Exposure to severe urban air pollution influences cognitive outcomes, brain volume and systemic inflammation in clinically healthy children

Exposure to severe air pollution produces neuroinflammation and structural brain alterations in children. We tested whether patterns of brain growth, cognitive deficits and white matter hyperintensities (WMH) are associated with exposures to severe air pollution. Baseline and 1 year follow-up measurements of global and regional brain MRI volumes, cognitive abilities (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised, WISC-R), and serum inflammatory mediators were collected in 20 Mexico City (MC) children (10 with white matter hyperintensities, WMH⁺, and 10 without, WMH⁻) and 10 matched controls (CTL) from a low polluted city. There were significant differences in white matter volumes between CTL and MC children - both WMH⁺ and WMH⁻ - in right parietal and bilateral temporal areas. Both WMH⁻ and WMH⁺ MC children showed progressive deficits, compared to CTL children, on the WISC-R Vocabulary and Digit Span subtests. The cognitive deficits in highly exposed children match the localization of the volumetric differences detected over the 1 year follow-up, since the deficits observed are consistent with impairment of parietal and temporal lobe functions. Regardless of the presence of prefrontal WMH, Mexico City children performed more poorly across a variety of cognitive tests, compared to CTL children, thus WMH⁺ is likely only partially identifying underlying white matter pathology. Together these findings reveal that exposure to air pollution may perturb the trajectory of cerebral development and result in cognitive deficits during childhood.     

Emotion Recognition and Traumatic Brain Injury: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Neuropsychology Review - Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can lead to impairments in emotion recognition that can present considerable challenges to social communication and the maintenance of...     

Religious Beliefs or Physicians’ Behavior: What Makes a Patient More Prone to Accept a Physician to Address His/Her Spiritual Issues?

The present study aims to understand the relation between religious beliefs, physicians’ behavior and patients’ opinions regarding “Spirituality, religiosity and health (S/R)” issues, and what makes a patient more prone to accept a physician to address his/her spiritual issues. A cross-sectional study was carried out in outpatients from a tertiary hospital, and a path analysis was used to examine the direct and indirect relationships between the variables. For the final analysis, 300 outpatients were evaluated. Most patients would like their doctors to address S/R issues but did not feel comfortable to ask them. In contrast, they reported most doctors have never addressed S/R issues, and they believe doctors are not prepared to address these issues. The path analysis revealed that patients’ previous experiences with their doctors may be as important as their religious/spiritual beliefs in proneness to accept a physician to address his/her spiritual issues.     

Executive functions,impulsivity, and inhibitory control in adolescents: A structural equation model

Background. Adolescence represents a critical period for brain development, addressed by neurodevelopmental models to frontal, subcortical-limbic, and striatal activation, a pattern associated with rise of impulsivity and deficits in inhibitory control. The present study aimed at studying the association between self-report measures of impulsivity and inhibitory control with executive function in adolescents, employing structural equation modeling. Method. Tests were administered to 434 high school students. Acting without thinking was measured through the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale and the Dickman Impulsivity Inventory, reward sensitivity through the Behavioral Activation System, and sensation seeking through the Zuckerman–Kuhlman–Aluja Personali- ty Questionnaire. Inhibitory control was assessed through the Behavioral Inhibition System. The performance at the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task indicated executive function. Three models were specified using Sample Covariance Matrix, and the estimated parameters using Maximum Likelihood. Results. In the final model, impulsivity and inhibitory control predicted executive function, but sensation seeking did not. The fit of the model to data was excellent. Conclusions. The hypothesis that inhibitory control and impulsivity are predictors of executive function was supported. Our results appear informative of the validity of self-report measures to examine the relation between impulsivity traits rather than others to regulatory function of cognition and behavior.     

Impact of Well-being Interventions for Siblings of Children and Young People with a Chronic Physical or Mental Health Condition: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Siblings of children and young people with a chronic illness are at increased risk of poor psychological functioning. A number of studies have attempted to implement and evaluate interventions targeting the psychological well-being of this at-risk group. This systematic review summarises the evidence regarding psychological functioning of siblings following an intervention targeting their well-being. The meta-analysis considered behaviour and knowledge, two of the most frequently studied outcomes. The following databases were used: PsycINFO, EMBASE, CINAHL, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. Seventeen studies were eligible to be included in the systematic review and eight in the meta-analysis. Results from the systematic review reflected the inconsistency of intervention evaluations in this area with a high level of heterogeneity and a total of 23 outcomes considered across the 17 included studies. The meta-analysis estimated effect sizes using a standardised mean difference (SMD) approach. Pre-post analysis suggested significant improvement in behavioural outcomes and knowledge of their sibling’s health conditions with a SMD of ? 0.44 [95% CI (? 0.6, ? 0.29); p = 0.000] and 0.69 [(95% CI = 0.42, 0.96); p = 0.000], respectively. The SMD was not significant for behavioural outcomes when considering treatment–control studies. In conclusion, the findings suggest interventions for well-being have a positive effect on the psychological functioning of siblings of children and young people with a chronic illness, but their specificity needs to be established. There is a need for further, more methodologically robust research in this area.     

Is two better than one? Comparing children’s narrative competence in an individual versus joint storytelling task

This research looks at the potential of peer interaction practices in improving narrative competence by analyzing the efficacy of peer learning on children’s oral narrative productions. Gains on a macro-level (structure and coherence of the narrative) and a micro-level (cohesion of the narrative) were analyzed. Fifty-six primary school children participated in this study. Each child told a narrative either individually (individual condition) or while interacting with a peer (joint condition). We explored whether children produced longer, more structured, coherent and cohesive narratives in a joint condition rather than individually, and in which condition the joint task was more beneficial for children’s narrative competence in terms of narrative scores in the individual condition, discrepancy between the members of the same pair, and quality of the interaction. The advantage of peer learning does not derive from the direct comparison of the individual versus the joint condition but depends on specific conditions: the joint condition was beneficial for individuals with lower individual competence and for pairs with a high discrepancy between individual scores. Children’s quality of interaction did not seem to influence the efficacy of peer learning on their narrative competence.     

Giving Voice to Patients: Developing a Discussion Method to Involve Patients in Translational Research

Biomedical research policy in recent years has often tried to make such research more ‘translational’, aiming to facilitate the transfer of insights from research and development (R&D) to health care for the benefit of future users. Involving patients in deliberations about and design of biomedical research may increase the quality of R&D and of resulting innovations and thus contribute to translation. However, patient involvement in biomedical research is not an easy feat. This paper discusses the development of a method for involving patients in (translational) biomedical research aiming to address its main challenges.After reviewing the potential challenges of patient involvement, we formulate three requirements for any method to meaningfully involve patients in (translational) biomedical research. It should enable patients (1) to put forward their experiential knowledge, (2) to develop a rich view of what an envisioned innovation might look like and do, and (3) to connect their experiential knowledge with the envisioned innovation. We then describe how we developed the card-based discussion method ‘Voice of patients’, and discuss to what extent the method, when used in four focus groups, satisfied these requirements. We conclude that the method is quite successful in mobilising patients’ experiential knowledge, in stimulating their imaginaries of the innovation under discussion and to some extent also in connecting these two. More work is needed to translate patients’ considerations into recommendations relevant to researchers’ activities. It also seems wise to broaden the audience for patients’ considerations to other actors working on a specific innovation.