Training Prospective Abilities through Conversation about the Extended Self

Prospection is an important cognitive achievement, and isrelated to uniquely human abilities such as planning, delay ofgratification, and goal attainment. While prospection developsrapidly during early childhood, little is known about themechanisms that support its development. Here we exploredwhether encouraging children to talk about their extendedselves (self outside the present context) boosts theirprospective abilities. Preschoolers (N = 81) participated in a5-minute interaction with an adult in which they were askedto talk about events in the near future, distant future, nearpast, or present. Compared with children discussing theirpresent and distant future, children asked to discuss events intheir near future or near past displayed better planning andprospective memory. Additionally, those two conditions weremost effective in eliciting self-projection (use of personalpronouns). Results suggest that experience communicatingabout the close-in-time, extended self contributes tochildren’s future-oriented thinking

LOW-INCOME, MINORITY FATHERS’ CONTROL STRATEGIES AND THEIR CHILDREN'S REGULATORY SKILLS

The current study explored the bidirectional association of children’s individual characteristics, fathers’ control strategies at 24 months, and children’s regulatory skills at prekindergarten (pre-K). Using a sample of low-income, minority families with 2-year-olds from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (n = 71), we assessed the association between child gender and vocabulary skills, fathers’ control strategies at 24 months (e.g., regulatory behavior and regulatory language), and children’s sustained attention and emotion regulation at prekindergarten. There were three main findings. First, fathers overwhelmingly used commands (e.g., “Do that.”) to promote compliance in their 24-month-old children. Second, children’s vocabulary skills predicted fathers’ regulatory behaviors during a father–child interaction whereas children’s gender predicted fathers’ regulatory language during an interaction. Third, controlling for maternal supportiveness, fathers’ regulatory behaviors at 24 months predicted children’s sustained attention at pre-K whereas fathers’ regulatory language at 24 months predicted children’s emotion regulation at pre-K. Our findings highlight the importance of examining paternal contributions to children’s regulatory skills

RPA approach to rotational symmetry restoration in a three-level Lipkin model

We study an extended Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model that permits a transition to a deformed phase with a broken continuous symmetry. Unlike simpler models, one sees a persistent zero-frequency Goldstone mode past the transition point into the deformed phase. We found that the RPA formula for the correlation energy provides a useful correction to the Hartree-Fock energy when the number of particle N satisfies N > 3, and becomes accurate for large N. We conclude that the RPA correlation energy formula offers a promising way to improve the Hartree-Fock energy in a systematic theory of nuclear binding energies.Comment: RevTex, 11 pages, 3 postscript figure

Father–toddler communication in low-income families: The role of paternal education and depressive symptoms

Using data from a racially and ethnically diverse sample of low-income fathers and their 2-year-old children who participated in the Early Head Start Research Evaluation Project (n = 80), the current study explored the association among paternal depressive symptoms and level of education, fathers’ language to their children, and children’s language skills. There were three main findings. First, there was large variability in the quality and quantity of language used during linguistic interactions between low-income fathers and their toddlers. Second, fathers with higher levels of education had children who spoke more (i.e. utterances) and had more diverse vocabularies (i.e. word types) than fathers with lower levels of education. However, fathers with more depressive symptoms had children with less grammatically complex language (i.e. smaller MLUs) than fathers with fewer depressive symptoms. Third, direct effects between fathers’ depressive symptoms and level of education and children’s language outcomes were partially mediated by fathers’ quantity and quality of language

Generational Association Studies of Dopaminergic Genes in Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS) Subjects: Selecting Appropriate Phenotypes for Reward Dependence Behaviors

Abnormal behaviors involving dopaminergic gene polymorphisms often reflect an insufficiency of usual feelings of satisfaction, or Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS). RDS results from a dysfunction in the “brain reward cascade,” a complex interaction among neurotransmitters (primarily dopaminergic and opioidergic). Individuals with a family history of alcoholism or other addictions may be born with a deficiency in the ability to produce or use these neurotransmitters. Exposure to prolonged periods of stress and alcohol or other substances also can lead to a corruption of the brain reward cascade function. We evaluated the potential association of four variants of dopaminergic candidate genes in RDS (dopamine D1 receptor gene [DRD1]; dopamine D2 receptor gene [DRD2]; dopamine transporter gene [DAT1]; dopamine beta-hydroxylase gene [DBH]). Methodology: We genotyped an experimental group of 55 subjects derived from up to five generations of two independent multiple-affected families compared to rigorously screened control subjects (e.g., N = 30 super controls for DRD2 gene polymorphisms). Data related to RDS behaviors were collected on these subjects plus 13 deceased family members. Results: Among the genotyped family members, the DRD2 Taq1 and the DAT1 10/10 alleles were significantly (at least p < 0.015) more often found in the RDS families vs. controls. The TaqA1 allele occurred in 100% of Family A individuals (N = 32) and 47.8% of Family B subjects (11 of 23). No significant differences were found between the experimental and control positive rates for the other variants. Conclusions: Although our sample size was limited, and linkage analysis is necessary, the results support the putative role of dopaminergic polymorphisms in RDS behaviors. This study shows the importance of a nonspecific RDS phenotype and informs an understanding of how evaluating single subset behaviors of RDS may lead to spurious results. Utilization of a nonspecific “reward” phenotype may be a paradigm shift in future association and linkage studies involving dopaminergic polymorphisms and other neurotransmitter gene candidates

Geographical and temporal distribution of SARS-CoV-2 clades in the WHO European Region, January to June 2020

We show the distribution of SARS-CoV-2 genetic clades over time and between countries and outline potential genomic surveillance objectives. We applied three available genomic nomenclature systems for SARS-CoV-2 to all sequence data from the WHO European Region available during the COVID-19 pandemic until 10 July 2020. We highlight the importance of real-time sequencing and data dissemination in a pandemic situation. We provide a comparison of the nomenclatures and lay a foundation for future European genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2.Peer reviewe

Evaluating the Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Mutation D614G on Transmissibility and Pathogenicity.

Global dispersal and increasing frequency of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein variant D614G are suggestive of a selective advantage but may also be due to a random founder effect. We investigate the hypothesis for positive selection of spike D614G in the United Kingdom using more than 25,000 whole genome SARS-CoV-2 sequences. Despite the availability of a large dataset, well represented by both spike 614 variants, not all approaches showed a conclusive signal of positive selection. Population genetic analysis indicates that 614G increases in frequency relative to 614D in a manner consistent with a selective advantage. We do not find any indication that patients infected with the spike 614G variant have higher COVID-19 mortality or clinical severity, but 614G is associated with higher viral load and younger age of patients. Significant differences in growth and size of 614G phylogenetic clusters indicate a need for continued study of this variant

Italian guidelines for primary headaches: 2012 revised version

The first edition of the Italian diagnostic and therapeutic guidelines for primary headaches in adults was published in J Headache Pain 2(Suppl. 1):105–190 (2001). Ten years later, the guideline committee of the Italian Society for the Study of Headaches (SISC) decided it was time to update therapeutic guidelines. A literature search was carried out on Medline database, and all articles on primary headache treatments in English, German, French and Italian published from February 2001 to December 2011 were taken into account. Only randomized controlled trials (RCT) and meta-analyses were analysed for each drug. If RCT were lacking, open studies and case series were also examined. According to the previous edition, four levels of recommendation were defined on the basis of levels of evidence, scientific strength of evidence and clinical effectiveness. Recommendations for symptomatic and prophylactic treatment of migraine and cluster headache were therefore revised with respect to previous 2001 guidelines and a section was dedicated to non-pharmacological treatment. This article reports a summary of the revised version published in extenso in an Italian version

Preserved cognitive functions with age are determined by domain-dependent shifts in network responsivity

Healthy ageing has disparate effects on different cognitive domains. The neural basis of these differences, however, is largely unknown. We investigated this question by using Independent Components Analysis to obtain functional brain components from 98 healthy participants aged 23–87 years from the population-based Cam-CAN cohort. Participants performed two cognitive tasks that show age-related decrease (fluid intelligence and object naming) and a syntactic comprehension task that shows age-related preservation. We report that activation of task-positive neural components predicts inter-individual differences in performance in each task across the adult lifespan. Furthermore, only the two tasks that show performance declines with age show age-related decreases in task-positive activation of neural components and decreasing default mode (DM) suppression. Our results suggest that distributed, multi-component brain responsivity supports cognition across the adult lifespan, and the maintenance of this, along with maintained DM deactivation, characterizes successful ageing and may explain differential ageing trajectories across cognitive domains.The Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN) research was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (grant number BB/H008217/1). K.A.T. is supported by Wellcome Trust (RG73750-RRZA/040) and British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (PF160048)