Probing the content of affective semantic memory following caregiving-related early adversity.

Cognitive science has demonstrated that we construct knowledge about the world by abstracting patterns from routinely encountered experiences and storing them as semantic memories. This preregistered study tested the hypothesis that caregiving-related early adversities (crEAs) shape affective semantic memories to reflect the content of those adverse interpersonal-affective experiences. We also tested the hypothesis that because affective semantic memories may continue to evolve in response to later-occurring positive experiences, child-perceived attachment security will inform their content. The sample comprised 160 children (ages 6-12 at Visit 1; 87F/73 M), 66% of whom experienced crEAs (n = 105). At Visit 1, crEA exposure prior to study enrollment was operationalized as parental-reports endorsing a history of crEAs (abuse/neglect, permanent/significant parent-child separation); while child-reports assessed concurrent attachment security. A false memory task was administered online ∼2.5 years later (Visit 2) to probe the content of affective semantic memories-specifically attachment schemas. Results showed that crEA exposure (vs. no exposure) was associated with a higher likelihood of falsely endorsing insecure (vs. secure) schema scenes. Attachment security moderated the association between crEA exposure and insecure schema-based false recognition. Findings suggest that interpersonal-affective semantic schemas include representations of parent-child interactions that may capture the quality of one's own attachment experiences and that these representations shape how children remember attachment-relevant narrative events. Findings are also consistent with the hypothesis that these affective semantic memories can be modified by later experiences. Moving forward, the approach taken in this study provides a means of operationalizing Bowlby's notion of internal working models within a cognitive neuroscience framework. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Affective semantic memories representing insecure schema knowledge (child needs + needs-not-met) may be more salient, elaborated, and persistent among youths exposed to early caregiving adversity. All youths, irrespective of early caregiving adversity exposure, may possess affective semantic memories that represent knowledge of secure schemas (child needs + needs-met). Establishing secure relationships with parents following early-occurring caregiving adversity may attenuate the expression of insecure semantic memories, suggesting potential malleability. Affective semantic memories include schema representations of parent-child interactions that may capture the quality of one's own attachment experiences and shape how youths remember attachment-relevant events.

Associations between pre-pandemic authoritative parenting, pandemic stressors, and children's depression and anxiety at the initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Large-scale changes due to the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic negatively affected children's mental health. Prior research suggests that children's mental health problems during the pandemic may have been concurrently attenuated by an authoritative parenting style and exacerbated by family stress. However, there is a gap in the literature investigating these mechanisms and whether pre-pandemic authoritative parenting had a lasting positive influence on children's mental health while they were exposed to pandemic-related family stressors. The current study begins to fill this gap by investigating these unique relationships in a sample of 106 4-8 year old children (51% female). Before the pandemic, caregivers completed questionnaires on their parenting style and their children's depression and anxiety symptoms. Shortly after the onset of COVID-19's stay-at-home mandate, parents answered questionnaires about their children's depression and anxiety symptoms and pandemic-related family stressors. Child depression and anxiety symptom severity increased. Higher levels of pandemic-related family stress were associated with increases only in child anxiety scores. Further, greater endorsement of a pre-pandemic authoritative parenting style was associated with smaller changes only in child depression scores. Study findings elucidate unique and complex associations between young children's anxiety and depression symptoms severity and pre-pandemic parenting and pandemic-related family stressors.

Toxicant exposure and the developing brain: A systematic review of the structural and functional MRI literature.

Youth worldwide are regularly exposed to pollutants and chemicals (i.e., toxicants) that may interfere with healthy brain development, and a surge in MRI research has begun to characterize the neurobiological consequences of these exposures. Here, a systematic review following PRISMA guidelines was conducted on developmental MRI studies of toxicants with known or suspected neurobiological impact. Associations were reviewed for 9 toxicant classes, including metals, air pollution, and flame retardants. Of 1264 identified studies, 46 met inclusion criteria. Qualitative synthesis revealed that most studies: (1) investigated air pollutants or metals, (2) assessed exposures prenatally, (3) assessed the brain in late middle childhood, (4) took place in North America or Western Europe, (5) drew samples from existing cohort studies, and (6) have been published since 2017. Given substantial heterogeneity in MRI measures, toxicant measures, and age groups assessed, more research is needed on all toxicants reviewed here. Future studies should also include larger samples, employ personal exposure monitoring, study independent samples in diverse world regions, and assess toxicant mixtures.

Is Protecting Older Adults from COVID-19 Ageism? A Comparative Cross-cultural Constructive Grounded Theory from the United Kingdom and Colombia.

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted people's lives all over the world, requiring health and safety measures intended to stop the virus from spreading. This study explores whether an unintended consequence of these measures is a new form of ageism. We explore, using qualitative methods, the experiences of older adults living through the pandemic in the United Kingdom and Colombia. Although there were some small differences between countries, for the most part, the experiences were similar. We found that older adults reported that they were seen as a homogenous group and experienced both benevolent and hostile ageism and a loss of autonomy as a consequence of COVID-19 protection measures. Participants from both countries expressed anger and frustration, and increased anxiety, and felt that their individuality was ignored. We recommend that policy-makers, the media, and wider society consider the impact of such health and safety measures on older adults in preparing for future pandemics and health challenges.

Heterogeneity in caregiving-related early adversity: Creating stable dimensions and subtypes.

Early psychosocial adversities exist at many levels, including caregiving-related, extrafamilial, and sociodemographic, which despite their high interrelatedness may have unique impacts on development. In this paper, we focus on caregiving-related early adversities (crEAs) and parse the heterogeneity of crEAs via data reduction techniques that identify experiential cooccurrences. Using network science, we characterized crEA cooccurrences to represent the comorbidity of crEA experiences across a sample of school-age children (n = 258; 6-12 years old) with a history of crEAs. crEA dimensions (variable level) and crEA subtypes (subject level) were identified using parallel factor analysis/principal component analysis and graph-based Louvain community detection. Bagging enhancement with cross-validation provided estimates of robustness. These data-driven dimensions/subtypes showed evidence of stability, transcended traditional sociolegally defined groups, were more homogenous than sociolegally defined groups, and reduced statistical correlations with sociodemographic factors. Finally, random forests showed both unique and common predictive importance of the crEA dimensions/subtypes for childhood mental health symptoms and academic skills. These data-driven outcomes provide additional tools and recommendations for crEA data reduction to inform precision medicine efforts in this area.

Adaptation in the face of adversity: Decrements and enhancements in children's cognitive control behavior following early caregiving instability.

Cognitive control is typically described as disrupted following exposure to early caregiving instability. While much of the work within this field has approached cognitive control broadly, evidence from adults retrospectively reporting early-life instability has shown more nuanced effects on cognitive control, even demonstrating enhancements in certain subdomains. That is, exposure to unstable caregiving may disrupt some areas of cognitive control, yet promote adaptation in others. Here, we investigated three domains of cognitive control in a sample of school-age children (N = 275, Age = 6-12 years) as a function of early caregiving instability, defined as the total number of caregiving switches. Results demonstrated that caregiving instability was associated with reduced response inhibition (Go/No-Go) and attentional control (Flanker), but enhanced cognitive flexibility (Dimensional Change Card Sort Task Switching). Conversely, there were no statistically significant associations with group (i.e., institutional care versus foster care) or maltreatment exposure and these patterns. These findings build on the specialization framework, suggesting that caregiving instability results in both decrements and enhancements in children's cognitive control, consistent with the hypothesis that cognitive control development is scaffolded by early environmental pressures.

An open resource for transdiagnostic research in pediatric mental health and learning disorders.

Technological and methodological innovations are equipping researchers with unprecedented capabilities for detecting and characterizing pathologic processes in the developing human brain. As a result, ambitions to achieve clinically useful tools to assist in the diagnosis and management of mental health and learning disorders are gaining momentum. To this end, it is critical to accrue large-scale multimodal datasets that capture a broad range of commonly encountered clinical psychopathology. The Child Mind Institute has launched the Healthy Brain Network (HBN), an ongoing initiative focused on creating and sharing a biobank of data from 10,000 New York area participants (ages 5-21). The HBN Biobank houses data about psychiatric, behavioral, cognitive, and lifestyle phenotypes, as well as multimodal brain imaging (resting and naturalistic viewing fMRI, diffusion MRI, morphometric MRI), electroencephalography, eye-tracking, voice and video recordings, genetics and actigraphy. Here, we present the rationale, design and implementation of HBN protocols. We describe the first data release (n=664) and the potential of the biobank to advance related areas (e.g., biophysical modeling, voice analysis).

Prediabetes in rural and urban children in 3 states in Mexico.

The authors studied the frequency, distribution, and factors associated with prediabetes (fasting glucose, 100-125 mg/dL) in rural and urban children from San Luis Potosí, León, and Querétaro in central Mexico. Family history, somatometry, and levels of fasting insulin, glucose, and lipids were collected in 1238 children 6 to 13 years of age. The authors found no cases of type 2 diabetes and a 5.7% frequency of prediabetes. The group with prediabetes had higher homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance scores and total cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels. Prediabetes was more frequent in León, with similar distribution in rural and urban children. The frequency of insulin resistance was 24.1%, with higher figures in urban groups and in San Luis Potosí. In multivariate analysis, prediabetes was associated with insulin resistance and residence in León. The authors concluded that in central Mexico the frequency of prediabetes is significant, and it is associated with insulin resistance and a geographic location, but not with obesity or urban vs rural dwelling.

Cierre de fístula traqueocutánea mediante un colgajo triple / Tracheocutaneous fistula closure with a 3-plane flap

Se presenta el caso clínico de un paciente de 26 años de edad, con una fístula traqueocutánea. Esta aparece como complicación del empleo de una cánula de traqueostomía que fue mantenida por ocho meses para tratamiento ventilatorio del paciente en la Unidad de Cuidados Intensivos. Se muestra el cierre de la fístula traqueocutánea con un colgajo en tres planos que abarca, mucosa, músculo y piel en un mismo tiempo quirúrgico. Este artículo describe dicha técnica, la cual representa una buena opción quirúrgica, dado que durante y después de un seguimiento de cuatro años no se registraron complicaciones ni recidivas en este paciente

Mamoplastia de reducción con técnica de pedículo superior en macromastia de pequeño, moderado y gran volumen / Reduction mammoplasty in small, moderate and giant breast volume, with superior pedicle technique

Este es un estudio retrospectivo, abierto y descriptivo en el que se analiza la mamoplastia de reducción en casos gigantomastia y macromastia de pequeño, moderado y gran volumen. La técnica quirúrgica empleada fue la de pedículo superior, con pequeñas variaciones de acuerdo a la condición particular de cada caso. El estudio incluyó 250 mujeres operadas durante los último cinco años. Se describen los aspectos técnicos del procedimiento, así como la forma sistemática en que se realizan con el fin de optimizar el tiempo quirúrgico y los resultados. Se hace énfasis en la versatilidad de la técnica y su uso en diferentes volúmenes mamarios. Antes de la intervención quirúrgica, los 250 casos analizados fueron clasificados de la siguiente forma: 30 como pacientes con macromastia leve, 167 con macromastia moderada, 40 con macromastia de gran volumen y 13 pacientes con gigantomastia. El resultado del procedimiento fue catalogado como sigue: excelente en 75 (30 por ciento) casos, muy bueno en 100 (40 por ciento), bueno en 53 (21.2 por ciento), regular en 17 (6.8 por ciento) y malo en cinco (2 por ciento). El uso de la técnica de pedículo superior permite una mejor visualización tridimensional de la mama, así como la oportunidad de resección y conificación de la misma para obtener un mejor resultado

Actividad in vitro de CQ-EPCA-297-S en comparación con quinolonas y cefalosporinas de tercera generación de 212 bacterias patógenicas aisladas de enfermos de la ciudad de Querétaro / Comparison of the in vitro activity of CQ-EPCA-297-S, with quinolones and third generation cephalosporins against 212 clinical isolates from patients from Querétaro, Mexico

En este estudio se presenta la susceptibilidad in vitro de un nuevo antimicrobiano denominado cefaquinolona (CQ-EPCA-297-S), desarrollado por Laboratorios Aranda mediante la hibridación de un grupo fluoroquinolínico con un derivado del ácido 7-aminocefalosporánico, en 212 bacterias grampositivas y gramnegativas y comparado contra tres cefalosporinas de tercera generación y dos fluoroquinolonas de mayor uso terapéutico. Utilizando el método de difusión en agar (Kirby-Bauer) se observó 100 por ciento de sensibilidad contra bacterias grampositivas y 97.3 por ciento contra gramnegativas. Se concluye que la actividad in vitro de CQ-EPCA fue superior a los otros antimicrobianos evaluados, existiendo la posibilidad de uso terapéutico en el futuro.