Growth in Child Executive Function and Maternal Depressive Symptoms: Maternal Sensitivity as a Mediator

Education and Human Ecology: 3rd Place (The Ohio State University Edward F. Hayes Graduate Research Forum)This study examined the mediating role of maternal sensitivity in the links between trajectories of maternal depressive symptoms and developmental trajectories of child executive function (EF). Participants were 1,364 children and their mothers from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development date set. Maternal depressive symptoms (from 6 months through grade 5) and sensitivity (from 36 months grade 5) decreased over time, while child EF (from grade 1 to 5) increased over time. Mediation effects were found: first, low levels of maternal depressive symptoms at 6 months predicted high levels of child EF at grade 1 through increased levels of maternal sensitivity at 36 months; and second, lower levels of maternal depressive symptoms at 6 months were associated with greater growth in child EF through higher levels of maternal sensitivity at 36 months. The results suggest that maternal depressive symptoms in early childhood are important for children’s EF growth in middle childhood, and furthermore, maternal sensitivity is suggested to serve a mechanism linking the associations between early maternal depressive symptoms and child executive function growth.A one-year embargo was granted for this item

Maternal Emotion Coaching Styles in the Context of Maternal Depressive Symptoms: Associations With Preschooler’s Emotion Regulation

This study examined the interplay between maternal depressive symptoms and emotion coaching in predicting preschoolers’ emotion regulation skills. Participants included 126 preschoolers and their mothers, assessed at two time points, when children were 3 (T1) and 4 (T2). Mothers’ coaching of sadness and anger was observationally assessed in a laboratory task at T1 under two categories, high and low elaborative styles of emotion coaching. Mothers also reported their depressive symptoms at T1. Children’s emotion regulation was observed in laboratory tasks eliciting sadness and anger at T1 and T2. Path analyses revealed three-way interactions among maternal depressive symptoms, low elaborative emotion coaching, and high elaborative emotion coaching in predicting preschoolers’ emotion regulation in both sadness- and anger-eliciting tasks 1 year later. Maternal low elaborative emotion coaching of sadness reduced children’s focus on distress in the sadness-eliciting task only when mothers showed high depressive symptoms and used little high elaborative emotion coaching. In contrast, maternal low elaborative emotion coaching of sadness and anger predicted maladaptive child emotion regulation in both sadness- and anger-eliciting tasks, respectively, when mothers were depressed or used greater high elaborative emotion coaching. Findings highlight the importance of considering different types of maternal emotion coaching language styles in the context of maternal depression and have implications for intervention efforts

Single-cell analysis of AIMP2 splice variants informs on drug sensitivity and prognosis in hematologic cancer

Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase-interacting multifunctional protein 2 (AIMP2) is a non-enzymatic component required for the multi-tRNA synthetase complex. While exon 2 skipping alternatively spliced variant of AIMP2 (AIMP2-DX2) compromises AIMP2 activity and is associated with carcinogenesis, its clinical potential awaits further validation. Here, we found that AIMP2-DX2/AIMP2 expression ratio is strongly correlated with major cancer signaling pathways and poor prognosis, particularly in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Analysis of a clinical patient cohort revealed that AIMP2-DX2 positive AML patients show decreased overall survival and progression-free survival. We also developed targeted RNA-sequencing and single-molecule RNA-FISH tools to quantitatively analyze AIMP2-DX2/AIMP2 ratios at the single-cell level. By subclassifying hematologic cancer cells based on their AIMP2-DX2/AIMP2 ratios, we found that downregulating AIMP2-DX2 sensitizes cells to anticancer drugs only for a subgroup of cells while it has adverse effects on others. Collectively, our study establishes AIMP2-DX2 as a potential biomarker and a therapeutic target for hematologic cancer