Risk- and protective factors for memory plasticity in aging

ABSTRACT

Risk and protective factors for cognitive function in aging may affect how much individuals benefit from their environment or life experiences by preserving or improving cognitive abilities. We investigated the relations between such factors and outcome from episodic-memory training in 136 healthy young and older adults. Tested risk factors included carrying the ?4 variant of the apolipoprotein E allele (APOE), age, body mass index, blood pressure, and cholesterol. Protective factors included higher levels of education, intelligence quotient (IQ), physical activity, fatty acids, and vitamin D. Average increases in memory performance were seen after training, with ample variation between individuals. Being young, female, and having higher IQ were positive predictors of memory improvement. No other relationships were observed. Similar benefit was observed across APOE allelic variation. This indicates that beyond IQ, age, and sex, known risk -and protective factors of cognitive function in aging were not significantly related to memory plasticity.     

Investigating socio-emotional cognition in late preterm children: A case-control study

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to investigate socio-emotional cognitive competence in late preterm and term born children. Late preterm children (n = 53; 5–10 years) and full-term control children (n = 53; 5–10 years) were evaluated on the four socio-emotional cognitive tests of the Intelligence and Development Scales (IDS): emotion recognition, emotion regulation, social understanding, and social behavioural competence. Compared to full-term children, late preterm children (LPT) performed significantly worse on the emotion recognition and social behavioural competence tasks, but otherwise, no significant differences were found in emotion regulation and social understanding tasks. These findings support the conclusion that late-preterm birth may be associated with negative, but selective, socio-emotional cognitive difficulties. Targeted interventions aimed to limit the incidence of these dysfunctions during childhood could be quite important for LPT children.     

Differences between girls and boys in emerging language skills: Evidence from 10 language communities

The present study explored gender differences in emerging language skills in 13,783 European children from 10 non‐English language communities. It was based on a synthesis of published data assessed with adapted versions of the MacArthur‐Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs) from age 0.08 to 2.06. The results showed that girls are slightly ahead of boys in early communicative gestures, in productive vocabulary, and in combining words. The difference increased with age. Boys were not found to be more variable than girls. Despite extensive variation in language skills between language communities, the difference between girls and boys remained. This suggests that the difference is caused by robust factors that do not change between language communities.     

Creating space for interdisciplinary and interagency learning: the Newham ‘responsiveness’ days

Family therapists in Newham's specialist child and adolescent mental health services describe an interdisciplinary and interagency training day for Newham's children's workforce; the workshop aims to develop co‐learning about communication and collaboration in the context of a rapidly changing service environment, driven by current national and local policy initiatives. The training team attempts to generate a rich learning context using three themes: networking, responsiveness and complexity. The workshop demonstrates that it is perhaps possible to embed complex communication discourses in brief, pragmatic training, enhancing collaboration between professionals in local networks.     

The Psychosomatic Relationship As A Symbolic Circular Communication: Subjective And Transgenerational Dreams

The human being can be divided into body and mind, two inextricably linked aspects influencing each other. From birth, the body is the site of emotional experiences thanks to cellular memory. The transgenerational and the oneiric imaginary are two themes closely related to the body. Many families express their emotional experiences through bodily symptoms and, in dreams, body icons are used to “talk” about the subject’s identity. The body expresses itself and “speaks” through dreams, which can even become predictors of diseases.     

Experiences of surgery readiness assessments in British Columbia

Abstract

Background: A surgical readiness assessment is a major step in the medical journey of trans people seeking gender-affirming surgery. Much of the peer-reviewed literature surrounding surgical readiness assessments emphasizes the perspectives of academics and clinicians, leaving the voices of trans and gender diverse patients largely unheard.

Aims: This paper foregrounds patient experiences with surgery readiness assessments to discuss the tensions, challenges and opportunities they generate.

Methods: We conducted a thematic analysis of 35 in-depth interviews with trans people who accessed or were seeking to access gender-affirming surgery in British Columbia.

Results: We developed three main themes to capture participants’ narratives of their surgical assessment experiences. The first, assessments as gatekeeping, explores the stories of people who described their assessments as outdated and even discriminatory processes. The second, assessments as a barrier to care, discusses the informational missteps, bureaucratic regulations, economic issues, and geographic concerns that made assessments difficult to access. The third, assessments as useful, includes positive stories about assessments that often involved feeling supported by an assessor and feeling prepared for the next steps.

Discussion: These narratives demonstrate how much variation exists among people’s experiences of readiness assessments for gender-affirming surgery. No matter how their actual assessment turned out, many participants approached their appointments with a great deal of anxiety and trepidation. We attributed this stress was to challenges ranging from lengthy wait times, arbitrary medical gatekeeping, a lack of access to knowledgeable and supportive providers, unclear or changing administrative processes, and insufficient communication. To address these challenges, it is crucial for the medical system to create more accessible pathways with centralized, up-to-date information for people trying to access assessments. Patients are best served by multi-disciplinary gender-affirming teams that provide individualized care.