Initiating PeriCBD to probe perinatal influences on neurodevelopment during 3-10 years in China.

Adverse perinatal factors can interfere with the normal development of the brain, potentially resulting in long-term effects on the comprehensive development of children. Presently, the understanding of cognitive and neurodevelopmental processes under conditions of adverse perinatal factors is substantially limited. There is a critical need for an open resource that integrates various perinatal factors with the development of the brain and mental health to facilitate a deeper understanding of these developmental trajectories. In this Data Descriptor, we introduce a multicenter database containing information on perinatal factors that can potentially influence children's brain-mind development, namely, periCBD, that combines neuroimaging and behavioural phenotypes with perinatal factors at county/region/central district hospitals. PeriCBD was designed to establish a platform for the investigation of individual differences in brain-mind development associated with perinatal factors among children aged 3-10 years. Ultimately, our goal is to help understand how different adverse perinatal factors specifically impact cognitive development and neurodevelopment. Herein, we provide a systematic overview of the data acquisition/cleaning/quality control/sharing, processes of periCBD.

Developmental cascades of behavior problems and cognitive ability from toddlerhood to middle childhood: A 9-year longitudinal study.

Little is known about the direction, ordering, and uniqueness of longitudinal associations between behavior problems and cognitive ability, from toddlerhood to middle childhood. A developmental cascade model was tested in the present study to examine the transactional processes in 103 Chinese children at the ages of 1, 2, 7, and 9 years. Behavior problems were assessed using the maternal reported Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment at the ages of 1, 2 and parental reported Children Behavior Checklist at the ages of 7, 9. Cognitive ability was measured using Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development at the ages of 1, 2 and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children at the ages of 7, 9. The results revealed the stability of behavior problems and cognitive ability from age 1 to age 9 years and concurrent associations between externalizing and internalizing problems. Unique longitudinal associations were identified between (1) age 1 cognitive ability and age 2 internalizing problems, (2) age 2 externalizing problems and age 7 internalizing problems, (3) age 2 externalizing problems and age 7 cognitive ability, (4) age 7 cognitive ability and age 9 externalizing problems. The results indicated essential targets for future interventions aimed at reducing children's behavior problems at 2 years old and promoting cognitive ability at 1 year old and 7 years old.

Exploring proximal mechanisms behind intergenerational association between maternal childhood abuse and Chinese preschool children's executive function.

BACKGROUND: Maternal personal history of childhood abuse has been found to predict child social-emotional problems; however, little is known about the intergenerational associations between maternal childhood abuse and child cognitive outcomes. OBJECTIVE: This study aims at examining the intergenerational associations of maternal childhood emotional abuse and physical abuse with child executive functions among Chinese families with preschoolers, and exploring how these associations are mediated by maternal perspective-taking skills and mother-child conflict. METHODS: Participants were 309 preschoolers (152 boys) aged 2-6 years and their mothers. Mothers reported on their childhood abuse histories, perspective taking, and mother-child conflict at baseline (T1). Five months later (T2), child executive functions including working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility were assessed using five computerized tasks. RESULTS: After controlling for child gender and age, associations with child executive functions were found for maternal childhood emotional abuse, but not physical abuse. Specifically, severer childhood emotional abuse directly predicted lower levels of child cognitive flexibility. Furthermore, chained mediation paths were found from maternal childhood emotional abuse to lower levels of child working memory and inhibitory control through worse maternal perspective taking skills and then more mother-child conflicts. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide evidence for less optimal executive functions among preschoolers with emotionally abused mothers. Developing strategies to resolve the long-lasting impacts of maternal childhood emotional abuse may be important for reducing the risks of being unable to fully achieve the cognitive potentials of the next generation.

A Chinese multi-modal neuroimaging data release for increasing diversity of human brain mapping.

The big-data use is becoming a standard practice in the neuroimaging field through data-sharing initiatives. It is important for the community to realize that such open science effort must protect personal, especially facial information when raw neuroimaging data are shared. An ideal tool for the face anonymization should not disturb subsequent brain tissue extraction and further morphological measurements. Using the high-resolution head images from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of 215 healthy Chinese, we discovered and validated a template effect on the face anonymization. Improved facial anonymization was achieved when the Chinese head templates but not the Western templates were applied to obscure the faces of Chinese brain images. This finding has critical implications for international brain imaging data-sharing. To facilitate the further investigation of potential culture-related impacts on and increase diversity of data-sharing for the human brain mapping, we released the 215 Chinese multi-modal MRI data into a database for imaging Chinese young brains, namely'I See your Brains (ISYB)', to the public via the Science Data Bank ( https://doi.org/10.11922/sciencedb.00740 ).

Charting the human amygdala development across childhood and adolescence: Manual and automatic segmentation.

The developmental pattern of the amygdala throughout childhood and adolescence has been inconsistently reported in previous neuroimaging studies. Given the relatively small size of the amygdala on full brain MRI scans, discrepancies may be partly due to methodological differences in amygdalar segmentation. To investigate the impact of volume extraction methods on amygdala volume, we compared FreeSurfer, FSL and volBrain segmentation measurements with those obtained by manual tracing. The manual tracing method, which we used as the 'gold standard', exhibited almost perfect intra- and inter-rater reliability. We observed systematic differences in amygdala volumes between automatic (FreeSurfer and volBrain) and manual methods. Specifically, compared with the manual tracing, FreeSurfer estimated larger amygdalae, and volBrain produced smaller amygdalae while FSL demonstrated a mixed pattern. The tracing bias was not uniform, but higher for smaller amygdalae. We further modeled amygdalar growth curves using accelerated longitudinal cohort data from the Chinese Color Nest Project (http://deepneuro.bnu.edu.cn/?p=163). Trajectory modeling and statistical assessments of the manually traced amygdalae revealed linearly increasing and parallel developmental patterns for both girls and boys, although the amygdalae of boys were larger than those of girls. Compared to these trajectories, the shapes of developmental curves were similar when using the volBrain derived volumes. FreeSurfer derived trajectories had more nonlinearities and appeared flatter. FSL derived trajectories demonstrated an inverted U shape and were significantly different from those derived from manual tracing method. The use of amygdala volumes adjusted for total gray-matter volumes, but not intracranial volumes, resolved the shape discrepancies and led to reproducible growth curves between manual tracing and the automatic methods (except FSL). Our findings revealed steady growth of the human amygdala, mirroring its functional development across the school age. Methodological improvements are warranted for current automatic tools to achieve more accurate amygdala structure at school age, calling for next generation tools.

Transfer of Salmonella from Inert Food Contact Surfaces to Wheat Flour, Cornmeal, and NaCl.

ABSTRACT: Salmonella contamination in a dry processing facility frequently requires removal methods that are nonaqueous. Removal of pathogens from food processing systems with a purge of uncontaminated dry food materials has been proposed; however, little is known with respect to efficacy. In this study, survival of Salmonella on inert contact surfaces and transfer of Salmonella from inert contact surfaces to low-moisture foods were evaluated. Six stainless steel and polymeric food contact material types, in bead form, were contaminated at 11 log CFU/mL and then stored at two temperatures, 25 and 4°C, for 6 months. Simultaneously, three dry food materials or ingredients were used to remove Salmonella from contaminated beads. Wheat flour, cornmeal, and NaCl (1 g each) were mechanically mixed with 3 beads of each material type. The rate of microbial transfer from contaminated beads to food materials was measured. Further experimentation using multiple transfers was applied on two representative beads types, 316 stainless steel and polypropylene, representing common surface contact materials used in processing equipment. Survival of Salmonella on beads depended on storage temperature, with longer survival (P < 0.05) at 4°C than at 25°C, but survival was not influenced by type of bead material. Transfer of Salmonella from stainless steel beads to flour was significantly greater (P < 0.05) than from plastic. Transfer rates from stainless steel to wheat flour, cornmeal, and NaCl were measured as -0.5713, -0.2592, and -1.4221 log CFU of Salmonella removed per cm2 per g of clean material used. Transfer rates from polypropylene to whole wheat flour, cornmeal, and NaCl were more than 10-fold lower at -0.0156, -0.0148, and -0.0129 log CFU of Salmonella removed per cm2 per g of clean material used. These results indicate that although material type may not influence Salmonella survival during storage, Salmonella is more easily removed from stainless steel than polypropylene.

Chinese Color Nest Project : An accelerated longitudinal brain-mind cohort.

The ongoing Chinese Color Nest Project (CCNP) was established to create normative charts for brain structure and function across the human lifespan, and link age-related changes in brain imaging measures to psychological assessments of behavior, cognition, and emotion using an accelerated longitudinal design. In the initial stage, CCNP aims to recruit 1520 healthy individuals (6-90 years), which comprises three phases: developing (devCCNP: 6-18 years, N = 480), maturing (matCCNP: 20-60 years, N = 560) and aging (ageCCNP: 60-84 years, N = 480). In this paper, we present an overview of the devCCNP, including study design, participants, data collection and preliminary findings. The devCCNP has acquired data with three repeated measurements from 2013 to 2017 in Southwest University, Chongqing, China (CCNP-SWU, N = 201). It has been accumulating baseline data since July 2018 and the second wave data since September 2020 in Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China (CCNP-CAS, N = 168). Each participant in devCCNP was followed up for 2.5 years at 1.25-year intervals. The devCCNP obtained longitudinal neuroimaging, biophysical, social, behavioral and cognitive data via MRI, parent- and self-reported questionnaires, behavioral assessments, and computer tasks. Additionally, data were collected on children's learning, daily life and emotional states during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. We address data harmonization across the two sites and demonstrated its promise of characterizing the growth curves for the overall brain morphometry using multi-center longitudinal data. CCNP data will be shared via the National Science Data Bank and requests for further information on collaboration and data sharing are encouraged.

Cognitive training improves emotion regulation in Chinese preschool children.

BACKGROUND: The ability to regulate emotion effectively plays a key role in child psychosocial development and mental health. The current study examines the effect of cognitive training for executive function on emotion regulation in Chinese preschool children, and further investigate the underlying mediating mechanisms. METHODS: A cluster randomized control trial design with pre-test and post-test was conducted in 61 preschool children aged 3-6 years in China. The intervention group consisted of 30 children who received eight cognitive training sessions on executive function, while the control group consisted of 31 children who did not receive any psychological training. Children's executive function was measured individually via five laboratory tasks both in the pre-test and post-test. Adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies were coded in emotion-elicit contexts. RESULTS: Intervention group outperformed control group in working memory and inhibitory control. Children in the intervention group exhibited increased use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies and decreased use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies than children in the control group. Mediation analyses indicated that there were significantly indirect effects of Intervention Condition on the gain scores of adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies through the gain score of inhibitory control. CONCLUSIONS: Executive function training effectively promotes working memory, inhibitory control and the use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies, and reduces the use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. In addition, executive function training improves the use of adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies through the enhancement of inhibitory control capacity.

Alkaline-promoted regulation of the peroxidase-like activity of Ni/Co LDHs and development bioassays.

Nanozymes' activities could be regulated by a simple and effective pH change in an in situ manner. In this work, for the first time, the peroxidase-like activity of Ni/Co layered double hydroxides (LDHs) was regulated via the alkaline-promoted reaction of fluorogenic substrate homovanillic acid and H2O2, and a promising tool for pH sensing was developed over the pH range of 8.3-9.6. As peroxidase nanozyme model, Ni/Co LDHs showed ease of preparation, low-cost, and water-solubility, which played an important role in this luminescence system. Based on the pH-dependent regulation of the Ni/Co LDHs activity, we constructed the bioassay platform for the determination urea, urease, penicillin G, and penicillinase with a wide linear range of 17-1000 µM, 3.3-270 mU mL-1, 3.3-1300 µM and 3.3-100 mU mL-1, respectively. This study not only demonstrated the alkaline-promoted modulation the nanozymes' activities, but also established a facile approach to develop novel bioassays.

Maternal childhood emotional abuse predicts Chinese infant behavior problems: Examining mediating and moderating processes.

The current study examined the mediating effect of maternal negative expressiveness as well as the moderating effects of infant inhibitory control (IC) in the association between maternal childhood emotional abuse (CEA) and infant behavior problems. Drawing from 207 families from mainland China, 2-wave data were reported in this study when the infants were 6 months (T1) and 14 (T2) months. Mothers (Mean age = 32.85 years, SD = 4.04) reported their CEA on the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF) at T1, and their negative expressiveness on the Self-Expressiveness in the Family Questionnaire (SEFQ) at T2. The Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (ITSEA) and a reverse categorization task were used to measure infant behavior problems and IC at T2, respectively. The results showed that T1 maternal CEA, rather than physical and sexual abuse, uniquely predicted T2 negative expressiveness. Maternal negative expressiveness significantly mediated the positive relations of maternal CEA and infant externalizing, internalizing and dysregulation problems. In addition, the moderated mediation model showed that the association between maternal negative expressiveness and infant dysregulation problems was moderated by infant IC. Specifically, the mediating pathway from maternal CEA to dysregulation problems through maternal negative expressiveness was significant, only for infants with poor IC. The results were robust even after controlling for family socio-economic status (SES), maternal childhood physical and sexual abuse. The importance of mediating and moderating processes in understanding the effect of maternal emotional abuse during childhood on infant behavior problems is discussed.

Bis[1-(3,5-di-tert-butyl-2-hydroxy-benz-yl)-3-isopropyl-imidazolium] penta-chlorido(tetra-hydro-furan)samarate(III)-tetrahydrofuran-toluene (1/1/1).

The title compound, (C(21)H(33)N(2)O)(2)[SmCl(5)(C(4)H(8)O)]·C(7)H(8)·C(4)H(8)O, has a layered structure in which each distorted octa-hedral [SmCl(5)(THF)](2-) unit (THF is tetra-hydro-furan) is capped by two cations. The central metal Sm(III) atom of the [SmCl(5)(THF)](2-) anionic unit is coordinated by five Cl atoms and one THF O atom, forming a distorted octa-hedral geometry. The crystal structure displays C-H⋯Cl and O-H⋯Cl hydrogen bonding. The structure exhibits disorder of the solvent.

Poly[3,3'-diethyl-1,1'-(ethane-1,2-di-yl)diimidazolium [tetra-µ-bromido--diargentate(I)]].

The asymmetric unit of the title salt, {(C(12)H(20)N(4))[Ag(2)Br(4)]}(n), contains one-half of a substituted imidazolium cation, one Ag(+) and two Br(-) ions. The cation is completed by crystallographic inversion symmetry. The crystal structure is made up from polymeric sheets of {[AgBr(2)](-)}(n) anions extending parallel to (100). The basic building unit of the anion is a slightly distorted AgBr(4) tetra-hedron. A four- and 12-membered ring system is formed by corner sharing of the AgBr(4) tetra-hedra. The imidazolium cations are located between the anionic sheets and partly protrude into the voids defined by the 12-membered rings.

[Simultaneous determination of the four effective components in Huaijiao pill by HPLC].

OBJECTIVE: To develop an HPLC method for determination of the four effective components (genistin; rutin; quercetin; genistein) in Huaijiao pill. METHOD: The chromatographic separation was performed on a Shim-packODS (4.6 mm x 150 mm, 5.0 microm) eluted with a mobile phase of MeOH-H2O-HAc (40:60:0.25). The detection wavelength was set at 256 nm and column temperature was set at 30 degrees C . RESULT: Nice linear relation between the peak area and injected amount exists when the amount is within 0.059-0.352 microg for genistin, within 0.435-2.610 microg for rutin, within 0.020-0.121 microg for quercetin and within 0.053-0.319 microg for genistein. The correlation coefficient of each component is 0.999 6, 0.998 2, 0.998 9 and 0.999 9 respectively. The average recoveries of the four components are from 98.7% to 100.2%. The RSD of each group are 1.21%, 1.36%, 0.47% and 1.54% (n = 5). CONCLUSION: The method was accurate, repeatable and suitable to determine four effective components in Huaijiao pill. It can be use for quality control of Huaijiao pill.