The association of childhood maltreatment with depression and anxiety is not moderated by the oxytocin receptor gene

Background: The oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene may be involved in resilience or vulnerability towards stress, and hence in the development of stress-related disorders. There are indications that OXTR single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) interact with early life stressors in predicting levels of depression and anxiety. To replicate and extend these findings, we examined whether three literature-based OXTR SNPs (rs2254298, rs53576, rs2268498) interact with childhood maltreatment in the development of clinically diagnosed depression and anxiety disorders. Methods: We included 2567 individuals from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety. This sample consisted of 387 healthy controls, 428 people with a current or past depressive disorder, 243 people with a current or past anxiety disorder, and 1509 people with both lifetime depression and anxiety diagnoses. Childhood maltreatment was measured with both an interview and via self-report. Additional questionnaires measured depression and anxiety sensitivity. Results: Childhood maltreatment was strongly associated with both lifetime depression and anxiety diagnoses, as well as with depression and anxiety sensitivity. However, the OXTR SNPs did not moderate these associations nor had main effects on outcomes. Conclusions: The three OXTR gene SNPs did not interact with childhood maltreatment in predicting lifetime depression and anxiety diagnoses or sensitivity. This stresses the importance of replication studies with regard to OXTR gene variants in general populations as well as in clearly established clinical samples

Towards a Food Pharmacy: Immunologic Modulation through Diet

Cellular mechanisms in basic and clinical gastroenterology and hepatolog

Linguistic analysis of online domestic violence testimonies in the context of COVID-19

Stress and Psychopatholog

Land and Peace in Colombia: FFP Methodology for Field Data Collection and Data Handling

Effective land administration is an essential step on the road to peace in Colombia. The Colombian government plans to have a complete nation-wide land tenure coverage within seven years. The traditional approach to land administration in Colombia is not up to this policy challenge: the pace is too slow, the costs too high, the procedures too complex. Fast and effective land administration is essential for the implementation of the Reforma Rural Integral of the Peace Agreements, and to maintain public confidence in the peace process. The Netherlands contributes to the implementation of the peace agreements by focussing on fast and effective land administration, together with the Colombian institutions. This paper presents a methodology for a project where fit-for-purpose Land Administration is tested at scale – after a successful field test. The test will be done in two pilot areas. These are participatory and integrated pilots, leading to cadastral maps and, more important, to land titles whenever the legal framework and institutional cooperation allows for land regularization and adjudication

Specialty-based, voluntary incident reporting in neonatal intensive care: description of 4846 incident reports

OBJECTIVES: To examine the characteristics of incidents reported after introduction of a voluntary, non-punitive incident reporting system for neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in the Netherlands; and to investigate which types of reported incident pose the highest risk to patients in the NICU. DESIGN: Prospective multicentre survey. METHODS: Voluntary, non-punitive incident reporting was introduced in eight level III NICUs and one paediatric surgical ICU. An incident was defined as any unintended event which (could have) reduced the safety margin for the patient. Multidisciplinary, unit-based patient safety committees systematically collected and analysed incident reports, and assigned risk scores to each reported incident. Data were centrally collected for specialty-based analysis. This paper describes the characteristics of incidents reported during the first year. Bivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to identify high-risk incident categories. RESULTS: There were 5225 incident reports on 3859 admissions, of which 4846 were eligible for analysis. Incidents with medication were most frequently reported (27%), followed by laboratory (10%) and enteral nutrition (8%). Severe harm was described in seven incident reports, and moderate harm in 63 incident reports. Incidents involving mechanical ventilation and blood products were most likely to be assigned high-risk scores, followed by those involving parenteral nutrition, intravascular lines and medication dosing errors. CONCLUSIONS: Incidents occur much more frequently in Dutch NICUs than has been previously observed, and their impact on patient morbidity is considerable. Reported incidents concerning mechanical ventilation, blood products, intravascular lines, parenteral nutrition and medication dosing errors pose the highest risk to patients in the NIC

Peripheral brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) as a biomarker in bipolar disorder: a meta-analysis of 52 studies

Background: The neurotrophic hypothesis postulates that mood disorders such as bipolar disorder (BD) are associated with a lower expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). However, its role in peripheral blood as a biomarker of disease activity and of stage for BD, transcending pathophysiology, is still disputed. In the last few years an increasing number of clinical studies assessing BDNF in serum and plasma have been published. Therefore, it is now possible to analyse the association between BDNF levels and the severity of affective symptoms in BD as well as the effects of acute drug treatment of mood episodes on BDNF levels. Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of all studies on serum and plasma BDNF levels in bipolar disorder. Results: Through a series of meta-analyses including a total of 52 studies with 6,481 participants, we show that, compared to healthy controls, peripheral BDNF levels are reduced to the same extent in manic (Hedges' g = -0.57, P = 0.010) and depressive (Hedges' g = -0.93, P = 0.001) episodes, while BDNF levels are not significantly altered in euthymia. In meta-regression analyses, BDNF levels additionally negatively correlate with the severity of both manic and depressive symptoms. We found no evidence for a significant impact of illness duration on BDNF levels. In addition, in plasma, but not serum, peripheral BDNF levels increase after the successful treatment of an acute mania episode, but not of a depressive one. Conclusions: In summary, our data suggest that peripheral BDNF levels, more clearly in plasma than in serum, is a potential biomarker of disease activity in BD, but not a biomarker of stage. We suggest that peripheral BDNF may, in future, be used as a part of a blood protein composite measure to assess disease activity in BD.BSF is supported by a postdoctoral scholarship and by a research grant MCTI/CNPQ/Universal 14/2014461833/2014-0, both from CNPq, Brazil. CAK is a recipient of a postdoctoral fellowship from CAPES, Brazil. JCS is supported by NIMH grant R01 085667, the Dunn Foundation and the JQ are supported by research fellowship awards from CNPq (Brazil, level IA). AFC is the recipient of a research fellowship from CNPq (Brazil, level II). MB is supported by a NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellowship 1059660. None of these agencies had any role in the design and conduct of the study, or decision to submit the manuscript for publication. We thank all authors of the included papers, particularly Drs. Natalie L. Rasgon, Deniz Ceylan, Camilla Langan, Pedro Magalhaes, Antonio L. Teixeira, Yuan-Hwa Chou, Iria Grande, Chenyu Ye, Izabela Barbosa, Menan Rabie, Ru-Band Lu, Ana Gonzales-Pinto, Reiji Yoshimura, Flavio Kapczinski, and Christoph Laske, who kindly provided unpublished data for the paper

Students' difficulties, conceptions and attitudes towards learning algebra : an intervention study to improve teaching and learning

The skills necessary to identify and analyse errors and misconceptions made by students are needed by teachers of all levels especially at the lower secondary school level in Malaysia. If students are to be successful in tackling mathematical problems later in their schooling, the one prerequisite is the mastery of basic concepts in algebra. Despite the best efforts of the teachers, students still develop algebra misconceptions. Is it possible to reduce or eliminate these misconceptions? The research involved a survey of 14 year-old students in Form 2 (Grade 8) in the Penampang district of Sabah, East Malaysia. The focus of this study lies in students’ difficulties, conceptions and attitudes towards learning algebra in the framework of conceptual change. A possible way to help students overcome their learning difficulties and misconceptions is by implementing diagnostic teaching involving conflict to foster conceptual change. The study involved evaluating the efficacy of a conceptual change instructional programme involving cognitive conflict in (1) facilitating Form 2 students’ understanding of algebra concepts, and (2) assessing changes in students’ attitudes towards learning mathematics, in a mixed quantitativequalitative research design.A 24-item Algebra Diagnostic Test and a 20-item Test of Mathematics-Related Attitudes (TOMRA) questionnaire were administered as a pretest and a posttest to 39 students in each of a heterogeneous high-achieving class and a below-average achieving class. In addition 9 students were purposefully selected to participate in the interview.The results of the study indicated that students’ difficulties and misconceptions from both classes fell into five broad areas: (1) basic understanding of letters and their place in mathematics, (2) manipulation of these letters or variables, (3) use of rules of manipulation to solve equations, (4) use of knowledge of algebraic structure and syntax to form equations, and (5) generalisation of rule for repetitive patterns or sequences of shapes.The results also showed that there was significant improvement in students’ achievement in mathematics. Further, students’ attitude towards inquiry of mathematics lessons showed significant positive improvement. Enjoyment remained high even though enjoyment of mathematics lesson showed no change. Also, changes in students’ understanding (from unintelligible to intelligible, intelligible to plausible, plausible to fruitful) illustrated the extent of changes in their conceptions.Different pedagogies can affect how conceptual change and challenge of misconceptions occurs. Therefore, knowledge of the origin of different types of misconceptions can be useful in selecting more effective pedagogical techniques for challenging particular misconceptions. Also, for teachers to create an effective learning experience they should be aware of and acknowledge students’ prior knowledge acquired from academic settings and from everyday previous personal experiences. Since all learning involves transfer from prior knowledge and previous experiences, an awareness and understanding of a student’s initial conceptual framework and/or topic can be used to formulate more effective teaching strategies. If this idea is taken a step further, it could be said that, because misconceptions comprise part of a conceptual framework, then understanding origins of misconceptions would further facilitate development of effective teaching strategies.Further research is needed to help teachers to understand how students experience conflict, how students feel when they experience conflict, and how these experiences are related to their final responses because cognitive conflict has both constructive and destructive potential. Thus, by being able to interpret, recognise and manage cognitive conflict, a teacher can then successfully interpret his/her students’ cognitive conflict and be able to make conceptual change more likely or help students to have meaningful learning experiences in secondary school algebra

Protein Pattern Formation

Protein pattern formation is essential for the spatial organization of many intracellular processes like cell division, flagellum positioning, and chemotaxis. A prominent example of intracellular patterns are the oscillatory pole-to-pole oscillations of Min proteins in \textit{E. coli} whose biological function is to ensure precise cell division. Cell polarization, a prerequisite for processes such as stem cell differentiation and cell polarity in yeast, is also mediated by a diffusion-reaction process. More generally, these functional modules of cells serve as model systems for self-organization, one of the core principles of life. Under which conditions spatio-temporal patterns emerge, and how these patterns are regulated by biochemical and geometrical factors are major aspects of current research. Here we review recent theoretical and experimental advances in the field of intracellular pattern formation, focusing on general design principles and fundamental physical mechanisms.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figures, review articl

Peripheral brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) as a biomarker in bipolar disorder: a meta-analysis of 52 studies

Background The neurotrophic hypothesis postulates that mood disorders such as bipolar disorder (BD) are associated with a lower expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). However, its role in peripheral blood as a biomarker of disease activity and of stage for BD, transcending pathophysiology, is still disputed. In the last few years an increasing number of clinical studies assessing BDNF in serum and plasma have been published. Therefore, it is now possible to analyse the association between BDNF levels and the severity of affective symptoms in BD as well as the effects of acute drug treatment of mood episodes on BDNF levels. Methods We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of all studies on serum and plasma BDNF levels in bipolar disorder. Results Through a series of meta-analyses including a total of 52 studies with 6,481 participants, we show that, compared to healthy controls, peripheral BDNF levels are reduced to the same extent in manic (Hedges' g = −0.57, P = 0.010) and depressive (Hedges' g = −0.93, P = 0.001) episodes, while BDNF levels are not significantly altered in euthymia. In meta-regression analyses, BDNF levels additionally negatively correlate with the severity of both manic and depressive symptoms. We found no evidence for a significant impact of illness duration on BDNF levels. In addition, in plasma, but not serum, peripheral BDNF levels increase after the successful treatment of an acute mania episode, but not of a depressive one. Conclusions In summary, our data suggest that peripheral BDNF levels, more clearly in plasma than in serum, is a potential biomarker of disease activity in BD, but not a biomarker of stage. We suggest that peripheral BDNF may, in future, be used as a part of a blood protein composite measure to assess disease activity in BD