Recovering from early deprivation: attachment mediates effects of caregiving on psychopathology.

Objective: Children exposed to early institutional rearing are at risk for developing psychopathology. The present investigation examines caregiving quality and the role of attachment security as they relate to symptoms of psychopathology in young children exposed to early institutionalization.

Method: Participants were enrolled in the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP), a longitudinal intervention study of children abandoned and placed in institutions at or shortly after birth.

Impaired language pathways in tuberous sclerosis complex patients with autism spectrum disorders.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between language pathways and autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in patients with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC). An advanced diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed on 42 patients with TSC and 42 age-matched controls. Using a validated automatic method, white matter language pathways were identified and microstructural characteristics were extracted, including fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD).

Loss of white matter microstructural integrity is associated with adverse neurological outcome in tuberous sclerosis complex.

Rationale And Objectives: Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is a genetic neurocutaneous syndrome in which cognitive and social-behavioral outcomes for patients vary widely in an unpredictable manner. The cause of adverse neurologic outcome remains unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the hypothesis that disordered white matter and abnormal neural connectivity are associated with adverse neurologic outcomes.

Validity of evidence-derived criteria for reactive attachment disorder: indiscriminately social/disinhibited and emotionally withdrawn/inhibited types.

Objective: This study examined the validity of criteria for indiscriminately social/disinhibited and emotionally withdrawn/inhibited reactive attachment disorder (RAD).

Method: As part of a longitudinal intervention trial of previously institutionalized children, caregiver interviews and direct observational measurements provided continuous and categorical data used to examine the internal consistency, criterion validity, construct validity, convergent and discriminant validity, association with functional impairment, and stability of these disorders over time.

Results: As in other studies, the findings showed distinctions between the two types of RAD.

Placental pathology in asphyxiated newborns meeting the criteria for therapeutic hypothermia.

Objective: We sought to describe placental findings in asphyxiated term newborns meeting therapeutic hypothermia criteria and to assess whether histopathologic correlation exists between these placental lesions and the severity of later brain injury.

Study Design: We conducted a prospective cohort study of the placentas of asphyxiated newborns, in whom later brain injury was defined by magnetic resonance imaging.

Results: A total of 23 newborns were enrolled.

Diffusion features of white matter in tuberous sclerosis with tractography.

Normal-appearing white matter has been shown via diffusion tensor imaging to be affected in tuberous sclerosis complex. Under the hypothesis that some systems might be differentially affected, including the visual pathways and systems of social cognition, diffusion properties of various regions of white matter were compared. For 10 patients and 6 age-matched control subjects, 3 T magnetic resonance imaging was assessed using diffusion tensor imaging obtained in 35 directions.

Elevated cerebral pressure passivity is associated with prematurity-related intracranial hemorrhage.

Objectives: Cerebral pressure passivity is common in sick premature infants and may predispose to germinal matrix/intraventricular hemorrhage (GM/IVH), a lesion with potentially serious consequences. We studied the association between the magnitude of cerebral pressure passivity and GM/IVH.

Patients And Methods: We enrolled infants <32 weeks' gestational age with indwelling mean arterial pressure (MAP) monitoring and excluded infants with known congenital syndromes or antenatal brain injury.