Retrospective attribution of false beliefs in 3-year-old children

A current debate in psychology and cognitive science concerns the nature of young children’s ability to attribute and track others’ beliefs. Beliefs can be attributed in at least two different ways: prospectively, during the observation of belief-inducing situations, and in a retrospective manner, based on episodic retrieval of the details of the events that brought about the beliefs. We developed a task in which only retrospective attribution, but not prospective belief tracking, would allow children to correctly infer that someone had a false belief. Eighteen- and 36-month-old children observed a displacement event, which was witnessed by a person wearing sunglasses (Experiment 1). Having later discovered that the sunglasses were opaque, 36-month-olds correctly inferred that the person must have formed a false belief about the location of the objects and used this inference in resolving her referential expressions. They successfully performed retrospective revision in the opposite direction as well, correcting a mistakenly attributed false belief when this was necessary (Experiment 3). Thus, children can compute beliefs retrospectively, based on episodic memories, well before they pass explicit false-belief tasks. Eighteen-month-olds failed in such a task, suggesting that they cannot retrospectively attribute beliefs or revise their initial belief attributions. However, an additional experiment provided evidence for prospective tracking of false beliefs in 18-month-olds (Experiment 2). Beyond identifying two different modes for tracking and updating others’ mental states early in development, these results also provide clear evidence of episodic memory retrieval in young children

Interaction between p22(phox) and Nox4 in the endoplasmic reticulum suggests a unique mechanism of NADPH oxidase complex formation.

The p22(phox) protein is an essential component of the phagocytic- and inner ear NADPH oxidases but its relationship to other Nox proteins is less clear. We have studied the role of p22(phox) in the TGF-beta1-stimulated H2O2 production of primary human and murine fibroblasts. TGF-beta1 induced H2O2 release of the examined cells, and the response was dependent on the expression of both Nox4 and p22(phox). Interestingly, the p22(phox) protein was present in the absence of any detectable Nox/Duox expression, and the p22(phox) level was unaffected by TGF-beta1. On the other hand, Nox4 expression was dependent on the presence of p22(phox), establishing an asymmetrical relationship between the two proteins. Nox4 and p22(phox) proteins localized to the endoplasmic reticulum and their distribution was unaffected by TGF-beta1. We used a chemically induced protein dimerization method to study the orientation of p22(phox) and Nox4 in the endoplasmic reticulum membrane. This technique is based on the rapamycin-mediated heterodimerization of the mammalian FRB domain with the FK506 binding protein. The results of these experiments suggest that the enzyme complex produces H2O2 into the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum, indicating that Nox4 contributes to the development of the oxidative milieu within this organelle

Foszforheterociklusok szintézise és hasznosítása = The synthesis and use of phosporus heterocycles

A kutatás három fő szálon futott, egyrészt az 5- és 6-tagú, másrészt a 7- és 8-tagú - ez utóbbi esetben áthidalt - P-heterociklusok területén, harmadrészt egy inverz Wittig-típusú reakció témájában. Újfajta foszfol- és a 3-as helyzetben foszforfunkciót tartalmazó 1,2,3,6-tetra- és 1,2,3,4,5,6-hexahidrofoszfinin P-ligandokat (ill. ez utóbbiak prekurzorait) tettük hozzáférhetővé, amelyeket átmeneti fémkomplexekké is átalakítottunk. A P-ligandok és a komplexek térszerkezetét felderítettük és ez utóbbiak egy részét katalizátorként is kipróbáltuk. Jónéhány dibenzooxafoszforint - közöttük optikai aktivitással rendelkező származékokat is - előállítottunk. A ligandok platina-komplexeit is elkészítettük. A kutatás másik vonalán új 7-foszfanorbornén, ill. 2-foszfabiciklo[2.2.2]oktén 2-oxid származékokat vezettünk be, egyrészt új szubsztituensek, másrészt új dienofilek alkalmazásával. A prekurzorokat reakcióképes intermedierek képzésén át foszforilezési reakciókban hasznosítottuk. Tanulmányoztuk a reakciók mechanizmusát és oxafoszfabiciklookténeket is vizsgáltunk. A harmadik témában a P-aril gyűrűs foszfin-oxidok és a dialkilacetiléndikarboxilát béta-oxofoszforánokat eredményező reakcióinak mechanizmusát derítettük fel és megfontoltuk az oxafoszfetének mint intermedierek lehetőségét. A béta-oxofoszforánokat kerülő szintézissel is hozzáférhetővé tettük és tanulmányoztuk néhány jellemző reakciójukat. | The research was performed in three topics, on one hand in the topic of 5- and 6-membered P-heterocycles, on the other hand in the field of 7- and 8-membered P-cycles including bridged derivatives, and finally in the topic of the inverse Wittig type reaction. New phosphole and 1,2,3,6-tetra- and 1,2,3,4,5,6-hexahydrophosphinine P-ligands - these latter with exocyclic P-function in position three - were made available that were also transformed to transition metal complexes. Stereostructure of the P-ligands and complexes was evaluated and a part of the latter was tested as catalyst. A number of dibenzooxaphosphorines and their platinum complexes were also prepared. In the second line of the research, new 7-phosphanorbornene- and 2-phosphabicyclo[2.2.2]octene 2-oxide derivatives were introduced and utilized in fragmentation related phosphorylation of nucleophiles. Beside the mechanistic studies, oxaphosphabicyclooctenes were also studied. In the third topic, the mechanism of the inverse Wittig type reaction of cyclic phosphine oxides and dialkyl acetylenedicarboxylate resulting in beta-oxophosphoranes was studied. Oxaphosphetes were considered as possible intermediates. The beta-oxophosphoranes were also prepared by an independent synthesis and some of their reactions were investigated

Are all beliefs equal? Implicit belief attributions recruiting core brain regions of theory of mind

Humans possess efficient mechanisms to behave adaptively in social contexts. They ascribe goals and beliefs to others and use these for behavioural predictions. Researchers argued for two separate mental attribution systems: an implicit and automatic one involved in online interactions, and an explicit one mainly used in offline deliberations. However, the underlying mechanisms of these systems and the types of beliefs represented in the implicit system are still unclear. Using neuroimaging methods, we show that the right temporo-parietal junction and the medial prefrontal cortex, brain regions consistently found to be involved in explicit mental state reasoning, are also recruited by spontaneous belief tracking. While the medial prefrontal cortex was more active when both the participant and another agent believed an object to be at a specific location, the right temporo-parietal junction was selectively activated during tracking the false beliefs of another agent about the presence, but not the absence of objects. While humans can explicitly attribute to a conspecific any possible belief they themselves can entertain, implicit belief tracking seems to be restricted to beliefs with specific contents, a content selectivity that may reflect a crucial functional characteristic and signature property of implicit belief attribution

Mammalian Target of Rapamycin (mTOR) Activity Dependent Phospho-Protein Expression in Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL)

Modern treatment strategies have improved the prognosis of childhood ALL; however, treatment still fails in 25–30% of patients. Further improvement of treatment may depend on the development of targeted therapies. mTOR kinase, a central mediator of several signaling pathways, has recently attracted remarkable attention as a potential target in pediatric ALL. However, limited data exists about the activity of mTOR. In the present study, the amount of mTOR activity dependent phospho-proteins was characterized by ELISA in human leukemia cell lines and in lymphoblasts from childhood ALL patients (n = 49). Expression was measured before and during chemotherapy and at relapses. Leukemia cell lines exhibited increased mTOR activity, indicated by phospho-S6 ribosomal protein (p-S6) and phosphorylated eukaryotic initiation factor 4E binding protein (p-4EBP1). Elevated p-4EBP1 protein levels were detected in ALL samples at diagnosis; efficacy of chemotherapy was followed by the decrease of mTOR activity dependent protein phosphorylation. Optical density (OD) for p-4EBP1 (ELISA) was significantly higher in patients with poor prognosis at diagnosis, and in the samples of relapsed patients. Our results suggest that measuring mTOR activity related phospho-proteins such as p-4EBP1 by ELISA may help to identify patients with poor prognosis before treatment, and to detect early relapses. Determining mTOR activity in leukemic cells may also be a useful tool for selecting patients who may benefit from future mTOR inhibitor treatments

A multilab study of bilingual infants: Exploring the preference for infant-directed speech

From the earliest months of life, infants prefer listening to and learn better from infant-directed speech (IDS) compared with adult-directed speech (ADS). Yet IDS differs within communities, across languages, and across cultures, both in form and in prevalence. This large-scale, multisite study used the diversity of bilingual infant experiences to explore the impact of different types of linguistic experience on infants’ IDS preference. As part of the multilab ManyBabies 1 project, we compared preference for North American English (NAE) IDS in lab-matched samples of 333 bilingual and 384 monolingual infants tested in 17 labs in seven countries. The tested infants were in two age groups: 6 to 9 months and 12 to 15 months. We found that bilingual and monolingual infants both preferred IDS to ADS, and the two groups did not differ in terms of the overall magnitude of this preference. However, among bilingual infants who were acquiring NAE as a native language, greater exposure to NAE was associated with a stronger IDS preference. These findings extend the previous finding from ManyBabies 1 that monolinguals learning NAE as a native language showed a stronger IDS preference than infants unexposed to NAE. Together, our findings indicate that IDS preference likely makes similar contributions to monolingual and bilingual development, and that infants are exquisitely sensitive to the nature and frequency of different types of language input in their early environments

Abstracts from the 20th International Symposium on Signal Transduction at the Blood-Brain Barriers

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138963/1/12987_2017_Article_71.pd

Chapter 13 Cognitive Effects of Bilingualism in Infancy

Exposure to multiple languages is a very common phenomenon even during early childhood. Although learning just one language is a major accomplishment in itself, the challenge for infants born in multilingual environments must be still greater. In contemporary societies many children grow up in bilingual families and have to learn to cope with different languages. However, a single language milieu is still the standard model for investigating language acquisition even though a great proportion of children are raised with more than one language. As bilingual children presumably have to learn twice as much as their mono-lingual peers, their language learning could be expected to be somewhat delayed. Yet, infants who acquire two languages simultaneously pass language production milestones at the same age as monolingual infants (see Chapter 4, this volume), and display only minor differences in language processing (see Chapter 3). Thus, the big puzzle becomes uncovering what mechanisms infants exposed to two languages from birth (crib bilinguals) use to efficiently deal with a linguistic signal coming from different languages