Neurodiverse transactional development may confound primary attachment inferences ‐ Commentary on Martin et al 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12953

From Wiley via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: accepted 2021-05-20, received 2021-05-20, pub-electronic 2021-07-08Article version: VoRPublication status: Publishe

Children’s Narratives of Family Life in Ghana: A Cultural Lens via Story Stems

From Springer Nature via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: accepted 2020-08-31, registration 2020-09-21, online 2020-10-12, pub-electronic 2020-10-12, pub-print 2020-12Publication status: PublishedAbstract: A Western worldview pervades the social and psychological study of children. The current study employed a story-stem method to qualitatively explore the daily and family life experiences of young Ghanaian primary school children in urban Ghana through their story narratives. The recorded narratives of 69 5- to 8-year-old children were elicited through presenting stems of common child-caregiver scenarios and thematically analysed. Five overarching themes were identified: daily routines and concerns, child-caregiver interactions, spirituality, death-related fears and depictions, and responses to injury. The narrative themes reveal the likely mental and physical occupations of these children, as characterized by household chores, financial concerns and school concerns, as well as underlying cultural values through their portrayals of parenting values, parental discipline and spiritual beliefs. Story stems depicting common childhood problems (e.g. knee injury) sometimes evoked death and hospitalization subthemes following an escalation of health problems. Possible interpretations for these findings are discussed, taking into account cultural, developmental and emotional factors. Story stems are a promising and developmentally appropriate tool for qualitative analysts to investigate the experiences and worldview of young children in non-Western cultures

Is infant neural sensitivity to vocal emotion associated with mother-infant relational experience?

An early understanding of others’ vocal emotions provides infants with a distinct advantage for eliciting appropriate care from caregivers and for navigating their social world. Consistent with this notion, an emerging literature suggests that a temporal cortical response to the prosody of emotional speech is observable in the first year of life. Furthermore, neural specialisation to vocal emotion in infancy may vary according to early experience. Neural sensitivity to emotional non-speech vocalisations was investigated in 29 six-month-old infants using near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Both angry and happy vocalisations evoked increased activation in the temporal cortices (relative to neutral and angry vocalisations respectively), and the strength of the angry minus neutral effect was positively associated with the degree of directiveness in the mothers’ play interactions with their infant. This first fNIRS study of infant vocal emotion processing implicates bilateral temporal mechanisms similar to those found in adults and suggests that infants who experience more directive caregiving or social play may more strongly or preferentially process vocal anger by six months of age

An Epstein-Barr virus–encoded microRNA targets PUMA to promote host cell survival

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a herpesvirus associated with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), gastric carcinoma (GC), and other malignancies. EBV is the first human virus found to express microRNAs (miRNAs), the functions of which remain largely unknown. We report on the regulation of a cellular protein named p53 up-regulated modulator of apoptosis (PUMA) by an EBV miRNA known as miR-BART5, which is abundantly expressed in NPC and EBV-GC cells. Modulation of PUMA expression by miR-BART5 and anti–miR-BART5 oligonucleotide was demonstrated in EBV-positive cells. In addition, PUMA was found to be significantly underexpressed in ∼60% of human NPC tissues. Although expression of miR-BART5 rendered NPC and EBV-GC cells less sensitive to proapoptotic agents, apoptosis can be triggered by depleting miR-BART5 or inducing the expression of PUMA. Collectively, our findings suggest that EBV encodes an miRNA to facilitate the establishment of latent infection by promoting host cell survival

Infant Neural Sensitivity to Dynamic Eye Gaze relates to quality of parent–infant interaction at 7-months in infants at risk for Autism

Links between brain function measures and quality of parent–child interactions within the early developmental period have been investigated in typical and atypical development. We examined such links in a group of 104 infants with and without a family history for autism in the first year of life. Our findings suggest robust associations between event related potential responses to eye gaze and observed parent–infant interaction measures. In both groups, infants with more positive affect exhibit stronger differentiation to gaze stimuli. This association was observed with the earlier P100 waveform component in the control group but with the later P400 component in infants at-risk. These exploratory findings are critical in paving the way for a better understanding of how infant laboratory measures may relate to overt behavior and how both can be combined in the context of predicting risk or clinical diagnosis in toddlerhood

Efeitos do tratamento com captopril e losartan em ratos Wistar e ratos espontaneamente hipertensos submetidos a hipertensão arterial pulmonar com monocrotalina

A hipertensão arterial pulmonar (HAP) é uma doença que se inicia com o aumento da resistência das arteríolas pulmonares. Após a sua instalação, sucedem-se várias alterações sobre os sistemas cardiovascular, respiratório e autonômico. Apesar dos trabalhos disponíveis na literatura, o desenvolvimento desta doença em modelos experimentais de hipertensão arterial sistêmica permanece ainda por ser estudado, bem como os efeitos terapêuticos de bloqueadores do sistema renina-angiotensina na reversão desta doença. Os objetivos deste estudo foram avaliar os efeitos cardiovasculares, autonômicos e respiratórios promovidos pela HAP induzida pela monocrotalina (MCT) em ratos Wistar e SHR e os efeitos terapêuticos do tratamento crônico com captopril e losartan na reversão da HAP. Para tanto, foram utilizados ratos Wistar (150-180g) e SHR (150-180g), divididos nos seguintes grupos: Wistar controle tratado com salina ou MCT (WIS-CON-SAL e WIS-CON-MCT, respectivamente), SHR controle tratado com salina ou MCT (SHR-CON-SAL e SHR-CON-MCT, respectivamente), Wistar tratados com Captopril + salina ou MCT (WIS-CPT-SAL e WIS-CPT-MCT, respectivamente), SHR tratados com Captopril + salina ou MCT (SHR-CPT-SAL e SHR-MCT-CPT, respectivamente), Wistar tratados com Losartan + salina ou MCT (WIS-LOS-SAL e WIS-LOS-MCT, respectivamente), SHR tratados com Losartan + salina ou MCT (SHR-LOS-SAL e SHR-LOS-MCT, respectivamente). Os animais tratados com MCT receberam uma única injeção subcutânea (60 mg/Kg SC) e os controles receberam o mesmo volume de salina (~0,8 mL). Ao término da 3ª senama, quando os animais MCTs controle apresentaram HAP, foi feito o tratamento com captopril (100 mg/Kg/mL) ou losartan (30 mg/Kg/mL) na água de beber por 2 semanas no volume diário de 30 mL. Após o tratamento com captopril ou losartan, foram realizados os registros cardiovasculares, respiratórios, gasométricos e a histologia pulmonar. Os resultados mostraram um significativo aumento do Índice Pulmonar nos animais controles tratados com MCT (Wistar e SHR) quando comparados com seus respectivos controles. As pressões ventriculares (PSmáx, PDI e PDF) também foram significativamente aumentadas nos grupos MCTs, bem como os valores de pressão arterial sistólica and diastólica, frequência cardíaca, pressão de pulso e labilidade da pressão arterial média. O tratamento com captopril normalizou todos os parâmetros estudados, no entanto, o losartan se mostrou ineficiente em normalizar os parâmetros hemodinâmicos. As análises morfométricas mostraram um espessamento da camada média dos dos ramos distais da artéria pulmonar e uma diminuição do lúmen nos grupos tratados com MCT. O tratamento com captopril e losartan normalizou estes parâmetros, embora o grupo tratado com losartan tenha sido menos eficaz que o captopril, pois os tratamentos mostraram diferenças significativas entre si. Quanto a avaliação autonômica, os animais MCT mostraram aumento do tônus simpático cardíaco e redução do tônus parassimpático cardíaco. Novamente, o tratamento com captopril normalizou estes parâmetros, enquanto que o losartan foi ineficaz em normalizá-los. Quanto aos parâmetros respiratórios, observamos aumentos no volume corrente, na frequência respiratória, na ventilação minuto e na ventilação alveolar dos animais controles tratados com MCT. Apenas o tratamento com captopril normalizou estes parâmetros. A avaliação gasométrica mostrou que os grupos controles tratados com MCT apresentaram redução da pressão parcial de O2 (hipóxia), aumento da pressão parcial de CO2 (hipercapnia), queda da porcentagem de saturação da hemoglobina (% Hb), aumento do bicarbonato (HCO3-) e acidose. O tratamento com captopril normalizou todos os parâmetros gasométricos, enquanto que o mesmo não foi observado com o losartan para os animais SHR submetidos a HAP. Nossos resultados mostraram que a MCT induziu ao quadro de HAP nos animais Wistar e SHR, bem como importantes alterações cardiovasculares, autonômicas, respiratórias, gasométricas e morfológicas pulmonares. Os tratamentos com captopril e losartan foram capazes de reverter a HAP em animais Wistar e SHR, porém, o captopril se mostrou mais eficiente em normalizar esses parâmetros quando comparados ao losartan. Estes resultados sugerem que o uso de bloqueadores do sistema renina angiotensina pode ser uma opção terapêutica para o tratamento da HAP. Palavras chave: hipertensão arterial pulmonar; monocrotalina; SHR; captopril; losartan

Novel Nuclear Partnering Role of EPS8 With FOXM1 in Regulating Cell Proliferation

One hallmark of cancer cells is sustaining proliferative signaling that leads to uncontrolled cell proliferation. Both the Forkhead box (FOX) M1 transcription factor and the Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF) receptor Pathway Substrate 8 (EPS8) are known to be activated by mitogenic signaling and their levels upregulated in cancer. Well-known to regulate Rac-mediated actin remodeling at the cell cortex, EPS8 carries a nuclear localization signal but its possible nuclear role remains unclear. Here, we demonstrated interaction of FOXM1 with EPS8 in yeast two-hybrid and immunoprecipitation assays. Immunostaining revealed co-localization of the two proteins during G2/M phase of the cell cycle. EPS8 became nuclear localized when CRM1/Exportin 1-dependent nuclear export was inhibited by Leptomycin B, and a functional nuclear export signal could be identified within EPS8 using EGFP-tagging and site-directed mutagenesis. Downregulation of EPS8 using shRNAs suppressed expression of FOXM1 and the FOXM1-target CCNB1, and slowed down G2/M transition in cervical cancer cells. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis indicated recruitment of EPS8 to the CCNB1 and CDC25B promoters. Taken together, our findings support a novel partnering role of EPS8 with FOXM1 in the regulation of cancer cell proliferation and provides interesting insight into future design of therapeutic strategy to inhibit cancer cell proliferation

Using social mobile learning to stimulate idea generation for collective intelligence among higher education students

The importance of social networks has increased in recent decades, yet the use of social learning in higher education is nascent. Little is known how to foster high levels of social learning discourse among students in higher education classrooms. To address this gap, the present study analyses the use of a mobile application (Soqqle) for sharing student-generated content and peer-to-peer communication. Students from Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Indonesia uploaded videos linked to assessments and received feedback from their instructors and peers through social engagement features (e.g., comments, likes). The majority of students reported that the social learning experience promoted idea generation, increased creativity, and improved attention. These results indicate that integrating online platforms and mobile applications can promote social learning. The findings have important implications for educational practice because many educational institutions have adopted online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic