Impact of stable environments on maltreated children.

Background: The development of the ability to understand others' facial expressions is thought to be dependent on the environment in which one has been reared.

Methods: This study compared the ability to understand others' facial expressions between 15 children who were in an unstable environment, 11 children who had been maltreated before and were in a stable environment, like a foster family, and 33 children who had never been maltreated. We used the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) as measure.

Bur1 functions with TORC1 for vacuole-mediated cell cycle progression.

The vacuole/lysosome plays essential roles in the growth and proliferation of many eukaryotic cells via the activation of target of rapamycin complex 1 (TORC1). Moreover, the yeast vacuole/lysosome is necessary for progression of the cell division cycle, in part via signaling through the TORC1 pathway. Here, we show that an essential cyclin-dependent kinase, Bur1, plays a critical role in cell cycle progression in cooperation with TORC1.

The Atg2-Atg18 complex tethers pre-autophagosomal membranes to the endoplasmic reticulum for autophagosome formation.

The biogenesis of double-membrane vesicles called autophagosomes, which sequester and transport intracellular material for degradation in lysosomes or vacuoles, is a central event in autophagy. This process requires a unique set of factors called autophagy-related (Atg) proteins. The Atg proteins assemble to organize the preautophagosomal structure (PAS), at which a cup-shaped membrane, the isolation membrane (or phagophore), forms and expands to become the autophagosome.

Autophagy induction under carbon starvation conditions is negatively regulated by carbon catabolite repression.

Autophagy is a conserved process in which cytoplasmic components are sequestered for degradation in the vacuole/lysosomes in eukaryotic cells. Autophagy is induced under a variety of starvation conditions, such as the depletion of nitrogen, carbon, phosphorus, zinc, and others. However, apart from nitrogen starvation, it remains unclear how these stimuli induce autophagy.

Ventral striatum dysfunction in children and adolescents with reactive attachment disorder: functional MRI study.

Background: Child maltreatment is a major risk factor for psychopathology, including reactive attachment disorder (RAD).

Aims: To examine whether neural activity during reward processing was altered in children and adolescents with RAD.

Method: Sixteen children and adolescents with RAD and 20 typically developing (TD) individuals performed tasks with high and low monetary rewards while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging.

The development of the effect of peer monitoring on generosity differs among elementary school-age boys and girls.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of peer monitoring on generosity in boys and girls aged 6-12 years. A total of 120 elementary school students played a one-shot dictator game (DG) with and without peer monitoring by classmates. Children decided how to divide 10 chocolates between themselves and a classmate either in a condition in which their allocations were visible to their peers, or in private.

The effect of direct and indirect monitoring on generosity among preschoolers.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of direct and indirect monitoring on generosity among five-year-old preschoolers and to reveal the primary motivation for their generosity. Forty-two preschoolers completed one-shot dictator games in Condition 1 while being monitored by the experimenter (the direct monitoring condition). In Condition 2, an image of staring eyes was displayed on the computer monitor (the indirect monitoring condition).

Hrr25 triggers selective autophagy-related pathways by phosphorylating receptor proteins.

In selective autophagy, degradation targets are specifically recognized, sequestered by the autophagosome, and transported into the lysosome or vacuole. Previous studies delineated the molecular basis by which the autophagy machinery recognizes those targets, but the regulation of this process is still poorly understood. In this paper, we find that the highly conserved multifunctional kinase Hrr25 regulates two distinct selective autophagy-related pathways in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

The role of cognitive and emotional perspective taking in economic decision making in the ultimatum game.

We conducted a simple resource allocation game known as the ultimatum game (UG) with preschoolers to examine the role of cognitive and emotional perspective-taking ability on allocation and rejection behavior. A total of 146 preschoolers played the UG and completed a false belief task and an emotional perspective-taking test. Results showed that cognitive perspective taking ability had a significant positive effect on the proposer's offer and a negative effect on the responder's rejection behavior, whereas emotional perspective taking ability did not impact either the proposer's or responder's behavior.

The relationship between child maltreatment and emotion recognition.

Child abuse and neglect affect the development of social cognition in children and inhibit social adjustment. The purpose of this study was to compare the ability to identify the emotional states of others between abused and non-abused children. The participants, 129 children (44 abused and 85 non-abused children), completed a children's version of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET).

Mitochondria-driven cell elongation mechanism for competing sperms.

Sexual competition has selected a number of extreme phenotypes like the tail ornament of peacock male. Sperm tail of Drosophilidae elongate up to 6 cm as a result of evolutionary selection for reproductive fitness among competing sperms. Sperm elongation takes place post meiotically and can proceed in the absence of an axoneme.

The cytoplasmic tail of heparin-binding EGF-like growth factor regulates bidirectional intracellular trafficking between the plasma membrane and ER.

Heparin-binding epidermal growth factor (EGF)- like growth factor (HB-EGF) is synthesized in the ER, transported along the exocytic pathway, and expressed on the plasma membrane as a type I transmembrane protein. Upon extracellular stimulation, HB-EGF, either proHB-EGF or the shed form HB-EGF-CTF, undergoes endocytosis and is then transported retrogradely to the ER. In this study, we showed the essential contribution of the short cytoplasmic tail of HB-EGF (HB-EGF-cyto) to the bidirectional intracellular trafficking between the ER and plasma membrane and revealed several critical amino acids residues that are responsible for internalization from the plasma membrane and ER targeting.

Sustained elongation of sperm tail promoted by local remodeling of giant mitochondria in Drosophila.

Background: Sperm length in Drosophilidae varies from a few hundred microns to 6 cm as a result of evolutionary selection. In postcopulatory competition, longer sperm have an advantage in positioning their head closer to the egg. Sperm cell elongation can proceed in the absence of an axoneme, suggesting that a mechanism besides intraflagellar transport emerged to sustain it.

[Accuracy of judgment about others' cooperative behavior: effects of attractiveness and facial expressiveness].

Cooperation in interdependent relationships is based on reciprocity in repeated interactions. However, cooperation in one-shot relationships cannot be explained by reciprocity. Frank, Gilovich, & Regan (1993) argued that cooperative behavior in one-shot interactions can be adaptive if cooperators displayed particular signals and people were able to distinguish cooperators from non-cooperators by decoding these signals.

Salivary alpha-amylase levels and rejection of unfair offers in the ultimatum game.

Objectives: This study aimed to examine the role of emotions in rejection of unfair offers in an ultimatum game, which is of interest in neuroeconomics of fairness.

Methods: Thirty-seven participants played a one-shot ultimatum game as responders and decided whether to accept or reject the unfair offers by the proposers. Salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) was assessed before and after the ultimatum game.

Neural correlates of the rejection of unfair offers in the impunity game.

Objectives: This study examined the roles of the insula and the anterior cingulate activations in the rejection of unfair offers in the impunity game.

Methods: Fifteen participants played the impunity game in ten trials as responders during neuroimaging.

Results: About 45% of the unfair offers were rejected by the responders even when responders could not restore a fair outcome, which cannot be accounted for by social preference of inequity aversion.

Theory of mind enhances preference for fairness.

The purpose of the current study was to examine the role of theory of mind in fairness-related behavior in preschoolers and to introduce a tool for examining fairness-related behavior in children. A total of 68 preschoolers played the Ultimatum Game in a face-to-face setting. Acquisition of theory of mind was defined as the understanding of false beliefs using the Sally-Anne task.

Membrane-anchored growth factor, HB-EGF, on the cell surface targeted to the inner nuclear membrane.

Heparin-binding EGF-like growth factor (HB-EGF) is synthesized as a type I transmembrane protein (proHB-EGF) and expressed on the cell surface. The ectodomain shedding of proHB-EGF at the extracellular region on the plasma membrane yields a soluble EGF receptor ligand and a transmembrane-cytoplasmic fragment (HB-EGF-CTF). The cytoplasmic domain of proHB-EGF (HB-EGF-cyto) interacts with transcriptional repressors to reverse their repressive activities.

Loss of HB-EGF in smooth muscle or endothelial cell lineages causes heart malformation.

Epidermal growth factor (EGF) and ErbB family molecules play a role in heart development and function. To investigate the role of EGF family member, heparin-binding EGF-like growth factor (HB-EGF) in heart development, smooth muscle and endothelial cell lineage-specific HB-EGF knockout mice were generated using the Cre/loxP system in combination with the SM22alpha or TIE2 promoter. HB-EGF knockout mice displayed enlarged heart valves, and over half of these mice died during the first postnatal week, while survivors showed cardiac hypertrophy.

Expression of P-cadherin distinct from that of E-cadherin in re-epithelialization in neonatal rat skin.

Our previous study showed that an open wound made in neonatal rat skin was covered by migration of certain undifferentiated populations of keratinocytes as a multilayered cell sheet. In this study, the expression of the components of adherens junctions (AJ), E- and P-cadherins, and beta-catenin, was examined to understand the underlying mechanisms. Both E- and P-cadherins were downregulated in the basal layer at 6 h post-wounding (PW), indicating a reduction in the intercellular adhesiveness.

Evaluation of parathyroid hyperplasia by ultrasonographic examination in patients with end-stage renal failure before and at initiation of dialysis.

Secondary hyperparathyroidism (2HPT), which is related to renal osteodystrophy (ROD), may occur in patients in the comparatively early stage of chronic renal failure (CRF). Secondary hyperparathyroidism patients with parathyroid hyperplasia showed resistance to vitamin D(3) treatment during long-term dialysis. At present, evaluation by ultrasonography is considered to be useful for confirming parathyroid hyperplasia.

The subsets of keratinocytes responsible for covering open wounds in neonatal rat skin.

Full-thickness excisional wounds were made on the dorsal skin of 1-day-old rats to elucidate from where the cells move into the defect and what kinds of cells they are. Immunohistochemical analyses of the wound sites revealed that the following two subsets of keratinocytes were the major contributors to reepithelialization: first, the cells at the forefront of the migrating epithelium, termed "leading edge cells," which expressed K14 keratin, known as basal cell-specific keratin, but not K6 or K10 keratins, so that they had probably moved from the basal cell layer; and, second, the cells tentatively termed "immature spinous cells," which expressed K14 and K6 but not K10, and formed an "ingrowth region" following the leading edge cells. These two kinds of cells moved to the open wound area, as a multilayered cell sheet.

Urinary levels of monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) and interleukin-8 (IL-8), and renal injuries in patients with type 2 diabetic nephropathy.

We examined the correlation among the levels of urinary monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) and interleukin-8 (IL-8), hyperglycemia, and renal injuries in patients with type 2 diabetic nephropathy. The levels of urinary MCP-1, IL-8, protein excretion, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), serum creatinine (s-Cr), glycohemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), and fasting plasma glucose (FPG) were measured in 24 patients with type 2 diabetic nephropathy and 14 healthy adults as controls. Diabetic nephropathy was classified into three stages: stage 1 = normoalbuminuric, stage 2 = microalbuminuric, and stage 3 = macroalbuminuric.