Childhood disadvantage and adolescent socioemotional wellbeing as predictors of future parenting behaviour.

INTRODUCTION: In extending work on early life antecedents of parenting, we investigate associations between childhood family history of disadvantage, adolescent socioemotional wellbeing, and age at first parenthood and subsequent parenting behaviour. METHODS: Parent-child interactions were recorded when participants in the longitudinal Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study (New Zealand) had a three-year-old child. Data were available for 358 mothers and 321 fathers, aged between 17.7 and 41.5 at the time of their child's birth. Associations between parenting and antecedent data on socioeconomic disadvantage, adolescent wellbeing and mental health, as well as current adult mental health and age at parenting, were tested for using structural equation modelling. RESULTS: Family disadvantage in childhood and lower adolescent wellbeing was associated with less positive future parenting, but only adult (not adolescent) anxiety/depression symptoms were directly associated with parenting behaviour. Childhood family disadvantage was associated with further disadvantage across the life course that included less positive parenting of the next generation. In contrast, socioemotional wellbeing during adolescence and later age of onset of parenting were associated with more positive parenting. CONCLUSIONS: Reducing childhood disadvantage and improving socioemotional wellbeing during childhood and adolescence is likely to have intergenerational benefits through better parenting of the next generation.

Serum levels of sclerostin, Dickkopf-1, and secreted frizzled-related protein-4 are not changed in individuals with high bone mass causing mutations in LRP5.

SUMMARY: We compared circulating levels of Wnt inhibitors among patients with high bone mass mutations in LRP5, unaffected kindred, and unrelated normal controls. Inhibitors were unchanged in affected and unaffected kindred. We saw no meaningful differences between controls and affected individuals. LRP5 signaling may not influence circulating levels of these inhibitors. INTRODUCTION: It is thought that gain-of-function mutations in LRP5 result in high bone mass syndromes because these allelic variants confer resistance to the actions of endogenous inhibitors of Wnt signaling. We therefore attempted to determine if circulating levels of Wnt inhibitors are altered in patients with gain-of-function mutations in LRP5. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study in a university research center. Serum was collected from consented volunteers known to have either the G171V or N198S gain-of-function mutations in LRP5, kindred members affected with either mutation, unrelated kindred, and unrelated normal age-matched controls. BMD was provided or measured on site. RESULTS: There were no significant differences found in the serum levels of sclerostin (SOST), Dickkopf-1 (Dkk-1), or secreted frizzled-related protein-4 (SFRP-4) in affected vs. unaffected individuals from different kindreds or when compared to age-matched unrelated normal individuals. Mean serum SOST values in affected and unaffected kindred members and unrelated normal controls were 52.7 ± 6.1, 36.5 ± 9.6, and 54.8 ± 5.4, respectively. For Dkk-1, the values were 25.9 ± 3.4, 25.7 ± 3.0, and 17.3 ± 2.3 and for SFRP-4, 38.1 ± 2.3, 39.8 ± 3.6, and 28.5 ± 1.7. Serum levels of RANKL and osteoprotegerin (OPG) were not different in the three groups. CONCLUSIONS: Circulating levels of endogenous Wnt inhibitors do not change in patients with gain-of-function mutations in LRP5 including Dkk1, which is suppressed by Wnt signaling. It may be that circulating levels of Wnt inhibitors do not reflect changes in target tissues. It is also possible that other mechanisms besides or in addition to resistance in Wnt inhibitors explains the skeletal effects of these mutations.

Vulnerability genes or plasticity genes?

The classic diathesis-stress framework, which views some individuals as particularly vulnerable to adversity, informs virtually all psychiatric research on behavior-gene-environment (G x E) interaction. An alternative framework of 'differential susceptibility' is proposed, one which regards those most susceptible to adversity because of their genetic make up as simultaneously most likely to benefit from supportive or enriching experiences-or even just the absence of adversity. Recent G x E findings consistent with this perspective and involving monoamine oxidase-A, 5-HTTLPR (5-hydroxytryptamine-linked polymorphic region polymorphism) and dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) are reviewed for illustrative purposes. Results considered suggest that putative 'vulnerability genes' or 'risk alleles' might, at times, be more appropriately conceptualized as 'plasticity genes', because they seem to make individuals more susceptible to environmental influences-for better and for worse.

Parenting and children's cardiovascular functioning.

OBJECTIVES: To test the hypothesis that more supportive/less negative parenting is associated with lower resting blood pressure and heart rates in children and to determine whether parent and/or child gender and developmental stage moderate the relations in question. DESIGN: Longitudinal data on 835 children/families who participated in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development were analysed. Children (one per family) were followed from age 1 month to 11 years. METHODS: Data were collected from children and their families via interviews, observations of parent-child interaction and physical health assessments. RESULTS: Correlations show that more supportive and less negative parenting prior to kindergarten entry (approximately 5 years) are associated with lower heart rates and blood pressure in children of primary school grades 4-6 (approximately 9 to 11 years), especially in the case of fathering, sons and parenting during the pre-school years. CONCLUSIONS: Such findings raise the prospect that interventions to enhance parenting, especially the early fathering of sons, may have beneficial effects on children's cardiovascular functioning. The inability to discount genetic mediation of parenting effects makes it clear that behaviour-genetic and/or experimental research is needed to document cause and effect relations.

Outcomes of pubertal development in girls as a function of pubertal onset age

BACKGROUND: The relationship between pubertal onset and tempo and pubertal growth is controversial. We hypothesized that the age at onset of girls' puberty predicts pubertal tempo and the rate of pubertal progression. METHODS: We analysed the data of 380 girls from the prospective Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD), who were recruited in the USA from 1991-2006 and followed from birth to age 15.5 years. We used the following indicators: thelarche age (Tanner stage B2), pubarche age (P2), menarche age (M), the age when breast (B5) and pubic hair (P5) became fully mature, pubertal growth, pubertal duration (time from B2 to B5), pubertal progression (time from B2 to M). We clustered the girls according to B2 age into early onset (EO;<9.4 years), intermediate (IO;9.4-10.5 years), late onset (LO;>10.5 years). RESULTS: All indicators of pubertal onset and conclusion occurred earlier in the EOs than in the LO; yet, the differences in the age at main pubertal milestones lessened as puberty progressed: two years for B2; -1.4 years for M; - one year for B5. In EO, puberty was one year (average) longer than in LO. Although EO grew 7 cm (average) more than LO, their heights at B5 were comparable. There was a significant relationship between the thelarche age and puberty tempo (r=0.23, P<0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: The study highlights the predictive nature of variation in the onset age of puberty on its progression and duration. These results are reassuring in this context and will add to clinicians' and parental understanding of the expected milestones of puberty.

Array comparative genomic hybridisation analysis of boys with X linked hypopituitarism identifies a 3.9 Mb duplicated critical region at Xq27 containing SOX3.

INTRODUCTION: Array comparative genomic hybridisation (array CGH) is a powerful method that detects alteration of gene copy number with greater resolution and efficiency than traditional methods. However, its ability to detect disease causing duplications in constitutional genomic DNA has not been shown. We developed an array CGH assay for X linked hypopituitarism, which is associated with duplication of Xq26-q27. METHODS: We generated custom BAC/PAC arrays that spanned the 7.3 Mb critical region at Xq26.1-q27.3, and used them to search for duplications in three previously uncharacterised families with X linked hypopituitarism. RESULTS: Validation experiments clearly identified Xq26-q27 duplications that we had previously mapped by fluorescence in situ hybridisation. Array CGH analysis of novel XH families identified three different Xq26-q27 duplications, which together refine the critical region to a 3.9 Mb interval at Xq27.2-q27.3. Expression analysis of six orthologous mouse genes from this region revealed that the transcription factor Sox3 is expressed at 11.5 and 12.5 days after conception in the infundibulum of the developing pituitary and the presumptive hypothalamus. DISCUSSION: Array CGH is a robust and sensitive method for identifying X chromosome duplications. The existence of different, overlapping Xq duplications in five kindreds indicates that X linked hypopituitarism is caused by increased gene dosage. Interestingly, all X linked hypopituitarism duplications contain SOX3. As mutation of this gene in human beings and mice results in hypopituitarism, we hypothesise that increased dosage of Sox3 causes perturbation of pituitary and hypothalamic development and may be the causative mechanism for X linked hypopituitarism.

Institutionalization and indiscriminate social behavior: Differential-susceptibility versus diathesis-stress models for the 5-HTTLPR and BDNF genotypes.

Institutionalization adversely impacts children's emotional functioning, proving related to attachment disorders, perhaps most notably that involving indiscriminate behavior, the subject of this report. In seeking to extend work in this area, this research on gene X environment (GXE) interplay investigated whether the serotonin transporter (5-HTTLPR) and val66met Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) polymorphisms moderated the effect of institutional care on indiscriminate behavior in preschoolers. Eighty-five institutionalized and 135 home-reared Portuguese children were assessed using Disturbances of Attachment Interview (DAI). GXE results indicated that s/s homozygotes of the 5-HTTLPR gene displayed significantly higher levels of indiscriminate behavior than all other children if institutionalized, something not true of such children when family reared. These findings proved consistent with the diathesis-stress rather than differential-susceptibility model of person×environment interaction. BDNF proved unrelated to indiscriminate behavior. Results are discussed in relation to previous work on this subject of indiscriminate behavior, institutionalization and GXE interaction.

Cushing's syndrome due to ectopic production of corticotropin-releasing factor.

A patient with Cushing's syndrome is described who had a metastatic medullary carcinoma of the thyroid which contained corticotropin-releasing factor. ACTH was found by an immunohistochemical method in the patient's pituitary, but not in the thyroid tumor. This is the second report demonstrating corticotropin-releasing factor in tumor tissue in this syndrome. Wider use of immunohistological methods can help distinguish this variety from other tumors associated with the ectopic ACTH syndrome when bioassays are not available.

Etiology of child maltreatment: a developmental-ecological analysis.

This article applies a developmental-ecological perspective to the question of the etiology of physical child abuse and neglect by organizing the paper around a variety of "contexts of maltreatment." The roles of parent and child characteristics and processes are considered ("developmental context"), including an examination of intergenerational transmission. The "immediate interactional context" of maltreatment, which focuses on the parenting and parent-child interactional processes associated with abuse and neglect, is analyzed. Finally, the "broader context" is discussed with 3 specific subsections dealing with the community, cultural, and evolutionary contexts of child maltreatment. Implications for intervention are considered and future research directions are outlined.

Epidemiologic studies of coronary heart disease and stroke in Japanese men living in Japan, Hawaii and California. Coronary heart disease risk factors in Japan and Hawaii.

Various risk factors were evaluated to explain a significantly greater incidence of coronary heart disease in men of Japanese ancestry resident in Hawaii compared with men resident in Japan. The independent predictors of incidence of coronary heart disease in both Japan and Hawaii were systolic blood pressure, serum cholesterol, relative weight and age. These factors appeared to influence incidence similarly in both areas because in each case the correlation coefficients for Japan and Hawaii did not differ significantly. The hypothesis that the greater incidence in Hawaii could be attributed to differences in levels of these risk factors was tested with the Walker-Duncan method. The four variable multiple logistic function describing the probability of coronary heart disease in Japan was applied to the cohort characteristics observed in Hawaii. The estimated incidence thus obtained was not significantly different from that actually observed in the men resident in Hawaii. Therefore the increased coronary risk profile in Hawaii compared with Japan can account for the greater incidence of coronary heart disease in the former. Current cigarette smoking was significantly related to the risk of coronary heart disease in Hawaii but not in Japan. This difference requires further investigation.

Epidemiologic studies of coronary heart disease and stroke in Japanese men living in Japan, Hawaii and California. Incidence of myocardial infarction and death from coronary heart disease.

The incidence of myocardial infarction and death from coronary heart disease was studied in defined samples of 45 to 68 year old Japanese men in Japan, Hawaii and California. The incidence rate was lowest in Japan where it was half that observed in Hawaii (P less than 0.01). The youngest men in the sample in Japan were at particularly low risk. The incidence among Japanese men in California was nearly 50 percent greater than that of Japanese in Hawaii (P less than 0.05). A striking increase in the incidence of myocardial infarction appears to have occurred in the Japanese who migrated to the United States; this increase is more pronounced in California than in Hawaii.

Individual traits and family contexts predict sons' externalizing behavior and preliminary relative risk ratios for conduct disorder and substance use disorder outcomes.

An ontogenetic framework for elucidating the etiology of substance use disorders (SUD) requires identifying how individual traits and family contexts combine to increase risk for SUD outcomes. In this study, we examine individual traits in family context to identify processes that account for the relationship between fathers' SUD + status and sons' externalizing behaviors. Results obtained from SUD + (n = 89) and SUD - (n = 139) families show that fathers' abusive propensities toward their sons mediated the relationship between fathers' SUD + status and sons' externalizing behavior scale (EBS) scores 2 years later. Moreover, individual traits, family contextual variables and deviant peer affiliations accounted for 58% of the variance on sons' EBS scores. Also, high risk cluster (HRC) and low risk cluster (LRC) memberships were derived from cluster analyses of the continuous risk factor scores that predicted sons' EBS scores. Preliminary relative risk ratios show that sons classified into the HRC at age 10-12 were at greater risk for DSM-III-R conduct disorder and SUD outcomes at age 16 than sons assigned to the LRC, SUD + or SUD - groups. Implications for selected family-based prevention initiatives are presented.

Sex typing and division of labor as determinants of marital change across the transition to parenthood.

This investigation examines the proposition that wives who describe their personality in ways that deviate from sex stereotypes will become less positive and more negative about their marriage from before to after they become mothers, particularly when the transition to parenthood is accompanied by an increase in the traditionalism of marital roles. Sixty-one couples were studied longitudinally from the last trimester of pregnancy through the third postpartum month. The wives completed the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (Spence & Helmreich, 1978), which measures the extent to which they ascribe personality attributes stereotyped as "masculine" (i.e., instrumental, agentic) and "feminine" (expressive, affectional) to themselves, and several questionnaires assessing the marital relationship at both times of measurement. Results revealed that the more division of labor changed toward traditionalism, the greater the decline in wives' evaluations of the positive aspects of marriage and that changes in wives' evaluations of both positive and negative aspects of marriage can be significantly predicted by the interaction of the wives' expressivity and changes toward increased traditionalism in division of labor. Additional analyses showed that wives who do not ascribe female sex-typed attributes to themselves (relative to those who see themselves in sex-stereotyped ways) are more apt to evaluate their marriage less favorably from before to after parenthood when roles shift toward greater traditionalism.

Attachment, mating, and parenting : An evolutionary interpretation.

A modern evolutionary perspective emphasizing life history theory and behavioral ecology is brought to bear on the three core patterns of attachment that are identified in studies of infants and young children in the Strange Situation and adults using the Adult Attachment Interview. Mating and parenting correlates of secure/autonomous, avoidant/dismissing, and resistant/preoccupied attachment patterns are reviewed, and the argument is advanced that security evolved to promote mutually beneficial interpersonal relations and high investment parenting; that avoidant/dismissing attachment evolved to promote opportunistic interpersonal relations and low-investment parenting; and that resistant/preoccupied attachment evolved to foster "helper-at-the-nest" behavior and indirect reproduction.

Child-rearing antecedents of intergenerational relations in young adulthood: a prospective study.

Data gathered from mothers on parenting and family climate when almost 1,000 children in the Dunedin, New Zealand, longitudinal study were 3, 5, 7, 9, 13, and 15 years of age were used to predict intergenerational relations between young adult children (age 26) and their middle-aged parents. Analyses focused on distinct developmental epochs revealed greater prediction from the middle-childhood and early-adolescent periods than from the early-childhood years: most indicated that more supportive family environments and child-rearing experiences in the family of origin forecasted more positive and less negative parent-child relationships (in terms of contact, closeness, conflict, reciprocal assistance) in young adulthood, though associations were modest in magnitude. Some evidence indicated that (modestly) deleterious effects on intergenerational relations of experiencing relatively unsupportive child-rearing environments in 1 but not 2 (of 3) developmental periods studied could be offset by relatively supportive family environments in the remaining developmental periods.

Infant emotionality, parenting, and 3-year inhibition: exploring stability and lawful discontinuity in a male sample.

In this study, the authors examine temperament (12-13 months) and mothering and fathering (15, 21, 27, 33 months) antecedents of inhibition of children at age 3 years prospectively in a sample of 125 firstborn boys and retrospectively in only the most and least inhibited children. High negativity coupled with low positivity in infancy predicted high inhibition, as did parenting that was supportive (e.g., high sensitivity, low intrusiveness). Parenting appeared more influential in the case of children who were highly negative as infants. The importance of distinguishing positive and negative emotionality in infancy and of studying mothering and fathering are discussed.

Mothers' representations of their relationships with their toddlers: links to adult attachment and observed mothering.

Mothers (N = 125) and their firstborn sons were studied over an 11-month period to examine relations between mothers' representations of their relationships with their children (measured at 15 months by using the Parent Development Interview [PDI]), adult representations of attachment (measured at 12 months by using the Adult Attachment Interview [AAI]), and observed mothering (measured at 15 and 21 months). Results indicate (a) that mothers classified as autonomous on the AAI scored highest on the joy-pleasure/coherence dimension of the PDI and mothers classified as dismissing on the AAI scored highest on the anger dimension of the PDI and (b) that mothers scoring higher on the joy-pleasure/coherence dimension of the PDI engaged in less negative and more positive mothering.

Stability and change in mothers' representations of their relationship with their toddlers.

This study examined several issues in the developmental dynamics of parents' representations of their relationship with their toddlers. The authors studied 125 mothers and their firstborn toddler sons over a 13-month period. Mothers took the Parent Development Interview twice, when children were 15 and 28 months of age. Home observations of parent-child interactions and maternal ratings of daily hassles were collected when children were 21 and 27 months of age. The 3 factors that characterized mothers' representations of their 15-month-old firstborn sons (Joy-Pleasure/Coherence, Anger, Guilt-Separation Distress) also fit the data very well for their 28-month-old sons. Although there were no changes in average levels of mothers' (a) joy, pleasure, and coherence and (b) guilt and separation distress from 15 to 28 months, there was a significant increase in mothers' levels of anger. Stability analyses suggested a dynamic relationship between mothers' representations of joy, pleasure, and coherence and of anger over the 13-month period. Finally, changes in mothers' representations were predictable by positive mothering (which led to increased joy, pleasure, and coherence) and by parenting daily hassles (which led to more anger).

Play behavior in toddlers with in utero cocaine exposure: a prospective, masked, controlled study.

Play behavior was compared between toddlers with in utero cocaine exposure and controls of similar low socioeconomic status enrolled at birth in a prospective, masked study. At 18 and 24 months, 83 cocaine-exposed and 93 control toddlers were videotaped playing on their own for 15 minutes. An observer who was off-site and unaware of project purpose or drug exposure status of toddlers recorded the most cognitively complex play activity per 15-second interval. In a total of 315 play sessions, the groups did not differ in middle and highest level of play achieved at either 18 or 24 months (p > or = .27). After controlling for confounders, the proportions of play behavior in each of six play categories were similar in the two groups at both 18 and 24 months (p > or = .42). We conclude that in utero cocaine exposure was not associated with differences in play behavior in this cohort of cocaine-exposed and control toddlers.

Quantity of nonmaternal care and boys' problem behavior/adjustment at ages 3 and 5: exploring the mediating role of parenting.

To examine the effects of quantity of nonmaternal care across the first 3 and 5 years of life on problem behavior and affective-cognitive indices of adjustment, and to test the hypotheses that parenting mediates effects of nonmaternal care, 120 working- and middle-class, two-parent Caucasian families rearing firstborn sons were studied. More time in nonmaternal care across the first 3 and 5 years predicted more mother-reported externalizing problems when children were ages 3 and 5 (and somewhat more father-reported externalizing problems at age 5), as well as more negative mothering and less positive fathering during the toddler years. Effects of nonmaternal care on externalizing problems became insignificant once observed parenting was controlled, thereby providing evidence of the mediational effects of parenting. More time in nonmaternal care across the first 5 years predicted more negative adjustment on a composite lab-based measure of affective-cognitive functioning at age 5 (e.g., attributional bias, social problem solving, preference for negative story plots), and this effect was only modestly attenuated upon controlling for parenting. Results are discussed in terms of related research and the current context of child care in America.