A Mudança Narrativa num Grupo de Educação Parental: Tempo, Causalidade, Forma de Relato e Temas da Narrativa

Objetivo: O presente estudo pretende investigar a mudança narrativa nas famílias que participaram num grupo clínico de Educação Parental. Participantes: Participaram neste estudo 10 elementos, pertencendo a 7 famílias integradas no Incredible Years Basic Parent Program. As referidas famílias foram identificadas por letras A, B, C, D, E, F e G. As famílias A, B, C, F e G são famílias nucleares intactas. A família E corresponde a uma família monoparental e a família D corresponde a uma família alargada. As famílias E e F encontram-se na fase do ciclo vital família com filhos pequenos, as famílias A, C, D, G na fase família com filhos na escola e, por fim, a família B na fase família com filhos adolescentes. Instrumentos: Foi aplicado o Sistema da Avaliação da Mudança Narrativa (SAMN). Este instrumento integra sete dimensões que avaliam a mudança narrativa dos clientes em processos terapêuticos de orientação sistémica pós-moderna. Na presente investigação foram estudados o tempo, a causalidade, forma de relato da história e temas centrais da sessão. O sucesso obtido por cada família no grupo de educação parental foi aferido através da comparação de três medidas - SQD, BDI, Inventario de práticas educativas - relativamente às evoluções ocorridas entre o pré-teste e pós-teste. Resultados: Cinco famílias (B, D, E, F e G) foram consideradas de sucesso e duas famílias (A e C) foram consideradas como casos de insucesso no final do Programa Parental. Através da avaliação com o SAMN, verificou-se que ocorreram mais alterações e flexibilizações no tempo, causalidade, forma de relato da história e temas da sessão nos casos de maior sucesso. Nos casos de menor sucesso as dimensões mantiveram-se mais próximas do seu formato inicial, não se verificando alterações significativas. / Aim: This study aims to investigate the narrative change in the families who participated in a clinical group of Parental Education. Participants: Ten elements belonging to seven families integrated into the Incredible Years Basic Parent Program participated in the study. These families were identified by the letters A, B, C, D, E, F and G. Families A, B, C, F and G are intact nuclear families. The family E corresponds to single-parent family and family D corresponds to an extended family. Families E and F are at the stage of family life cycle with young children. Families A, C, D, G are included in the family phase with children in school and, finally, the B family on the family stage with teenage children. Instruments: The Assessment System of Narrative Change (ASNC) was applied. This instrument contains seven dimensions that evaluate the narrative change of clients in therapeutic processes of postmodern systemic orientation. In the present investigation time, causality, telling of the story and the themes of the session were studied. The success achieved by each family was determined by comparing three measures - SQD, BDI, Inventory of educational practices relative to the evolutions between the pre-test and post-test. Results: At the end of the Parent Program, five families (B, D, E, F and G) were considered successful cases and two families (A and C) were considered unsuccessful cases. In the most successful cases, what concerns to the narratives, more changes and flexibility occurred in the time, causality, telling of the story and session themes, In cases of less success the referred dimensions remained closer to its original format and significant changes were not observed

Sex differences in functional connectivity between resting state brain networks in Autism Spectrum Disorder

© The Author(s) 2021. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Functional brain connectivity (FBC) has previously been examined in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) between-resting-state networks (RSNs) using a highly sensitive and reproducible hypothesis-free approach. However, results have been inconsistent and sex differences have only recently been taken into consideration using this approach. We estimated main effects of diagnosis and sex and a diagnosis by sex interaction on between-RSNs FBC in 83 ASD (40 females/43 males) and 85 typically developing controls (TC; 43 females/42 males). We found increased connectivity between the default mode (DM) and (a) the executive control networks in ASD (vs. TC); (b) the cerebellum networks in males (vs. females); and (c) female-specific altered connectivity involving visual, language and basal ganglia (BG) networks in ASD-in suggestive compatibility with ASD cognitive and neuroscientific theories.VT received support from Fundação Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) PhD fellowship (PD/BD/114460/2016) and paid by FCT DSAIPA/DS/0065/2018 Grant. DP was supported by the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme Marie Curie Career Integration Grant FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG-631952, the 2016 Bial Foundation Psychophysiology Grant Ref. 292/16, and the IF/00787/2014, LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-030907 and DSAIPA/DS/0065/2018 FCT Grants, and the iMM Lisboa Director’s Fund Breakthrough Idea Grant 2016; and is co-founder and shareholder of the neuroimaging research services company NeuroPsyAI, Ltd. MA was supported by FCT Grant UID/MAT/00006/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Epigenetic mediation of AKT1 rs1130233's Effect on delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol-induced medial temporal function during fear processing

High doses of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive component of cannabis, have been shown to have anxiogenic effects. Additionally, THC effects have been shown to be modulated by genotype, including the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1130233 at the protein kinase AKT1 gene, a key component of the dopamine signalling cascade. As such, it is likely that epigenetic methylation around this SNP may affect AKT gene expression, which may in turn impact on the acute effects of THC on brain function. We investigated the genetic (AKT1 rs1130233) and epigenetic modulation of brain function during fear processing in a 2-session, double-blind, cross-over, randomized placebo-controlled THC administration, in 36 healthy males. Fear processing was assessed using an emotion (fear processing) paradigm, under functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Complete genetic and fMRI data were available for 34 participants. THC caused an increase in anxiety and transient psychotomimetic symptoms and para-hippocampal gyrus/amygdala activation. Number of A alleles at the AKT1 rs1130233 SNP, and percentage methylation at the CpG11-12 site, were independently associated with a greater effect of THC on activation in a network of brain regions including left and right parahippocampal gyri, respectively. AKT1 rs1130233 moderation of the THC effect on left parahippocampal activation persisted after covarying for methylation percentage, and was partially mediated in sections of the left parahippocampal gyrus/hippocampus by methylation percentage. These results may offer an example of how genetic and epigenetic variations influence the psychotomimetic and neurofunctional effects of THC

Effects of psychosis-associated genetic markers on brain volumetry: a systematic review of replicated findings and an independent validation

© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.Background: Given psychotic illnesses' high heritability and associations with brain structure, numerous neuroimaging-genetics findings have been reported in the last two decades. However, few findings have been replicated. In the present independent sample we aimed to replicate any psychosis-implicated SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms), which had previously shown at least two main effects on brain volume. Methods: A systematic review for SNPs showing a replicated effect on brain volume yielded 25 studies implicating seven SNPs in five genes. Their effect was then tested in 113 subjects with either schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, 'at risk mental state' or healthy state, for whole-brain and region-of-interest (ROI) associations with grey and white matter volume changes, using voxel-based morphometry. Results: We found FWER-corrected (Family-wise error rate) (i.e. statistically significant) associations of: (1) CACNA1C-rs769087-A with larger bilateral hippocampus and thalamus white matter, across the whole brain; and (2) CACNA1C-rs769087-A with larger superior frontal gyrus, as ROI. Higher replication concordance with existing literature was found, in decreasing order, for: (1) CACNA1C-rs769087-A, with larger dorsolateral-prefrontal/superior frontal gyrus and hippocampi (both with anatomical and directional concordance); (2) ZNF804A-rs11681373-A, with smaller angular gyrus grey matter and rectus gyri white matter (both with anatomical and directional concordance); and (3) BDNF-rs6265-T with superior frontal and middle cingulate gyri volume change (with anatomical and allelic concordance). Conclusions: Most literature findings were not herein replicated. Nevertheless, high degree/likelihood of replication was found for two genome-wide association studies- and one candidate-implicated SNPs, supporting their involvement in psychosis and brain structure.VT was supported by a Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) PhD fellowship (PD/BD/114460/2016) and hired on the FCT DSAIPA/DS/0065/2018 grant. DP was supported, during this work, by the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme Marie Curie Career Integration Grant FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG-631952, the 2016 Bial Foundation Psychophysiology Grant – Ref. 292/16, and the FCT IF/00787/2014, LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-030907, DSAIPA/DS/0065/2018 and UIDB/00645/2020 grants, and the Instituto de Medicina Molecular (iMM) Lisboa Director's Fund Breakthrough Idea Grant 2016.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Sulforaphane Modulates AQP8-Linked Redox Signalling in Leukemia Cells

Sulforaphane, a biologically active isothiocyanate compound extracted from cruciferous vegetables, has been shown to exert cytotoxic effects on many human cancer cells, including leukemia. However, the exact molecular mechanisms behind the action of sulforaphane in hematological malignancies are still unclear. Like other cancer cells, leukemia cells produce high level of reactive oxygen species; in particular, hydrogen peroxide derived from Nox family is involved in various redox signal transduction pathways, promoting cell proliferation and survival. Recent evidence show that many tumour cell types express elevated level of aquaporin isoforms, and we previously demonstrated that aquaporin-8 acts as H2O2 transport facilitator across the plasma membrane of B1647 cells, a model of acute myeloid human leukemia. Thus, the control of AQP8-mediated H2O2 transport could be a novel strategy to regulate cell signalling and survival. To this purpose, we evaluated whether sulforaphane could somehow affect aquaporin-8-mediated H2O2 transport and/or Nox-mediated H2O2 production in B1647 cell line. Results indicated that sulforaphane inhibited both aquaporin-8 and Nox2 expression, thus decreasing B1647 cells viability. Moreover, the data obtained by coimmunoprecipitation technique demonstrated that these two proteins are linked to each other; thus, sulforaphane has an important role in modulating the downstream events triggered by the axis Nox2-aquaporin-8. Cell treatment with sulforaphane also reduced the expression of peroxiredoxin-1, which is increased in almost all acute myeloid leukemia subtypes. Interestingly, sulforaphane concentrations able to trigger these effects are achievable by dietary intake of cruciferous vegetables, confirming the importance of the beneficial effect of a diet rich in bioactive compounds

Schizophrenia polygenic risk score influence on white matter microstructure

Schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) are highly heritable, share symptomatology, and have a polygenic architecture. The impact of recent polygenic risk scores (PRS) for psychosis, which combine multiple genome-wide associated risk variations, should be assessed on heritable brain phenotypes also previously associated with the illnesses, for a better understanding of the pathways to disease. We have recently reported on the current SZ PRS's ability to predict 1st episode of psychosis case-control status and general cognition. Herein, we test its penetrance on white matter microstructure, which is known to be impaired in SZ, in BD and their relatives, using 141 participants (including SZ, BP, relatives of SZ or BP patients, and healthy volunteers), and two white matter integrity indexes: fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD). No significant correlation between the SZ PRS and FA or MD was found, thus it remains unclear whether white matter changes are primarily associated with SZ genetic risk profiles

Biochemical characterization of a protein tyrosine phosphatase from Trypanosoma cruzi involved in metacyclogenesis and cell invasion

Protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs) form a large family of enzymes involved in the regulation of numerous cellular functions in eukaryotes. Several protein tyrosine phosphatases have been recently identified in trypanosomatides. Here we report the purification and biochemical characterization of TcPTP1, a protein tyrosine phosphatase from Trypanosoma cruzi, the causing agent of Chagas' disease. the enzyme was cloned and expressed recombinantly in Escherichia coli and purified by Ni-affinity chromatography. Biochemical characterization of recombinant TcPTP1 with the PTP pseudo-substrate pNPP allowed the estimation of a Michaelis-Menten constant K-m of 4.5 mM and a k(cat) of 2.8 s(-1). We were able to demonstrate inhibition of the enzyme by the PTP1b inhibitor BZ3, which on its turn was able to accelerate the differentiation of epimastigotes into metacyclic forms of T. cruzi induced by nutritional stress. Additionally, this compound was able to inhibit by 50% the infectivity of T. cruzi trypomastigotes in a separate cellular assay. in conclusion our results indicate that TcPTP1 is of importance for cellular differentiation and invasivity of this parasite and thus is a valid target for the rational drug design of potential antibiotics directed against T. cruzi. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Ciencia & Tecnol, BR-12231280 Sao Jose Dos Campos, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Biofis, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Microbiol Imunol & Parasitol, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Morfol & Genet, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilCtr Biol Mol Estrutural, Lab Nacl Luz Sincrotron, BR-13083100 Campinas, SP, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Ciencia & Tecnol, BR-12231280 Sao Jose Dos Campos, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Biofis, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Microbiol Imunol & Parasitol, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Morfol & Genet, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilWeb of Scienc

Pupil dilation reflects the authenticity of received nonverbal vocalizations

The ability to infer the authenticity of other’s emotional expressions is a social cognitive process taking place in all human interactions. Although the neurocognitive correlates of authenticity recognition have been probed, its potential recruitment of the peripheral autonomic nervous system is not known. In this work, we asked participants to rate the authenticity of authentic and acted laughs and cries, while simultaneously recording their pupil size, taken as proxy of cognitive effort and arousal. We report, for the first time, that acted laughs elicited higher pupil dilation than authentic ones and, reversely, authentic cries elicited higher pupil dilation than acted ones. We tentatively suggest the lack of authenticity in others’ laughs elicits increased pupil dilation through demanding higher cognitive effort; and that, reversely, authenticity in cries increases pupil dilation, through eliciting higher emotional arousal. We also show authentic vocalizations and laughs (i.e. main effects of authenticity and emotion) to be perceived as more authentic, arousing and contagious than acted vocalizations and cries, respectively. In conclusion, we show new evidence that the recognition of emotional authenticity can be manifested at the level of the autonomic nervous system in humans. Notwithstanding, given its novelty, further independent research is warranted to ascertain its psychological meaning