Aiming for transformations in power: lessons from intersectoral CBPR with public housing tenants (Québec, Canada).

Intersectoral collaborations are recommended as effective strategies to reduce health inequalities. People most affected by health inequalities, as are people living in poverty, remain generally absent from such intersectoral collaborations. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) projects can be leveraged to better understand how to involve people with lived experience to support both individual and community empowerment.

Maternal prenatal depression is associated with dysregulation over the first five years of life moderated by child polygenic risk for comorbid psychiatric problems.

Dysregulation is a combination of emotion, behavior, and attention problems associated with lifelong psychiatric comorbidity. There is evidence for the stability of dysregulation from childhood to adulthood, which would be more fully characterized by determining the likely stability from infancy to childhood. Early origins of dysregulation can further be validated and contextualized in association with environmental and biological factors, such as prenatal stress and polygenic risk scores (PRS) for overlapping child psychiatric problems.

Negative emotionality as a candidate mediating mechanism linking prenatal maternal mood problems and offspring internalizing behaviour.

Negative emotionality (NE) was evaluated as a candidate mechanism linking prenatal maternal affective symptoms and offspring internalizing problems during the preschool/early school age period. The participants were 335 mother-infant dyads from the Maternal Adversity, Vulnerability and Neurodevelopment project. A Confirmatory Bifactor Analysis (CFA) based on self-report measures of prenatal depression and pregnancy-specific anxiety generated a general factor representing overlapping symptoms of prenatal maternal psychopathology and four distinct symptom factors representing pregnancy-specific anxiety, negative affect, anhedonia and somatization.

Bacteriocins as a new generation of antimicrobials: toxicity aspects and regulations.

In recent decades, bacteriocins have received substantial attention as antimicrobial compounds. Although bacteriocins have been predominantly exploited as food preservatives, they are now receiving increased attention as potential clinical antimicrobials and as possible immune-modulating agents. Infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been declared as a global threat to public health.

Once and Again : History of Rearing Experiences and Psychosocial Parenting Resources at Six Months in Primiparous Mothers.

Animal and human studies suggest that parenting style is transmitted from one generation to the next. The hypotheses of this study were that (1) a mother's rearing experiences (G1) would predict her own parenting resources (G2) and (2) current maternal mood, motivation to care for her offspring, and relationship with her parents would underlie this association. In a subsample of 201 first-time mothers participating in the longitudinal Maternal Adversity, Vulnerability and Neurodevelopment project, we assessed a mother's own childhood maltreatment and rearing experiences (G1) using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and the Parental Bonding Instrument.

Dissecting maternal care: Patterns of maternal parenting in a prospective cohort study.

Parental care has a strong impact on neurodevelopment and mental health in the offspring. Although numerous animal studies have revealed that the parental brain is a highly complex system involving many brain structures and neuroendocrine systems, human maternal parenting as a multidimensional construct with cognitive, emotional, and behavioural components has not been characterised comprehensively. This unique multi-method analysis aimed to examine patterns of self-reported and observed parenting from 6 to 60 months postpartum in a cohort of 496 mothers (mean maternal age = 32 years).

Maternal symptoms of depression and sensitivity mediate the relation between maternal history of early adversity and her child temperament: The inheritance of circumstance.

We examined maternal depression and maternal sensitivity as mediators of the association between maternal childhood adversity and her child's temperament in 239 mother-child dyads from a longitudinal, birth cohort study. We used an integrated measure of maternal childhood adversity that included the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and the Parental Bonding Index. Maternal depression was assessed with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale at 6 months postpartum.

Gestational age at birth and sleep duration in early childhood in three population-based cohorts.

Background: Both preterm and post-term births have been associated with neonatal morbidity and mortality, including adverse impact on neurodevelopment. Important neural maturational processes take place during sleep in newborns, but findings on gestational duration and sleep in early childhood are contradictory and often derive from small clinical samples. We studied the association of gestational age at birth with sleep duration in early childhood in three population-based cohorts.

Association Between Repeated Episodes of Gastroenteritis and Mental Health Problems in Childhood and Adolescence.

Objective: The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) and Maternal Adversity, Vulnerability and Neurodevelopment (MAVAN) cohorts were used to determine whether repeated exposure to gastroenteritis in early life could predict risk for psychiatric problems in childhood and in ALSPAC adolescents. We determined whether inflammatory biomarkers moderated the association between repeated gastroenteritis and mental health in adolescents from ALSPAC.

Method: Episodes of gastroenteritis from birth to 30 and 36 months were reported by mothers.

Uninterrupted Infant Sleep, Development, and Maternal Mood.

Objectives: Contrary to the importance of total sleep duration, the association between sleeping through the night and development in early infancy remains unclear. Our aims were to investigate the proportion of infants who sleep through the night (6- or 8-hour sleep blocks) at ages 6 and 12 months in a longitudinal cohort and to explore associations between sleeping through the night, mental and psychomotor development, maternal mood, and breastfeeding.

Methods: At 6 and 12 months of age, maternal reports were used to assess the longest period of uninterrupted infant sleep and feeding method ( = 388).

Maternal perceptions of paternal investment are associated with relationship satisfaction and breastfeeding duration in humans.

This study examined potential pathways in the associations between breastfeeding and mothers' relationship satisfaction, including her satisfaction with father involvement (FI) and parity, among mothers not working outside the home at 6 months. Mothers (n = 222) completed questionnaires at 4 time-points, 3 to 24 months postpartum as part of a longitudinal cohort study. In this study, we were interested in two main outcome variables: mothers' relationship satisfaction with their partner (RS) and continuation of breastfeeding after 3 months.

Birth weight and catch up growth are associated with childhood impulsivity in two independent cohorts.

Individuals born after intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) are more impulsive towards palatable foods, but it is not clear 1) if IUGR-related impulsivity is specific for foods and solely based on response inhibition and 2) if the development of impulsivity is due to being born IUGR per se or to growing up fast in the first few years of life (catch up growth). Children were classified in the IUGR group if the birth weight ratio was below 0.85.

PRS-on-Spark (PRSoS): a novel, efficient and flexible approach for generating polygenic risk scores.

Background: Polygenic risk scores (PRS) describe the genomic contribution to complex phenotypes and consistently account for a larger proportion of variance in outcome than single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) alone. However, there is little consensus on the optimal data input for generating PRS, and existing approaches largely preclude the use of imputed posterior probabilities and strand-ambiguous SNPs i.e.

The early care environment and DNA methylome variation in childhood.

Prenatal adversity shapes child neurodevelopment and risk for later mental health problems. The quality of the early care environment can buffer some of the negative effects of prenatal adversity on child development. Retrospective studies, in adult samples, highlight epigenetic modifications as sentinel markers of the quality of the early care environment; however, comparable data from pediatric cohorts are lacking.

Maternal characteristics and behavioural/emotional problems in preschoolers: how they relate to sleep rhythmic movements at sleep onset.

Sleep rhythmic movements have been speculated to be a form of self-soothing. While this sleep-related movement has been associated with lower socioeconomic status, psychopathologies and maternal characteristics, prospective studies with sizeable sample and objective measurements are lacking. The objectives were: (a) to identify maternal characteristics predicting sleep rhythmic movements in children; and (b) to document behavioural/emotional problems in preschoolers with sleep rhythmic movements.

Agreement in DNA methylation levels from the Illumina 450K array across batches, tissues, and time.

Epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS) have focused primarily on DNA methylation as a chemically stable and functional epigenetic modification. However, the stability and accuracy of the measurement of methylation in different tissues and extraction types is still being actively studied, and the longitudinal stability of DNA methylation in commonly studied peripheral tissues is of great interest. Here, we used data from two studies, three tissue types, and multiple time points to assess the stability of DNA methylation measured with the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip array.

The dopamine D4 receptor gene, birth weight, maternal depression, maternal attention, and the prediction of disorganized attachment at 36 months of age: A prospective gene×environment analysis.

Background: Efforts to understand the developmental pathways for disorganized attachment reflect the importance of disorganized attachment on the prediction of future psychopathology. The inconsistent findings on the prediction of disorganized attachment from the dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) gene, birth weight, and maternal depression as well as the evidence supporting the contribution of early maternal care, suggest the importance of exploring a gene by environment model.

Methods: Our sample is from the Maternal Adversity, Vulnerability, and Neurodevelopment project; consisting of 655 mother-child dyads.

Fetal growth interacts with multilocus genetic score reflecting dopamine signaling capacity to predict spontaneous sugar intake in children.

Background: We have shown that intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) leads to increased preference for palatable foods at different ages in both humans and rodents. In IUGR rodents, altered striatal dopamine signaling associates with a preference for palatable foods.

Objectives: Our aim was to investigate if a multilocus genetic score reflecting dopamine-signaling capacity is differently associated with spontaneous palatable food intake in children according to the fetal growth status.

Dynamic interaction between fetal adversity and a genetic score reflecting dopamine function on developmental outcomes at 36 months.

Background: Fetal adversity, evidenced by poor fetal growth for instance, is associated with increased risk for several diseases later in life. Classical cut-offs to characterize small (SGA) and large for gestational age (LGA) newborns are used to define long term vulnerability. We aimed at exploring the possible dynamism of different birth weight cut-offs in defining vulnerability in developmental outcomes (through the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development), using the example of a gene vs.

An Attachment-Based Model of the Relationship Between Childhood Adversity and Somatization in Children and Adults.

Objective: An attachment model was used to understand how maternal sensitivity and adverse childhood experiences are related to somatization.

Methods: We examined maternal sensitivity at 6 and 18 months and somatization at 5 years in 292 children in a longitudinal cohort study. We next examined attachment insecurity and somatization (health anxiety, physical symptoms) in four adult cohorts: healthy primary care patients (AC1, n = 67), ulcerative colitis in remission (AC2, n = 100), hospital workers (AC3, n = 157), and paramedics (AC4, n = 188).

A DRD4 gene by maternal sensitivity interaction predicts risk for overweight or obesity in two independent cohorts of preschool children.

Background: Recent evidence suggests that early exposure to low maternal sensitivity is a risk factor for obesity in children and adolescents. A separate line of study shows that the seven-repeat (7R) allele of the dopamine-4 receptor gene (DRD4) increases susceptibility to environmental factors including maternal sensitivity. The current study integrates these lines of work by examining whether preschoolers carrying the 7R allele are more vulnerable to low maternal sensitivity as it relates to overweight/obesity risk.