Inheritance of wild and truncated DAT alleles from grand-parents: Opposite transgenerational consequences on the behavioral phenotype in adolescent DAT heterozygous rats.

Dopamine plays important roles in implicit memory and motivation of behavior. Environmental inputs can produce transgenerational epigenetic changes. This concept also includes the uterus: experimentally, we sought to create hyper-dopaminergic uterine conditions through ineffective dopamine-transporter (DAT) protein, obtained by inserting a stop-codon into the SLC6A3 gene. By crossing WT-dam with KO-sire (or vice-versa), we obtained a 100% DAT-heterozygous (HET) offspring with known derivation of the wild allele: MAT rats are offspring of WT-female and KO-male; PAT rats are offspring of KO-female and WT-male. We reconstructed inheritance of alleles, by crossing PAT-male with MAT-female or vice-versa, obtaining GIX (PAT-male with MAT-female) and DIX (MAT-male with PAT-female) rats (such offspring present specular paths in allele inheritance from grandparents). We conducted three experiments: first, we assessed maternal behaviour (four epigenotypes: WT, MAT, PAT and WHZ=HET-pups fostered-to-a WT-dam); in the second, we analysed sleep-wake cycles of GIX and DIX epigenotypes with their WIT siblings as controls; in the third, we explored the impact of WT or MAT mother on WT or HET pups. MAT-dams (with GIX-pups) express excessive licking/grooming. However, in the mere presence of "sick" epigenotype, PAT-dams (with DIX-pups) and also WHZ (i.e., WT-dams but with HET-pups) expressed greater nest-building care towards the offspring, compared to "true-wild" litters (WT-dams with WT-pups). In Exp. 2 at adolescence, GIX epigenotype showed locomotor hyperactivity during late waking-phase, while DIX epigenotype exhibited pronounced hypoactivity compared to controls. In Exp. 3, we confirmed that HET adolescent pups receiving cares from a MAT-dam may develop additional hyperactivity when awake, but additional hypoactivity during rest-hours. Thus, behavioral changes observed in DAT-heterozygous offspring have opposite courses based on of DAT-allele inheritance from a grandparent through the sire or the dam. In conclusion, behavioural changes in the offspring have antithetic courses with respect to inheritance of DAT-allele via sperm or egg.

How Is Working Memory Related to Reading Comprehension in Italian Monolingual and Bilingual Children?

This study explored how working memory resources contributed to reading comprehension using tasks that focused on maintenance of verbal information in the phonological store, the interaction between the central executive and the phonological store (WMI), and the storage of bound semantic content in the episodic buffer (immediate narrative memory). We analysed how performance in these tasks was related to text decoding (reading speed and accuracy), listening and reading comprehension. The participants were 62 monolingual and 36 bilingual children (mean age nine years, SD = 9 months) enrolled in the same Italian primary school. Bilingual children were born to immigrant parents and had a long history of exposure to Italian as a second language. The regression analyses showed that reading accuracy and listening comprehension were associated with reading comprehension for monolingual and bilingual children. Two working memory components-WMI and immediate narrative memory-exhibited indirect effects on reading comprehension through reading accuracy and listening comprehension, respectively. Such effects occurred only for monolingual children. We discuss the implications of such findings for text reading and comprehension in monolinguals and bilinguals.

Intersections and Divergences Between Empathizing and Mentalizing: Development, Recent Advancements by Neuroimaging and the Future of Animal Modeling.

Both mentalization and empathy allow humans to understand others, through the representation of their mental states or their mood, respectively. The present review aims to explain those characteristics which are shared between empathy and the Theory of Mind. Research in neuroscience, based on naturalistic paradigms, has shown that abilities to mentalize and to empathize are associated with the activation of different neuro-cognitive circuits. As far as mirror-neuron processes are concerned, some structures (like Anterior Insula, AI; Anterior Cingulate Cortex, ACC) play a role both in the representation of one's own affective states and in comprehension of the same affective state when experienced by others. As for mentalization, the temporal parietal junction (TPj) and temporal poles (TP), the upper posterior temporal sulcus (pSTS) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) are greatly involved: the latter appears involved in the attribution of one's own and others' temperaments. Interestingly, the ventral/orbital portion of the PFC (orbito-frontal cortex, OFC) is involved in subserving shared affective experience during cognitive mentalizing. This brain region represents a point of overlap, from a psycho-biological point of view, where emotional mirroring and affective cognition meet up. As for animal models, laboratory rodents can well be tested for prosocial behavior. Some examples include deliberate actions, allowing another conspecific the possibility to feed ("giving food"): this willingness can vary across donors, depending on how the recipient is perceived. Other examples include the possibility to let a trapped conspecific come out ("giving help"). The state-of-the-art knowledge about this theme can inform the programming of specific clinical interventions, based on the reinforcement of empathic and/or mentalization abilities.

Maternal symptoms of depression and paranoid ideation can be predictive of the onset of eating disorders in early adolescents offspring: a nine-year longitudinal study

Studies in the Developmental Psychopathology framework have demonstrated the maladaptive influence of maternal depression on offspring emotional-behavioral functioning. Moreover, many Authors have suggested that the chronicity and timing of maternal depression can be crucial aspects predictive of specific maladaptive outcomes in children such as Eating Disorders in early adolescence. Longitudinal studies in the field have usually focused on small clinical samples and covering short periods of time, typically from early childhood to toddlerhood. The present longitudinal study was aimed at investigating the stability of children and mother's psychopathological symptoms across different ages (2, 5, 8 years) in a community sample, and also at evaluating the capacity of these psychopathological problems to identify individuals at risk for the onset of eating disorders in adolescence. Results showed that both children's and mother's symptoms, assessed at different ages, can contribute to identify adolescents at risk for the onset of eating disorders. Moreover, among mothers' symptoms, only depression and paranoid ideation, which showed a high stability over time, gave a significant contribution to the categorization of youth at risk for eating disorders. Our study adds to the literature because, not only we confirmed the predictive power of general psychopathological maternal risk on offspring mental health, but we also found the effect of two specific symptomatic configurations: depression and paranoid ideation

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Case Report: Evaluation strategies and cognitive intervention: the case of a monovular twin child affected by selective mutism.

The present work describes the assessment process, evaluation strategies, and cognitive intervention on a 9 years old child with selective mutism (SM), a monovular twin of a child also affected by mutism. Currently, the cognitive behavioral multimodal treatment seems the most effective therapeutic approach for children diagnosed with selective mutism (Capobianco & Cerniglia, 2018). The illustrated case confirms the role of biological factors involved in mutacic disorder but also highlights the importance of environmental influences in the maintenance of the disorder with respect to relational and contextual dynamics (e.g. complicity between sisters, family relationships). The article discusses furthermore the importance of an early diagnosis as a predictor of positive treatment outcomes.

Early language development in preterm children without neurological damage: a longitudinal study.

Children born at a very low gestational age, even those without neurosensory damages, are at risk of linguistic disorders. This longitudinal study aimed at analyzing communicative and language abilities in preterm children during their second year of life, through a standardized questionnaire, with particular attention to the communicative and language abilities that predict the first verbal skills. Our results showed that preterm children are slower than full-terms in language acquisition particularly at earlier stages of development. The differences between the two groups of children was significant only at 16 and 18 months. Preterms use more simplistic linguistic categories for longer than full-terms, with regards to lexicon composition and syntactic complexity. This different pattern could involve more qualitative, rather than quantitative, aspects of developmental processes that characterize language acquisition in preterms and full-term children.