Cognitive and behavioural predictors of adolescents' communicative perspective-taking and social relationships

The final publication is available at Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2017.01.004. © 2017. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Given the pivotal role that social interactions play for adolescents' well-being, understanding the factors that influence communication is key. The present study examined relations between adolescents' communicative perspective-taking, executive function skills, and ADHD traits and explored the role communicative perspective-taking plays in peer relations. Data was collected from a community sample of 15 to 19-years-olds (N = 46) in Waterloo, Canada. Two communicative perspective-taking tasks required participants to infer speakers' communicative intentions. A battery of tasks assessed adolescents' working memory and inhibitory control. Elevated ADHD traits were associated with weaker working memory, inhibitory control, and communicative perspective-taking. Working memory was the strongest predictor of communicative perspective-taking. Highlighting the importance of communicative perspective-taking for social interactions, adolescents with weaker skills in this area reported worse peer relations. Findings underscore the importance of communicative perspective-taking for adolescents' social relations and have relevance for understanding the social difficulties faced by adolescents with elevated ADHD traits

The relationship between children's executive functioning, theory of mind, and verbal skills with their own and others' behaviour in a cooperative context: Changes in relations from early to middle school-age

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Huyder, V., Nilsen, E., & Bacso, S. (2017). The relationship between children’s executive functioning, theory of mind, and verbal skills with their own and others’ behaviour in a cooperative context: Changes in relations from early to middle school-age. Infant and Child Development, 26(6), e2027. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2027, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2027. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.Learning to behave in socially competent ways is an essential component of children's development. This study examined the relations between children's social, communicative, and cognitive skills and their behaviours during a cooperative task, as well as how these relationships change at different ages. Early school-age (5–8 years old) and middle school-age (9–12 years old) children completed tasks to assess their executive functioning (i.e., inhibitory control, working memory, and planning), theory of mind, and verbal skills and participated in an interactive cooperative task. Because children participated in pairs, dyadic data analysis was used to examine the effect of individual characteristics on children's own and their partners' social behaviour. Results indicated that better theory of mind was related to lower levels of the competitive behaviours demonstrated by younger children, as well as by partners. In contrast, for older children, planning and verbal skills related to lower levels of competitive behaviour. The associations of theory of mind and planning skills with behaviour were significantly different between the early and middle school-age groups. Findings suggest that children may utilize different skills at various developmental stages to guide their social behaviours. Findings have implications for theories of children's social development, as well as for interventions aimed at enhancing social skills

The transcription factor STAT6 mediates direct repression of inflammatory enhancers and limits activation of alternatively polarized macrophages

The molecular basis of signal-dependent transcriptional activation has been extensively studied in macrophage polarization, but our understanding remains limited regarding the molecular determinants of repression. Here we show that IL-4-activated STAT6 transcription factor is required for the direct transcriptional repression of a large number of genes during in vitro and in vivo alternative macrophage polarization. Repression results in decreased lineage-determining transcription factor, p300, and RNA polymerase II binding followed by reduced enhancer RNA expression, H3K27 acetylation, and chromatin accessibility. The repressor function of STAT6 is HDAC3 dependent on a subset of IL-4-repressed genes. In addition, STAT6-repressed enhancers show extensive overlap with the NF-κB p65 cistrome and exhibit decreased responsiveness to lipopolysaccharide after IL-4 stimulus on a subset of genes. As a consequence, macrophages exhibit diminished inflammasome activation, decreased IL-1β production, and pyroptosis. Thus, the IL-4-STAT6 signaling pathway establishes an alternative polarization-specific epigenenomic signature resulting in dampened macrophage responsiveness to inflammatory stimuli

How to turn that frown upside down: Children make use of a listener’s facial cues to detect and (attempt to) repair miscommunication

The final publication is available at Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105097. © 2021. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Communication involves the integration of verbal and nonverbal cues. This study assessed preschool-age children’s ability to use their conversational partner’s facial expression to determine whether the partner required additional information or not. Children (aged 4;0–5;11 [years;months]; N = 101) played a game with a virtual child partner where they attempted to tell the virtual child in which box a prize was hidden. Children needed to provide several features of pictures on each box to uniquely identify the correct box. After providing their instructions, children viewed a video of the virtual child’s emotional reaction (prize found = happy, not found = sad). We assessed children’s recognition that miscommunication had occurred, their decision of whether or not to repair their message, and the content of their repairs. We found that children were able to determine whether or not the listener found the prize, and gauge their own skill at providing instructions, based on the listener’s facial expression. Furthermore, children were more likely to attempt to repair messages when the listener appeared to be sad, although their actual success in repairing the message was minimal. With respect to individual differences, children with higher executive functioning and higher emotion knowledge skills were more accurate in their perceptions of communicative success. Children with higher emotion knowledge skills were more likely to attempt to repair their messages when the listener appeared to be sad. Overall, this study demonstrates that children are able to make inferences about communication using a listener’s facial expression and that emotion recognition and executive functioning support this ability

Class IHLA oligomerization at the surface of B cells is controlled by exogenous β₂-microglobulin: implications in activation of cytotoxic T lymphocytes

Submicroscopic molecular clusters (oligomers) of class I HLA have been detected by physical techniques [e.g. fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) and single particle tracking of molecular diffusion] at the surface of various activated and transformed human cells, including B lymphocytes. Here, the sensitivity of this homotypic association to exogenous β₂-microglobulin (β₂m) and the role of free heavy chains (FHC) in class I HLA oligomerization were investigated on a B lymphoblastoid cell line, JY. Scanning near-field optical microscopy and FRET data both demonstrated that FHC and class I HLA heterodimers are co-clustered at the cell surface. Culturing the cells with excess β₂m resulted in a reduced co-clustering and decreased molecular homotypic association, as assessed by FRET. The decreased HLA clustering on JY target cells (antigen-presenting cells) was accompanied with their reduced susceptibility to specific lysis by allospecific CD8⁺ cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL). JY B cells with reduced HLA clustering also provoked significantly weaker T cell activation signals, such as lower expression of CD69 activation marker and lower magnitude of TCR down-regulation, than did the untreated B cells. These results together suggest that the actual level of β₂m available at the cell surface can control CTL activation and the subsequent cytotoxic effector function through regulation of the homotypic HLA-I association. This might be especially important in some inflammatory and autoimmune diseases where elevated serum β₂m levels are reported

Class IHLA oligomerization at the surface of B cells is controlled by exogenous β₂-microglobulin: implications in activation of cytotoxic T lymphocytes

Submicroscopic molecular clusters (oligomers) of class I HLA have been detected by physical techniques [e.g. fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) and single particle tracking of molecular diffusion] at the surface of various activated and transformed human cells, including B lymphocytes. Here, the sensitivity of this homotypic association to exogenous β₂-microglobulin (β₂m) and the role of free heavy chains (FHC) in class I HLA oligomerization were investigated on a B lymphoblastoid cell line, JY. Scanning near-field optical microscopy and FRET data both demonstrated that FHC and class I HLA heterodimers are co-clustered at the cell surface. Culturing the cells with excess β₂m resulted in a reduced co-clustering and decreased molecular homotypic association, as assessed by FRET. The decreased HLA clustering on JY target cells (antigen-presenting cells) was accompanied with their reduced susceptibility to specific lysis by allospecific CD8⁺ cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL). JY B cells with reduced HLA clustering also provoked significantly weaker T cell activation signals, such as lower expression of CD69 activation marker and lower magnitude of TCR down-regulation, than did the untreated B cells. These results together suggest that the actual level of β₂m available at the cell surface can control CTL activation and the subsequent cytotoxic effector function through regulation of the homotypic HLA-I association. This might be especially important in some inflammatory and autoimmune diseases where elevated serum β₂m levels are reported