Conflicting and harmonious sibling relationships of children and adolescent siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder.

BACKGROUND: The presence of a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) could have a strong psychological and emotional impact on typical development (TD) siblings, with different ways of adjustment and perception of fraternal relationships. In this study, we aimed to investigate the experience of the TD siblings of children with ASD, combining both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. METHOD: An explanatory sequential design was employed. Forty-four TD siblings of children with ASD, aged 6 to 17 years old, participated in the study. Each participant completed the Sibling Relationship Inventory that investigated warmth, rivalry and conflict in sibling relationships. Moreover, in order to thoroughly evaluate the participants' perception of their sibling relationship, they were asked to draw themselves with their sibling with ASD in a condition of harmony and conflict. The drawings were collected and coded using the well-validated Pictorial Assessment of Interpersonal Relationships. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted. RESULTS: In general, TD siblings showed affection for their siblings with ASD. However, males showed more conflict than females. Quantitative analyses of the drawings showed high levels of similarity between the siblings, despite the disability. In drawings, greater cohesion emerged in conditions of harmony and greater distancing in situations of conflict. Content analysis of the drawings showed that the conflict is represented mainly at home and the siblings often show opposite emotions, with TD siblings experiencing negative emotions. Moreover, adolescent TD siblings displayed more annoyance, shame and embarrassment than child TD siblings. CONCLUSIONS: It is important to combine quantitative and qualitative tools to understand the experience of TD siblings in detail. In particular, drawing is a useful tool for providing quantitative and qualitative information, supplying rich and detailed information that can be well integrated with the results coming from quantitative tools.

Paediatric nurses' knowledge and experience of autism spectrum disorders: An Italian survey.

Hospitalization of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) is a challenge for paediatric nurses. The literature reveals a lack of knowledge among the clinical and behavioural characteristics of autism. The aim of the study is to investigate the knowledge of paediatric nurses about ASDs and their experience with children with ASD. Ninety-three nurses completed Knowledge About Childhood Autism Among Healthcare Workers questionnaire, a sociodemographic questionnaire and an open-ended questionnaire to evaluate the experience of nurses. Findings showed that nurses have a basic knowledge of ASD, except for comorbidity and onset of the ASD, in which they obtained lower scores. Older nurses and those who had more experience in a paediatric ward or with children with ASD showed higher scores. Analysis of the content of open-ended questionnaire showed that nurses have difficulties in managing the relationship with children with ASD, and that they wonder about how to improve it, seeking useful strategies for this purpose. During interactions, nurses experience mixed feelings such as sadness, suffering, uneasiness, inadequacy, displeasure, embarrassment and tenderness. They declare the need for more knowledge about ASD. They would like to improve their own capacity for interactions with these children, also through training.

Reminiscing on acute and chronic events in children with cancer and their parents: An exploratory study.

BACKGROUND: Children with cancer live through intense emotional experiences that call for coping with stressful events. The narration of these events allows them to construct a detailed memory system, fostering the elaboration and attribution of meaning to the disease experience. In particular, shared memory between the parent and the child about past events (i.e., reminiscing) helps children to deal with negative emotional experiences, encouraging emotional regulation and adaptive coping strategies. The present study aims to investigate reminiscing in parent-child with cancer dyads, focusing on parents' reminiscing habits, parents' reminiscing style about acute and chronic events, and children's well-being, assessed with respect to emotional regulation and coping skills. METHOD: Fifteen children from ages 4 to 8 years admitted to a paediatric haematology and oncology ward of an Italian hospital, and their parents were engaged in a reminiscing conversation about acute and chronic events related to disease. Moreover, some questionnaires have been proposed to evaluate parents' reminiscing habits and children's emotional regulation and coping skills. Descriptive and quantitative analyses were conducted. RESULTS: The data showed that parents frequently practise reminiscing in everyday life, focusing on directive and socioemotional functions. In reminiscing conversations about acute and chronic events concerning their child's illness, they use an elaborative reminiscing style and an emotional reminiscing style mainly concerning chronic events. A positive correlation between this reminiscing style and children's adaptive coping strategies was found mainly in acute events. A negative correlation emerged between parents' emotional terms (emotional reminiscing) and children's difficulties in emotional regulation. CONCLUSION: This study underlines the benefits of elaborative and emotional reminiscing conversation, in order to help children with cancer and their families to cope with acute and chronic stressful events. Reminiscing can be a useful methodology for health professionals with a view to collecting information on patients' memories of illness.

Spontaneous language production of Italian children with cochlear implants and their mothers in two interactive contexts.

BACKGROUND: In recent years many studies have shown that the use of cochlear implants (CIs) improves children's skills in processing the auditory signal and, consequently, the development of both language comprehension and production. Nevertheless, many authors have also reported that the development of language skills in children with CIs is variable and influenced by individual factors (e.g., age at CI activation) and contextual aspects (e.g., maternal linguistic input). AIMS: To assess the characteristics of the spontaneous language production of Italian children with CIs, their mothers' input and the relationship between the two during shared book reading and semi-structured play. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Twenty preschool children with CIs and 40 typically developing children, 20 matched for chronological age (CATD group) and 20 matched for hearing age (HATD group), were observed during shared book reading and semi-structured play with their mothers. Samples of spontaneous language were transcribed and analysed for each participant. The numbers of types, tokens, mean length of utterance (MLU) and grammatical categories were considered, and the familiarity of each mother's word was calculated. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: The children with CIs produced shorter utterances than the children in the CATD group. Their mothers produced language with lower levels of lexical variability and grammatical complexity, and higher proportions of verbs with higher familiarity than did the mothers in the other groups during shared book reading. The children's language was more strongly related to that of their mothers in the CI group than in the other groups, and it was associated with the age at CI activation. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: The findings suggest that the language of children with CIs is related both to their mothers' input and to age at CI activation. They might prompt suggestions for intervention programs focused on shared-book reading.

Tacrine-resveratrol fused hybrids as multi-target-directed ligands against Alzheimer's disease.

Multi-target drug discovery is one of the most followed approaches in the active central nervous system (CNS) therapeutic area, especially in the search for new drugs against Alzheimer's disease (AD). This is because innovative multi-target-directed ligands (MTDLs) could more adequately address the complexity of this pathological condition. In a continuation of our efforts aimed at a new series of anti-AD MTDLs, we combined the structural features of the cholinesterase inhibitor drug tacrine with that of resveratrol, which is known for its purported antioxidant and anti-neuroinflammatory activities. The most interesting hybrid compounds (5, 8, 9 and 12) inhibited human acetylcholinesterase at micromolar concentrations and effectively modulated Aß self-aggregation in vitro. In addition, 12 showed intriguing anti-inflammatory and immuno-modulatory properties in neuronal and glial AD cell models. Importantly, the MTDL profile is accompanied by high-predicted blood-brain barrier permeability, and low cytotoxicity on primary neurons.

Synthesis of natural urolithin M6, a galloflavin mimetic, as a potential inhibitor of lactate dehydrogenase A.

Glycolysis is the main route for energy production in tumors. LDH-A is a key enzyme of this process and its inhibition represents an attractive strategy to hamper cancer cell metabolism. Galloflavin is a reliable LDH-A inhibitor as previously identified by us; however, its poor physicochemical properties and chemical tractability render it unsuitable for further development. Therefore, a rational design was undertaken with the aim to reproduce the pharmacophore of galloflavin on simpler, potentially more soluble and synthetic accessible scaffolds. Following a process of structural simplification, natural urolithin M6 (UM6), which is an ellagitannin metabolite produced by gut microbiota, was identified as a putative galloflavin mimetic. In the present study, the synthesis of UM6 is described for the first time. An efficient synthetic pathway has been developed, which involved five steps from readily accessible starting materials. The key reaction steps, a Suzuki coupling and an intramolecular C-H oxygenation, have been optimized to improve the synthetic feasibility and provide the best conditions in terms of reaction time and yield. Moreover, this route would be suitable to obtain other analogs for SAR studies. Preliminary biological tests revealed that UM6 was able to smoothly reproduce the behavior of galloflavin, confirming that our approach was successful in providing a new and accessible structure in the search for new LDH-A inhibitors.

The Use of Stilbene Scaffold in Medicinal Chemistry and Multi- Target Drug Design.

The stilbene scaffold is a basic element for a number of biologically active natural and synthetic compounds, and it is considered as a privileged structure. Stilbenes exemplified by resveratrol, combretastatin A-4 and pterostilbene are of significant interest for drug research and development because of their potential in therapeutic and preventive application. Resveratrol, present in grapes and other food products, plays a role in the prevention of several human pathological processes and has been suggested as an anticancer agent. Moreover, recent evidence has revealed its potential effect on the aging process, diabetes and neurological dysfunction. Combretastatin A-4, from the bark of South African bush willow Combretum caffrum, also shows significant antitumor activity. Pterostilbene is closely related to resveratrol, sharing the same unique therapeutic potential as anti-inflammatory, antineoplastic and antioxidant agent. Therefore, research and development of stilbene-based medicinal chemistry have become rapidly evolving and increasingly active topics covering almost the whole range of therapeutic fields. In the present review, we provide an overview of the role of stilbenes in medicinal chemistry. In this context, we highlight the chemical methodologies adopted for the synthesis of stilbene derivatives, and outline the successful design of novel stilbene based hybrids in the field of cancer, Alzheimer's and other relevant diseases. This information may be useful in further design of stilbene-based molecules as new leads for the development of novel agents with clinical potential or as effective chemical probes to dissect biological processes.

In vitro antileishmanial activity of trans-stilbene and terphenyl compounds.

Leishmaniasis are globally widespread parasitic diseases which often leads to death if left untreated. Currently available drugs present different drawbacks, so there is an urgent need to develop new, safe and cost-effective drugs against leishmaniasis. In this study we tested a small library of trans-stilbene and terphenyl derivatives against promastigote, amastigotes and intramacrophage amastigote forms of Leishmania infantum. Two compounds of the series, the trans-stilbene 3 and the terphenyl 11, presented the best activity and safety profiles. Terphenyl 11 showed a leshmanicidal activity higher than pentostam and the ability to induce apoptosis selectively in Leishmania infantum while saving macrophages and primary epithelial cells. Our data indicate that terphenyl compounds, as well as stilbenes, are endowed with leishmanicidal activity, showing potential for further studies in the context of leishmanial therapy.

Quantification of Cr(VI) in soil samples from a contaminated area in northern Italy by isotope dilution mass spectrometry.

The aims of the work were to detect and quantify hexavalent chromium in 14 soil samples from an area in Lombardia (northern Italy) contaminated by two polluted water plumes. Cr(VI) was extracted from the solid samples by applying focused microwaves in an alkaline medium after Cr(III) complexation with EDTA. Cr(VI) was reduced to Cr(III) when previously reported extraction conditions for the analysis of certified reference materials were used, and Cr(VI) could not be reliably quantified in the soil samples. The influence of organic matter and iron contents in the samples on the reduction of Cr(VI) was subsequently studied using a new set of soil samples with different iron and organic matter concentrations. Isotope dilution mass spectrometry (IDMS) measured two different enriched stable isotopes of Cr (54 and 53) to evaluate the reduction extent of hexavalent chromium during the analytical procedure. The extraction conditions were optimized to obtain the lowest amount of Cr(VI) reduction and quantify Cr(VI) in the polluted soil samples from Lombardia.

Gamma-spectrometric measurement of radioactivity in agricultural soils of the Lombardia region, northern Italy.

This work is part of a wider monitoring project of the agricultural soils in Lombardia, which aims to build a database of topsoil properties and the potentially toxic elements, organic pollutants and gamma emitting radionuclides that the topsoils contain. A total of 156 agricultural soils were sampled according to the LUCAS (Land Use/Cover Area frame statistical Survey) standard procedure. The aim was to provide a baseline to document the conditions present at the time of sampling. The results of the project concerning soil radioactivity are presented here. The aim was to assess the content of (238)U, (232)Th, (137)Cs and (40)K by measuring soil samples by gamma spectrometry. (238)U, (232)Th and (40)K activities range 24-231, 20-70, and 242-1434 Bq kg(-1) respectively. The geographic distribution of (238)U reflects the geophysical framework of the Lombardia region: the soils with high content of uranium are distributed for the most part in the South Alpine belt, where the presence of magmatic rocks is widespread. These soils show an higher activity of (238)U than of (232)Th. The (238)U activities become lower than (232)Th when soils are located in the plain, originating from basic sedimentary rocks. (137)Cs activity ranges 0.4-86.8 kBq m(-2). The lowest activity of (137)Cs is in the plain, whereas the highest is in the North on soils kept as lawn or pasture. The (137)Cs activity of some samples suggests the presence of accumulation processes that lead to (137)Cs enriched soils. This is the first survey of gamma emitting radionuclides in Lombardia that is based on the LUCAS standard sampling. The results from this monitoring campaign are important for the human radiation exposure and provide the zero point, which will be useful for assessing future effects due to external factors such as human activities.