Baricitinib Treatment in RNU7-1-Associated Aicardi-Goutières Syndrome in a South African Child: A Case Report.

Aicardi-Goutières syndrome (AGS) is a rare monogenic type I interferonopathy. Janus kinase (JAK) inhibition has emerged as a potential treatment for AGS. RNU7-1 is one of the most recently discovered genes for AGS, and the clinical effects of JAK inhibition in these patients have not been reported.

Investigating the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis as a predictor of posttraumatic stress disorder in Black Americans and the moderating effects of racial discrimination.

Altered functioning of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) may play a critical role in the etiology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Chronic stressors such as racial discrimination and lifetime trauma are associated with an increased risk for PTSD, but it is unknown whether they influence the relationship between BNST functioning and PTSD. We investigated acute post-trauma BNST resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) as a predictor of future PTSD symptoms in Black trauma survivors.

Childhood-Onset Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (cSLE): An International Perspective.

Purpose Of Review: Childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (cSLE) is a severe and potentially life-threatening chronic autoimmune disease. cSLE is more aggressive and has poorer outcomes than adult-onset disease. The global burden of cSLE is poorly understood, with most publications on cSLE originating from high-resourced settings.

Neighborhood Resources Associated With Psychological Trajectories and Neural Reactivity to Reward After Trauma.

Importance: Research on resilience after trauma has often focused on individual-level factors (eg, ability to cope with adversity) and overlooked influential neighborhood-level factors that may help mitigate the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Objective: To investigate whether an interaction between residential greenspace and self-reported individual resources was associated with a resilient PTSD trajectory (ie, low/no symptoms) and to test if the association between greenspace and PTSD trajectory was mediated by neural reactivity to reward.

Design, Setting, And Participants: As part of a longitudinal cohort study, trauma survivors were recruited from emergency departments across the US.

Trauma-informed systems change training has transcultural, transcontinental transformative healing power: An analysis of leaders in the United States and Angola, Africa.

The Institute for Trauma-Informed Systems Change (ITISC) facilitated a 2-day, 12-hr trauma-informed workshop, delivered virtually, using the Training for Change curriculum. The workshop took place in Portuguese in September 2021 with a group of Angolan leaders (N = 51) and in May 2022, in English, with neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) workers from the United States (N = 73). Surveys were administered before (Time [T] 0) and after the workshop (T1) and consisted of demographic questions and the Survey for Trauma-Informed Systems Change (STISC), which assesses system-wide knowledge and attitudes about trauma-informed systems change and the intersection of culture, safety, and acceptance in the workplace.

Scurvy masquerading as IgA vasculitis.

Background: Vitamin C deficiency, or scurvy, is rare but poses risks for children with poor diets, limited resources, or malabsorption issues. It may also be common in children with restrictive or selective dietary habits in children with global developmental delay, autism spectrum disorder, and physical disabilities. Symptoms include fatigue, irritability, joint and muscle pain, joint swellings, edema, swollen gums, easy bruising, and delayed wound healing.

Childhood Maltreatment and Amygdala-Mediated Anxiety and Posttraumatic Stress Following Adult Trauma.

Background: Childhood abuse (physical, emotional, and sexual) is associated with aberrant connectivity of the amygdala, a key threat-processing region. Heightened amygdala activity also predicts adult anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, as do experiences of childhood abuse. The current study explored whether amygdala resting-state functional connectivity may explain the relationship between childhood abuse and anxiety and PTSD symptoms following trauma exposure in adults.

Swissped-RECOVERY: masked independent adjudication for the interpretation of non-randomised treatment in a two-arm open-label randomised controlled trial (methylprednisolone vs immunoglobulins) in Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome Temporally Associated with SARS-CoV-2 (PIMS-TS) involving 10 secondary and tertiary paediatric hospitals in Switzerland.

Objectives: In trials of acute severe infections or inflammations frequent administration of non-randomised treatment (ie, intercurrent event) in response to clinical events is expected. These events may affect the interpretation of trial findings. Swissped-RECOVERY was set up as one of the first randomised controlled trials worldwide, investigating the comparative effectiveness of anti-inflammatory treatment with intravenous methylprednisolone or intravenous immunoglobulins in children and adolescents with Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome Temporally Associated with SARS-CoV-2 (PIMS-TS).

Elevated risk for psychiatric outcomes in pediatric patients with Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome (MIS-C): A review of neuroinflammatory and psychosocial stressors.

Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) is a secondary immune manifestation of COVID-19 involving multiple organ systems in the body, resulting in fever, skin rash, abdominal pain, nausea, shock, and cardiac dysfunction that often lead to hospitalization. Although many of these symptoms resolve following anti-inflammatory treatment, the long-term neurological and psychiatric sequelae of MIS-C are unknown. In this review, we will summarize two domains of the MIS-C disease course, 1) Neuroinflammation in the MIS-C brain and 2) Psychosocial disruptions resulting from stress and hospitalization.

The neurophysiological consequences of racism-related stressors in Black Americans.

Racism-related stressors, from experiences of both implicit and explicit racial discrimination to systemic socioeconomic disadvantage, have a cumulative impact on Black Americans' health. The present narrative review synthesizes peripheral (neuroendocrine and inflammation markers), psychophysiological (heart-rate variability, skin conductance), and neuroimaging (structural and functional) findings that demonstrate unique associations with racism-related stress. Emerging evidence reveals how racism-related stressors contribute to differential physiological and neural responses and may have distinct impacts on regions involved with threat and social processing.

Distinct T cell polyfunctional profile in SARS-CoV-2 seronegative children associated with endemic human coronavirus cross-reactivity.

SARS-CoV-2 infection in children typically results in asymptomatic or mild disease. There is a paucity of studies on SARS-CoV-2 antiviral immunity in African children. We investigated SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses in 71 unvaccinated asymptomatic South African children who were seropositive or seronegative for SARS-CoV-2.

Comparing the immune abnormalities in MIS-C to healthy children and those with inflammatory disease reveals distinct inflammatory cytokine production and a monofunctional T cell response.

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is a severe, hyperinflammatory disease that occurs after exposure to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The underlying immune pathology of MIS-C is incompletely understood, with limited data comparing MIS-C to clinically similar paediatric febrile diseases at presentation. SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses have not been compared in these groups to assess whether there is a T cell profile unique to MIS-C.

Training for Lasting Change: Trauma-Informed Training Results in Improved and Sustained Individual and Organizational Knowledge, Attitudes, and Policies.

Trauma-informed care (TIC) trainings seek to improve individual and organizational recognition and care to individuals who have experienced trauma. However, whether TIC trainings result in long-term changes to an organization's policies and practices remains unclear. This article describes the effectiveness of a workshop designed to train professionals across disciplines in understanding and implementing TIC in their work and workplace.

The Dichotomy of Threat and Deprivation as Subtypes of Childhood Maltreatment: Differential Functional Connectivity Patterns of Threat and Reward Circuits in an Adult Trauma Sample.

Background: Childhood maltreatment is associated with reduced activation of the nucleus accumbens, a central region in the reward network, and overactivity in the amygdala, a key region in threat processing. However, the long-lasting impact of these associations in the context of later-life stress is not well understood. The current study explored the association between childhood threat and deprivation and functional connectivity of threat and reward regions in an adult trauma sample.

Neural processes of emotional conflict detection and prediction of posttraumatic stress disorder symptom clusters in traumatic injury survivors.

Objective: Given the prevalence and significant burden of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), identifying early predictors of symptom development following trauma is critical. PTSD is a heterogeneous disorder comprised of distinct symptom clusters-reexperiencing, avoidance, negative mood, and hyperarousal-that contribute to the broad range of possible symptom profiles. Affective and attentional regulation processes, such as emotional conflict detection, are impaired in individuals with PTSD; however, the neural mechanisms underlying these alterations and their predictive utility for the development of PTSD symptoms remain unclear.

Neighborhood Disadvantage and Neural Correlates of Threat and Reward Processing in Survivors of Recent Trauma.

Importance: Differences in neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics are important considerations in understanding differences in risk vs resilience in mental health. Neighborhood disadvantage is associated with alterations in the function and structure of threat neurocircuitry.

Objective: To investigate associations of neighborhood disadvantage with white and gray matter and neural reactivity to positive and negative stimuli in the context of trauma exposure.

Attributional negativity bias and acute stress disorder symptoms mediate the association between trauma history and future posttraumatic stress disorder.

Individuals who have experienced more trauma throughout their life have a heightened risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following injury. Although trauma history cannot be retroactively modified, identifying the mechanism(s) by which preinjury life events influence future PTSD symptoms may help clinicians mitigate the detrimental effects of past adversity. The current study proposed attributional negativity bias, the tendency to perceive stimuli/events as negative, as a potential intermediary in PTSD development.

Distinct T cell functional profiles in SARS-CoV-2 seropositive and seronegative children associated with endemic human coronavirus cross-reactivity.

SARS-CoV-2 infection in children typically results in asymptomatic or mild disease. There is a paucity of studies on antiviral immunity in African children. We investigated SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses in 71 unvaccinated asymptomatic South African children who were seropositive or seronegative for SARS-CoV-2.

Experiencing racial discrimination increases vulnerability to PTSD after trauma via peritraumatic dissociation.

Racial discrimination is a traumatic stressor that increases the risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but mechanisms to explain this relationship remain unclear. Peritraumatic dissociation, the complex process of disorientation, depersonalization, and derealization during a trauma, has been a consistent predictor of PTSD. Experiences of frequent racial discrimination may increase the propensity for peritraumatic dissociation in the context of new traumatic experiences and contribute to PTSD symptoms.

Psychological and physiological correlates of stimulus discrimination in adults.

The discrimination of cues in the environment that signal danger ("fear cue") is important for survival but depends critically on the discernment of such cues from ones that pose no threat ("safety cues"). In rodents, we previously demonstrated the underlying neurobiological mechanisms that support fear versus safety discrimination and documented that these mechanisms extend to the discrimination of reward as well. While learning about reward is equally important for survival, it remains an under-studied area of research, particularly in human studies of conditional discrimination.

IL27 gene expression distinguishes multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children from febrile illness in a South African cohort.

Introduction: Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is a severe acute inflammatory reaction to SARS-CoV-2 infection in children. There is a lack of data describing differential expression of immune genes in MIS-C compared to healthy children or those with other inflammatory conditions and how expression changes over time. In this study, we investigated expression of immune-related genes in South African MIS-C patients and controls.

Radically reframing studies on neurobiology and socioeconomic circumstances: A call for social justice-oriented neuroscience.

Socioeconomic circumstances are associated with symptoms and diagnostic status of nearly all mental health conditions. Given these robust relationships, neuroscientists have attempted to elucidate how socioeconomic-based adversity "gets under the skin." Historically, this work emphasized individual proxies of socioeconomic position (e.