Glutamate-hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis interactions: implications for mood and anxiety disorders

Dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is a pathologic feature of certain mood and anxiety disorders that results in the increased production and secretion of corticotropin-releasing factor. There is increasing preclinical evidence that glutamate, an excitatory amino acid, plays an important role in the regulation of the HPA axis. Activation of glutamatergic projections to limbic structures such as the amygdala and brainstem structures such as the nucleus tractus solitarius is implicated in the stress response. There are laboratory and clinical suggestions that glutamatergic N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists function as antidepressants, and that chronic antidepressant treatments have a significant impact on NMDA receptor function. Clinical investigations of glutamate antagonists in patients with mood and anxiety disorders are in their infancy, with a few reports suggesting the presence of mood-elevating properties. Ultimately, HPA axis modulators, serotonin-enhancing agents, and glutamate antagonists might serve to increase neurotropic factors in key brain regions for affective and anxiety regulation, providing a putative final common pathway.     

Preliminary Evaluation of a Social Skills Training and Facilitated Play Early Intervention Programme for Extremely Shy Young Children in China

The goal of this study was to provide a preliminary evaluation of a social skills and facilitated play early intervention programme to promote social interaction, prosocial behaviours and socio‐communicative skills among young extremely shy children in China. Participants were a sample of n = 16 extremely shy young children attending kindergarten in Shanghai, China. Children were randomly assigned to either the Social Skills Facilitated Play or comparison condition. Baseline, post‐intervention and 2‐month follow‐up measures included observations of children's social behaviours in quartets of novel peers. Result indicated that as compared with shy controls, shy children who participated in the Social Skills Training Facilitated Play programme were observed to demonstrate significantly greater post‐intervention frequencies of peer interactions (e.g. group play and peer conversation) and prosocial behaviours (e.g. cooperation, sharing and making/accepting social initiations) during unstructured free play with novel peers, as well as better social‐communicative competence during a speech task. Almost all of these improvements were maintained 2 months post‐intervention. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of developing and refining early intervention programmes for extremely shy young children in China. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Starting small: Revisiting young children's perceptions of social withdrawal in China

In this reply to the commentaries by Xinyin Chen, Charissa Cheah, Yiyuan Xu, and Dawn Watling, we further discuss the conceptual and methodological challenges that arise when attempting to study beliefs about social withdrawal (1) in the unique cultural context of China and (2) in the unique developmental age period of early childhood.     

The social behaviours of inhibited children in and out of preschool

The goal of the present study was to explore the social behaviours of inhibited children in familiar social contexts, including: (1) free play with peers at preschool and (2) social activities at home and in the community. The initial participants were N =248 preschool children between the ages of 42 and 66 months. From this initial data, two smaller groups of inhibited (N =12) and uninhibited comparison (N =12) children were identified. These children were observed during free play at preschool and parents completed daily logs of children's social activities outside of school. Among the findings, inhibited children were observed to display more reticent (on looking, unoccupied) and anxious behaviours during free play preschool than uninhibited children. As well, inhibited children participated less in structured social activities outside school and were more likely to engage in dyadic play at home with a single friend as compared to their uninhibited counterparts.     

Young Chinese children's beliefs about the implications of subtypes of social withdrawal: A first look at social avoidance

The goal of this study was to examine young Chinese children's beliefs about the implications of different subtypes of social withdrawal (e.g., shyness, unsociability), including for the first time, social avoidance. Participants were 133 children in kindergarten (n = 58, M_age = 70.85 months) and grade 1 (n = 75, M_age = 83.49 months). Children were presented with vignettes describing hypothetical peers displaying shy, unsociable, avoidant, and socially competent behaviours and were then asked a series of questions to assess their beliefs about the implications of these different behaviours. Young children made distinctions between social withdrawal subtypes in terms of underlying motivations and emotions. Children also appeared to hold differential beliefs about the implications of different forms of social withdrawal: Of note, they anticipated that socially avoidant peers would experience the most negative outcomes. These findings provide some of the first evidence to suggest that social avoidance represents a distinct form of social withdrawal among young Chinese children. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of distinguishing between different subtypes of social withdrawal in Chinese culture.