulation that contribute to risk for anxiety in adolescence

A short-term survival experiment assessing impacts of ocean acidification and hypoxia on the benthic foraminifer Globobulimina turgida

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2016. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Foraminiferal Research 46 (2016): 25-33, doi:10.2113/gsjfr.46.1.25.The oceans are absorbing increasing amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a result of rising anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 emissions. This increase in oceanic CO2 leads to the lowering of seawater pH, which is known as ocean acidification (OA). Simultaneously, rising global temperatures, also linked to higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations, result in a more stratified surface ocean, reducing exchange between surface and deeper waters, leading to expansion of oxygen-limited zones (hypoxia). Numerous studies have investigated the impact of one or the other of these environmental changes (OA, hypoxia) on a wide variety of marine organisms, but few experimental studies focus on the simultaneous effects of these two stressors. Foraminifera are unicellular eukaryotes (protists) that live in virtually every marine environment and form an important link in the benthic food web. Here we present results of a short-term (3.5 week) study in which both CO2 (OA) and O2 (hypoxia) were manipulated to evaluate the influence of these parameters on the survival of the benthic foraminifer Globobulimina turgida. Elevated CO2 concentrations did not impact short-term survivorship of this species, and furthermore, G. turgida had higher survival percentages under hypoxic conditions (0.7 ml/l) than in well-aerated water, regardless of CO2 concentration.This research was supported by US NSF grant OCE-1219948 to JMB.2017-01-0

Anxiety and Depression During Childhood and Adolescence: Testing Theoretical Models of Continuity and Discontinuity

The present study sought to clarify the trajectory (i.e., continuous vs. discontinuous) and expression (i.e., homotypic vs. heterotypic) of anxiety and depressive symptoms across childhood and adolescence. We utilized a state-of-the-science analytic approach to simultaneously test theoretical models that describe the development of internalizing symptoms in youth. In a sample of 636 children (53% female; M age = 7.04; SD age = 0.35) self-report measures of anxiety and depression were completed annually by youth through their freshman year of high school. For both anxiety and depression, a piecewise growth curve model provided the best fit for the data, with symptoms decreasing until age 12 (the “developmental knot”) and then increasing into early adolescence. The trajectory of anxiety symptoms was best described by a discontinuous homotypic pattern in which childhood anxiety predicted adolescent anxiety. For depression, two distinct pathways were discovered: A discontinuous homotypic pathway in which childhood depression predicted adolescent depression and a discontinuous heterotypic pathway in which childhood anxiety predicted adolescent depression. Analytical, methodological, and clinical implications of these findings are discussed

Abnormal Dendritic Maturation of Developing Cortical Neurons Exposed to Corticotropin Releasing Hormone (CRH): Insights into Effects of Prenatal Adversity?

Corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) produced by the hypothalamus initiates the hypothalamic- pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which regulates the body\u27s stress response. CRH levels typically are undetectable in human plasma, but during pregnancy the primate placenta synthesizes and releases large amounts of CRH into both maternal and fetal circulations. Notably, placental CRH synthesis increases in response to maternal stress signals. There is evidence that human fetal exposure to high concentrations of placental CRH is associated with behavioral consequences during infancy and into childhood, however the direct effects on of the peptide on the human brain are unknown. In this study, we used a rodent model to test the plausibility that CRH has direct effects on the developing cortex. Because chronic exposure to CRH reduces dendritic branching in hippocampal neurons, we tested the hypothesis that exposure to CRH would provoke impoverishment of dendritic trees in cortical neurons. This might be reflected in humans as cortical thinning. We grew developing cortical neurons in primary cultures in the presence of graded concentrations of CRH. We then employed Sholl analyses to measure dendritic branching and total dendritic length of treated cells. A seven-day exposure to increasing levels of CRH led to a significant, dose-dependent impoverishment of the branching of pyramidal-like cortical neurons. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that, rather than merely being a marker of prenatal stress, CRH directly decreases dendritic branching. Because dendrites comprise a large portion of cortical volume these findings might underlie reduced cortical thickness and could contribute to the behavioral consequences observed in children exposed to high levels of CRH in utero

State of the Science for Kidney Disorders in Phelan-McDermid Syndrome: UPK3A, FBLN1, WNT7B, and CELSR1 as Candidate Genes

Phelan-McDermid syndrome (PMS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder caused by chromosomal rearrangements affecting the 22q13.3 region or by SHANK3 pathogenic variants. The scientific literature suggests that up to 40% of individuals with PMS have kidney disorders, yet little research has been conducted on the renal system to assess candidate genes attributed to these disorders. Therefore, we first conducted a systematic review of the literature to identify kidney disorders in PMS and then pooled the data to create a cohort of individuals to identify candidate genes for renal disorders in PMS. We found 7 types of renal disorders reported: renal cysts, renal hypoplasia or agenesis, hydronephrosis, vesicoureteral reflux, kidney dysplasia, horseshoe kidneys, and pyelectasis. Association analysis from the pooled data from 152 individuals with PMS across 22 articles identified three genomic regions spanning chromosomal bands 22q13.31, 22q13.32, and 22q13.33, significantly associated with kidney disorders. We propose UPK3A, FBLN1, WNT7B, and CELSR1, located from 4.5 Mb to 5.5 Mb from the telomere, as candidate genes. Our findings support the hypothesis that genes included in this region may play a role in the pathogenesis of kidney disorders in PMS

Cortical Thinning and Neuropsychiatric Outcomes in Children Exposed to Prenatal Adversity: A Role for Placental CRH?

Exposure to early life adversity may disrupt the development and maturation of neurons and brain circuits, which, in turn, underlie neurodevelopment and mental illnesses. During fetal life, maternal adversity is conveyed to the developing brain via several molecular signals, including the stress hormone corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH). Employing a large well characterized prospective cohort, we find that fetal exposure to placental-origin CRH levels predicts structural and functional brain outcomes in children. Specifically, elevated placental CRH levels portend thinning of selective cortical regions of exposed individuals, with commensurate cognitive and emotional deficits. Notably, the relations of placental-origin CRH to cortical thinning and childhood symptoms are sex-specific. In view of the established effects of CRH on survival and arborization of cortical neurons, these findings position placental CRH as an important mediator of the consequences of early-life adversity on neuropsychiatric outcomes

Pump Pulse Bandwidth-Activated Nonlinear Phononic Coupling in CdWO4_4

To control structure-function relationships in solids with light, we must harness the shape of the potential energy surface, as expressed in anharmonic coupling coefficients. We use two-dimensional terahertz (THz) spectroscopy to identify trilinear coupling between sets of vibrational modes in CdWO$_4$. It is generally understood that efficient trilinear coupling occurs when the frequencies of two coupled modes add or subtract to the frequency of the third mode. Interestingly, we observe that this condition is not necessary: the THz driving-pulse itself can activate the coupling by contributing broad frequency content to the initial motion of the excited modes. Understanding that the bandwidth of the driving force can activate energy-flow pathways has broad implications for coherent control of collective modes using intense THz light pulses.Comment: 27 Pages, 15 Figure

Utilization and Impact of Career Services Among Collegiate Athletes

Career readiness is a concern within the American educational system, particularly among student-athletes that must manage intense time commitments both on and off the field. Student services have emerged in higher education to support career preparation, but the utilization and impact of these services for collegiate athletes is largely unknown. The systems-theory framework (STF) of career development identifies a multitude of internal and external factors that influence individual career development. Guided by STF, the purpose of this study was to predict the factors that influence collegiate athletes\u27 utilization of career services and resulting perceived career skills. An online questionnaire was distributed to collegiate athletes at a Division I university, resulting in 143 collegiate athletes completing the questionnaire. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated collegiate athletes’ familiarity with career services significantly predicted their utilization of career services. In turn, utilization of only four of nine career services investigated (i.e., Careers Online, Career Fairs, Career Workshops, and Athletic Academic Advisor) significantly predicted perceived career skills positively. Implications for the design and marketing of career services for collegiate athletes are discussed