Pathways to health: A longitudinal examination of protective factors in children with and without preschool anxiety.

Preschool anxiety is highly prevalent and well known to predict risk for future psychopathology. The present study explores whether a diagnosis of an anxiety disorder in preschool interacts with (a) social skills and (b) cognitive ability to longitudinally predict psychopathology, two well-known protective factors, among a sample of 207 children measured at preschool (Mage = 4.34 years) and early childhood (Mage = 6.

Hair Cortisol Concentrations in the Prediction of Early Substance Use Engagement in Youth.

Objective: Understanding factors associated with early onset of substance use is critical as using alcohol or drugs at a young age is a strong predictor of later substance dependency. Experiencing stressful life events is associated with increased risk for early substance use in youth. Hair cortisol concentration (HCC) is considered a biomarker of psychological stress experienced over longer periods of time.

Tracking Well-Being: A Comprehensive Analysis of Physical Activity and Mental Health in College Students Across COVID-19 Phases Using Ecological Momentary Assessment.

Physical activity (PA) is a critical factor in maintaining mental health, particularly among college students who are vulnerable to stress, anxiety, and mood disturbances. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced unprecedented disruptions to daily routines. The purpose of this cohort study was to examine the longitudinal PA behaviors before and during COVID-19 using device-based assessment in a sample of college students.

Intergenerational effects of a casino-funded family transfer program on educational outcomes in an American Indian community.

Cash transfer policies have been widely discussed as mechanisms to curb intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic disadvantage. In this paper, we take advantage of a large casino-funded family transfer program introduced in a Southeastern American Indian Tribe to generate difference-in-difference estimates of the link between children's cash transfer exposure and third grade math and reading test scores of their offspring. Here we show greater math (0.

Biallelic potential disease-causing missense variants in TAF1A in two siblings with infantile restrictive cardiomyopathy.

TAF1A, a gene encoding a TATA-box binding protein involved in ribosomal RNA synthesis, is a candidate gene for pediatric cardiomyopathy as biallelic TAF1A variants were reported in two families with affected individuals. Here, we report a third family with two siblings who presented with infantile restrictive cardiomyopathy and carried biallelic missense variants in TAF1A (NM_001201536.1:c.

Negative Life Events and Emotional Symptoms From Ages 2 to 30 Years.

Importance: Exposure to different types of negative life events, including traumatic events, is common across the lifespan and associated with increased mental health symptoms.

Objective: To assess whether vulnerability to negative life events varies across 5 developmental periods from preschool to young adulthood.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cohort study analyzed data from 3 community-representative studies set in the southeastern US (1992-2015) with harmonized assessment approaches that included a total of 13 775 assessments of individuals aged 2 to 30 years with up to 21 years of follow-up.

Ambient Air Pollution and Depressed Mood in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) Wave IV.

Depression is a major contributor to the global burden of disease. There is limited understanding of how environmental exposures may contribute to depression etiology. We used Wave IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to examine associations between low-level ambient air pollution exposure and depressed mood in a generally healthy population of over 10,000 24-32 year olds.

Clinical Capacity Building Through Partnerships: Boots on the Ground in Global Neurosurgery.

Global neurosurgery seeks to provide quality neurosurgical health care worldwide and faces challenges because of historical, socioeconomic, and political factors. To address the shortfall of essential neurosurgical procedures worldwide, dyads between established neurosurgical and developing centers have been established. Concerns have been raised about their effectiveness and ability to sustain capacity development.

Populations of triple negative and hormone receptor positive HER2 negative breast tumors share immune gene profiles.

In breast cancer, triple negative (TN) breast cancer has most responses to immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy. Lymphocyte infiltrate does not impact prognosis in Hormone receptor positive HER2 negative (HR + HER2-) breast tumors and few HR + HER2- tumors respond to ICI. We contrasted immune-associated gene expression between 119 TN and 475 HR + HER2- breast tumors from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and confirmed our findings in 299 TN and 1369 HR + HER2- breast tumors in the METABRIC database.

Structures of the mitochondrial single-stranded DNA binding protein with DNA and DNA polymerase γ.

The mitochondrial single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) binding protein, mtSSB or SSBP1, binds to ssDNA to prevent secondary structures of DNA that could impede downstream replication or repair processes. Clinical mutations in the SSBP1 gene have been linked to a range of mitochondrial disorders affecting nearly all organs and systems. Yet, the molecular determinants governing the interaction between mtSSB and ssDNA have remained elusive.

Coordinated DNA polymerization by Polγ and the region of LonP1 regulated proteolysis.

The replicative mitochondrial DNA polymerase, Polγ, and its protein regulation are essential for the integrity of the mitochondrial genome. The intricacies of Polγ regulation and its interactions with regulatory proteins, which are essential for fine-tuning polymerase function, remain poorly understood. Misregulation of the Polγ heterotrimer, consisting of (i) PolG, the polymerase catalytic subunit and (ii) PolG2, the accessory subunit, ultimately results in mitochondrial diseases.

Sub-Saharan African experience of neurosurgical oncology care: challenges and barriers encountered at 7 cancer treatment centers.

Objective: Wide disparities in neurosurgical oncology care and treatment outcomes exist globally despite recent improvements in diagnostics and cancer therapy. To better understand the challenges to neurosurgical oncology care in low-resource settings, the authors collected data on national neurosurgical capacity and hospital diagnostic and treatment capacity across 7 national referral hospitals in 7 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

Methods: In April 2023, a 42-item self-administered questionnaire was distributed to partner neurosurgeons at the 7 centers via REDCap to provide country- and hospital-level capacity data on neurosurgical oncology care.

Taking John Schulenberg's "long view" on successful transitions to adulthood: Associations with adult substance use.

Can positive transitions into young adulthood at age 25 prevent problematic substance use at age 31, even in the context of childhood adverse family environments, conduct problems, and adolescent substance use? We lean on John Schulenberg's developmental framework to examine this question, focusing on the potential young adult milestones of high school and college graduation, employment, residential independence, romantic partnership, and parenthood. Data came from a prospective-longitudinal multi-method study with N = 1199 participants who were first assessed at age 5 years old and followed to age 31. An accumulation of positive transitions in young adulthood (age 25) was associated with lower likelihood of age 31 problematic cannabis use.

Correction: Parental supervision positively impacts children's economic prospects two decades later: A prospective longitudinal study.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of the Family Assessment and Feedback Intervention (FAFI): Effects on Mental Health Literacy and Attitudinal Engagement with Health Supports and Services.

This randomized controlled trial tested the Family Assessment and Feedback Intervention (FAFI), a new intervention to enhance family engagement with emotional and behavioral health services. The FAFI is a guided conversation with families about results of their multidimensional assessment that is set in the context of motivational enhancement. It differs from other assessment-with-feedback interventions by extending the focus of assessment beyond the target child to parents and the family environment, addressing parental emotional and behavioral problems and competencies, spanning a broad range of children's and parents' strengths and difficulties, and being generalizable to many settings and practitioners.

Using Wearable Digital Devices to Screen Children for Mental Health Conditions: Ethical Promises and Challenges.

In response to a burgeoning pediatric mental health epidemic, recent guidelines have instructed pediatricians to regularly screen their patients for mental health disorders with consistency and standardization. Yet, gold-standard screening surveys to evaluate mental health problems in children typically rely solely on reports given by caregivers, who tend to unintentionally under-report, and in some cases over-report, child symptomology. Digital phenotype screening tools (DPSTs), currently being developed in research settings, may help overcome reporting bias by providing objective measures of physiology and behavior to supplement child mental health screening.

Operative Epidemiology of the First Five Years in a New African Neurosurgery Training Center: The Experience in Rural Kenya at Tenwek Hospital 2016 to 2021.

Background: One strategy to increase the availability of neurosurgical services in underserved regions within Sub-Saharan African countries is to create new residency training programs outside of cosmopolitan cities where programs may already exist. In 2016 Tenwek Hospital in rural western Kenya began offering full-time neurosurgical services and in 2020 inaugurated a residency training program. This review highlights the operative epidemiology of the first 5 years of the hospital's neurosurgical department.

The biological embedding of social adversity: How adolescent housing insecurity impacts inflammation over time.

Background & Purpose: Adolescent housing insecurity is a dynamic form of social adversity that impacts child health outcomes worldwide. However, the means by which adolescent housing insecurity may become biologically embedded to influence health outcomes over the life course remain unclear. Therefore, we aimed to utilize life course perspectives and advanced causal inference methods to evaluate the potential for inflammation to contribute to the biological embedding of adolescent housing insecurity.

Associations Between Configurations of Childhood Adversity and Adult Mental Health Disorder Outcomes.

The life course perspective and cumulative inequality theory suggest that childhood adversity, occurring during a sensitive period of the life course, can have long-term consequences for adult mental health and well-being. Yet, the long-term influence of adversity on adult outcomes may depend on both the features of adverse childhood experiences (e.g.

Expecting the Unexpected: Predicting Panic Attacks From Mood, Twitter, and Apple Watch Data.

Objective: Panic attacks are an impairing mental health problem that affects 11% of adults every year. Current criteria describe them as occurring without warning, despite evidence suggesting individuals can often identify attack triggers. We aimed to prospectively explore qualitative and quantitative factors associated with the onset of panic attacks.

Family cash transfers in childhood and birthing persons and birth outcomes later in life.

Much literature in the US documents an intergenerational transmission of birthing person and perinatal morbidity in socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. A separate line of work indicates that family cash transfers may improve life chances of low-income families well into adulthood. By exploiting a quasi-random natural experiment of a large family cash transfer among a southeastern American Indian (AI) tribe in rural North Carolina, we examine whether a "perturbation" in socioeconomic status during childhood improves birthing person/perinatal outcomes when they become parents themselves.