General and specific effects of early-life psychosocial adversities on adolescent grey matter volume

AbstractExposure to childhood adversities (CA) is associated with subsequent alterations in regional brain grey matter volume (GMV). Prior studies have focused mainly on severe neglect and maltreatment. The aim of this study was to determine in currently healthy adolescents if exposure to more common forms of CA results in reduced GMV. Effects on brain structure were investigated using voxel-based morphometry in a cross-sectional study of youth recruited from a population-based longitudinal cohort. 58 participants (mean age=18.4) with (n=27) or without (n=31) CA exposure measured retrospectively from maternal interview were included in the study. Measures of recent negative life events (RNLE) recorded at 14 and 17years, current depressive symptoms, gender, participant/parental psychiatric history, current family functioning perception and 5-HTTLPR genotype were covariates in analyses. A multivariate analysis of adversities demonstrated a general association with a widespread distributed neural network consisting of cortical midline, lateral frontal, temporal, limbic, and cerebellar regions. Univariate analyses showed more specific associations between adversity measures and regional GMV: CA specifically demonstrated reduced vermis GMV and past psychiatric history with reduced medial temporal lobe volume. In contrast RNLE aged 14 was associated with increased lateral cerebellar and anterior cingulate GMV. We conclude that exposure to moderate levels of childhood adversities occurring during childhood and early adolescence exerts effects on the developing adolescent brain. Reducing exposure to adverse social environments during early life may optimize typical brain development and reduce subsequent mental health risks in adult life

Hermeneutics and Nature

This paper contributes to the on-going research into the ways in which the humanities transformed the natural sciences in the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries. By investigating the relationship between hermeneutics -- as developed by Herder -- and natural history, it shows how the methods used for the study of literary and artistic works played a crucial role in the emergence of key natural-scientific fields, including geography and ecology

Mathematical modeling of the dynamic storage of iron in ferritin

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Iron is essential for the maintenance of basic cellular processes. In the regulation of its cellular levels, ferritin acts as the main intracellular iron storage protein. In this work we present a mathematical model for the dynamics of iron storage in ferritin during the process of intestinal iron absorption. A set of differential equations were established considering kinetic expressions for the main reactions and mass balances for ferritin, iron and a discrete population of ferritin species defined by their respective iron content.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Simulation results showing the evolution of ferritin iron content following a pulse of iron were compared with experimental data for ferritin iron distribution obtained with purified ferritin incubated <it>in vitro </it>with different iron levels. Distinctive features observed experimentally were successfully captured by the model, namely the distribution pattern of iron into ferritin protein nanocages with different iron content and the role of ferritin as a controller of the cytosolic labile iron pool (cLIP). Ferritin stabilizes the cLIP for a wide range of total intracellular iron concentrations, but the model predicts an exponential increment of the cLIP at an iron content > 2,500 Fe/ferritin protein cage, when the storage capacity of ferritin is exceeded.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results presented support the role of ferritin as an iron buffer in a cellular system. Moreover, the model predicts desirable characteristics for a buffer protein such as effective removal of excess iron, which keeps intracellular cLIP levels approximately constant even when large perturbations are introduced, and a freely available source of iron under iron starvation. In addition, the simulated dynamics of the iron removal process are extremely fast, with ferritin acting as a first defense against dangerous iron fluctuations and providing the time required by the cell to activate slower transcriptional regulation mechanisms and adapt to iron stress conditions. In summary, the model captures the complexity of the iron-ferritin equilibrium, and can be used for further theoretical exploration of the role of ferritin in the regulation of intracellular labile iron levels and, in particular, as a relevant regulator of transepithelial iron transport during the process of intestinal iron absorption.</p

Neither Sensible, Nor Moderate: Revisiting the Antigone

In this essay, I try to conceptualise meaningful forms of resistance in the present by revisiting Sophocles&rsquo; Antigone, one of the most important texts of western literary tradition. I focus on Antigone&rsquo;s compulsion to act against Creon&rsquo;s decree, which turns Sophocles&rsquo; heroine into a metonymical expression of (civil) disobedience, sacrifice, and mourning&mdash;to my mind, the constitutive elements of effective resistant subjectivity. In my analysis, Antigone&rsquo;s resistance is transformed from a deeply private, filial duty, essentially seen as heroic, into a rich, public expression of collectivity and solidarity. To illustrate this, I capilatise on Judith Butler&rsquo;s designation of Antigone firmly in the political, and then proceed to make use of Bonnie Honig&rsquo;s recalibration of her disobedience as one which transcends solitary action to express the collective, democratic feeling of a whole polis. I then mobilise a three-pronged theoretical framework. Firstly, I analyse the clash of Antigone with Creon through the prism of Jacques Derrida&rsquo;s work on law and violence. Secondly, I explore the possibility of a biopolitical framing as developed by Giorgio Agamben since, at its core, the clash in the play is enacted within the parameters of a vitiated habeas corpus: from the moment Antigone confesses her misdeed she is treated by Creon, the sovereign, as a non-human&mdash;as an animal or, indeed, a miasma. In the last section of this essay, I mobilise the work of Howard Caygill with a view to analysing what I perceive as three discernible yet concatenated stages (or aspects) in the formation of Antigone&rsquo;s resistant subjectivity: her full awareness of what it means to disobey (hence to resist), her acceptance of sacrifice, and, finally, her commitment to the political potentialities of mourning

Providing parents with online privacy information: Approaches in the US and the UK

10.1111/j.1745-6606.2009.01149.xJournal of Consumer Affairs433474-49