Identification of the Cis-Acting Elements and Trans-Acting Factors That Mediate Cell-Specific and Thyroid Hormone Stimulation of Growth Hormone Gene Expression

This chapter reviews the physical and biological properties of thyroid hormone receptors and the relationship of the receptor to the avian erythroblastosis virus (AEV) v-erbA gene. The properties of thyroid hormone nuclear receptors derived from studies using GHi and GC cells are described in the chapter. The thyroid hormone receptor is related to the avian erythroblastosis virus v-erbA gene. The AEV—a defective leukemia retrovirus—induces sarcomas and erythroblastosis in vivo and induces the transformation of fibroblasts and erythroblasts to neoplastic phenotypes in vitro. The chapter also reviews the studies in which the rat growth hormone gene was used as a model to identify cis-acting DNA sequences and transacting regulatory proteins that are essential for cell-specific expression and transcriptional stimulation of the gene by the thyroid hormone. The thyroid hormone regulates the growth hormone gene expression at the transcriptional level. A detailed functional and protein-DNA footprint analysis of the elements that are involved in mediating thyroid hormone and cell-specific basal expression of the gene is also presented in the chapter.Peer reviewe

Longitudinal correlates of infant attention in the paired-comparison paradigm

A sample of infants tested on paired-comparison visual discriminations at 4 and 7 months were tested at 16 months on tasks measuring their exploration of a novel environment, short-term spatial memory, and attention span/task persistence. Seven-month novelty preferences were related to accuracy on a spatial memory task, supporting the possibility that memory ability may carry some of the variance in correlations between infant novelty preferences and later intelligence. Also, shifting between targets during paired-comparison trials was related to infants\u27 behavior at 16 months. Shifting at 4 months was positively related to accuracy on the memory task, and at 7 months it was positively related to several exploratory measures, supporting previous contentions that this measure may reflect different processes in early versus late infancy

Using confirmatory factor analysis to identify newborn behavior structure with the NBAS

The Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) (Brazelton, 1973, 1984) is a 27-item scale representing individual differences in the newborn infants\u27 behavioral repertoire. The NBAS items are typically collapsed into six clusters (Lester, 1984). Although the NBAS has been examined using exploratory factor analysis methods, no confirmatory factor analysis study has been published in which the behavior structure of full-term, healthy infants is examined. In the current research, competing models assessing variations of the Lester behavior clusters were performed using confirmatory factor analysis. Models comparing six independent factors, six correlated factors, and models estimating a general adaptiveness factor plus six factors were assessed. Examination of the results suggests continued investigations of neonatal behaviors are needed