Developmental Psychobiology

Interparental conflict and parental stress are well-established risk factors for child psychopathology, including elevated internalizing and externalizing symptoms. From a family systems framework, these stressors may spill over into the parent-child relationship, undermining emotional attachment and co-regulation processes central to childrens mental health. Neural synchrony, defined as the dynamic, mutual alignment of brain activity between a parent and child, offers a biological index of these dyadic processes. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy, researchers have shown that greater neural synchrony (NS) in prefrontal brain regions is associated with more attuned caregiving and positive child adjustment. Yet, NS is not uniform; it varies across dyads in pattern and regional distribution, potentially reflecting differences in relational dynamics, regulation, or stress exposure. To capture this heterogeneity, we used latent profile analysis to identify distinct synchrony patterns along the right and left ventrolateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices during the DB-DOS:Biosynch - a mild stress, three-context task. We further examined whether interparental conflict and perceived parental stress predicted profile membership, and whether childrens internalizing and externalizing behaviors differed by profile. Among 194 dyads, two profiles emerged: lower baseline synchrony (LB; n = 132) and higher baseline synchrony (HB; n = 62). Greater interparental conflict reduced the odds of membership in HB, while parental stress was not predictive of profile membership. Additionally, children in LB exhibited higher levels of internalizing behaviors compared to HB, with no group differences observed for externalizing behaviors. These findings underscore the value of capturing synchrony heterogeneity in understanding family stress and child psychopathology.

There is a growing body of research emphasizing the role of social and endogenous motivations in human development. The present study evaluated canonical babbling across the second-half year of life using all-day recordings of 98 infants participating in a longitudinal study. Canonical babbling ratios were calculated from human coding along with Likert-scale ratings on vocal turn taking and vocal play in each segment. Ratios across all infants were significantly elevated during high turn taking and also during high vocal play. We conclude that both social and endogenous motivations may drive infants tendencies to produce their most advanced vocal forms.

Compared to full-term (FT) born peers, children who were born very preterm (VPT; <32 weeks gestation) are likely to display more cognitive and behavioural difficulties, including inattention, anxiety and socio-communication problems. In the published literature, such difficulties tend to be studied independently, thus failing to account for how different aspects of child development interact. The current study aimed to investigate childrens cognitive and behavioural outcomes as interconnected, dynamically related facets of development that influence one another. Participants were 93 VPT and 55 FT children (median age 8.79 years). IQ was evaluated with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - 4th edition (WISC-IV), autism spectrum condition (ASC) traits with the Social Responsiveness Scale - 2nd edition (SRS-2), behavioural and emotional problems with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), temperament with the Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire (TMCQ) and executive function with the Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning (BRIEF-2). Outcome measures were studied in VPT and FT children using Network Analysis, a method that graphically represents partial correlations between variables and yields information on each variables propensity to form a bridge between other variables. Results showed that VPT and FT children exhibited marked topological differences. Bridges (i.e., the variables most connected to others) in the VPT group network were: SDQ Conduct Problems scale and BRIEF-2 Organisation of Materials scale. In the FT group network, the most important bridges were: the BRIEF-2 Initiate, SDQ Emotional Problems and SDQ Prosocial Behaviours scales. These findings highlight the importance of targeting different aspects of development to support VPT and FT children in person-based interventions.

Research has demonstrated the transdiagnostic importance of irritability in psychopathology pathways but the contribution of developmentally-unfolding patterns has only recently been explored. To address this question, irritability patterns of 110 youth from a large and diverse early childhood cohort were assessed at preschool age and at school age ([~]2.5 years later) with a dimensional irritability scale designed to capture the normal:abnormal spectrum. Participants then returned at Pre-adolescence ([~]6 years later) for an assessment with a structured clinical interview (internalizing/externalizing symptoms) and a magnetic resonance imaging scan. When only preschool age irritability was considered, this was a transdiagnostic predictor of internalizing and externalizing symptoms. However, a model including both preschool and school age irritability provided a more nuanced picture. A high preschool and decreasing school age profile of irritability predicted elevated pre-adolescence internalizing symptoms, potentially reflecting emerging coping/internalizing behavior in pre-adolescence. In contrast, a stable irritability profile across these timepoints predicted increased pre-adolescence externalizing symptoms. Further, preschool irritability (a period of rapid growth) did not predict pre-adolescent gray matter volume abnormality, an indicator of transdiagnostic clinical risk. However, irritability at school age (when gray matter volume growth is largely finished) demonstrated an interactive effect among regions; increased school age irritability predicted reduced volume in pre-adolescence emotional regions (e.g., amygdala, medial orbitofrontal cortex) and increased volume in other regions (e.g., cerebellum). Expanding the impact of RDoCs approach yielding transdiagnostic phenotypes and multiple units of analysis, a developmentally informed approach provides critical new insights into the complex unfolding of mechanisms underlying emerging psychopathology.

IntroductionEarly language development in infants is being increasingly studied, though only recently with direct measurements of brain activity rather than with behavioral or physiological measurements. In the current study, we use electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings of 2-week-old infants to look for signs of prenatal learning and to investigate newborns abilities to process language. We also look at the influence of prenatal stress factors and at the predictive value of the newborns language processing abilities for later language development. MethodsSixty pregnant women played a rhyme to their abdomen twice a day from the 34th week of pregnancy until birth, to familiarize the fetus with the rhyme. At around 2 weeks after delivery (mean age 16 days), the newborns were exposed to the familiar rhyme as well as to an unfamiliar one while their EEG was recorded. Additionally, three manipulations of the familiar rhyme were played: (1) low-pass filtered, (2) with changed rhythm, and (3) inverted and played backwards. The data was analyzed to see how well the infant brain signal followed the speech envelope in each condition. Accounting for the heterogenous approach used for neural speech tracking in the literature, we used four methods, namely: (1) coherence, (2) Hilbert coherence, (3) temporal response functions (TRF), and (4) mutual information (MI). The maternal prenatal depression was evaluated with Edinburgh Prenatal Depression Score and the chronic fetal stress was measured from the hair cortisol levels of the 2 week-olds. The language development at 6 months of age was evaluated with the Bayley Scales. Results and discussionOverall, the results indicate the presence of prenatal learning, with the unfamiliar rhyme eliciting stronger cortical tracking (higher coherence and MI) than the familiar rhyme, which suggests stronger brain-to-speech coupling for the unfamiliar rhyme, perhaps deriving from more effort to process the unexpected stimulus. However, the original version of the familiar rhyme proved to be the easiest to track compared to the language- and rhythm-manipulations, (higher MI for the original rhyme than the language manipulation and higher coherence and mTRF correlation coefficients for the original rhyme than the rhythm manipulation). This indicates language discrimination and a prosodic-based learning of the familiar rhyme. Furthermore, there is an indication of phonotactic sensitivity at this young age, with less tracking (lower Hilbert coherence and lower mTRF correlation coefficients) of the low-pass filtered rhyme than the original version, indicating that the phonological cues erased by the filtering were important for the newborns ability to follow the rhyme. Furthermore, the mothers depression scores positively correlated with the infants tracking ability for the familiar rhyme. This suggests that a slightly lower mood was more stimulative for the fetal language development. The chronic fetal stress levels, however, were negatively correlated with the cortical tracking abilities. Importantly, the newborns cortical tracking was positively correlated with the infants language development at 6 months of age, underlining the predictive value of the early assessment of language processing. ConclusionPrenatal learning is well established, but evidence including (healthy) brain data in the first weeks of life is scarce. The current study shows that newborns can discriminate between a familiar and unfamiliar rhyme, while also highlighting the role of prosody in early language processing, and bringing new evidence of their sensitivity to phonotactic cues in auditory stimuli. Furthermore, the newborns ability to track a rhyme is correlated with their language development at 6 months. The newborns cortical tracking of the familiar rhyme is further increased by moderately low maternal mood, but decreased by fetal stress. Future studies with similar fine-grained linguistic designs but of older infants should teach us the timeline of what exactly is learned prenatally and at very early age in respect to language.

Early life stress (ELS) in primates alters dopamine function, contributing to addiction, hyperactivity, cognitive deficits, aggression, and social subordinance. To assess whether dopamine receptor densities are affected by ELS, male juvenile rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) were either mother-reared (MR, N=6) in a semi-natural environment or nursery-reared (NR, N=6) with peers in a laboratory. At 1 [1/2] years of age, subjects were sacrificed and the left prefrontal cortex (PFC), striatum (caudate and putamen), nucleus accumbens (NAcc), and claustrum (CLA) were explored through quantitative autoradiographic studies of dopamine receptor-1 (DRD1) and -2 (DRD2) conducted using [125I]-(+)-SCH 23982 and 125I-Epidepride, which have high affinity and selectivity for DRD1 and DRD2, respectively. No group differences emerged in striatal or NAcc receptor binding. However, MR monkeys exhibited significantly greater DRD1 binding in the left orbital PFC and significantly greater DRD2 binding in both the left medial PFC and right CLA compared to NR. These findings implicate the medial PFC (stress vulnerability, cognition), orbital PFC (reward valuation), and CLA (anxiety modulation) as critical sites disrupted by maternal deprivation. Therefore, we propose that nursery-rearing induces a hypodopaminergic prefrontal-claustral ecophenotype, underlying the cognitive, affective, and social impairments observed in NR monkeys.

Brain age and biological age, estimated using machine learning models with brain imaging and biological features, have emerged as promising biomarkers for predicting a broad range of health outcomes in adults. However, very few studies have examined the counterpart of brain age and biological age in children, that is Brain Development Index (BRDI) and Biological Development Index (BIDI). Existing studies on BRDI and BIDI are largely cross-sectional and do not provide adequate information on their temporal trajectory and predictive power for future health outcomes in children. Additionally, the interconnectedness of BRDI and BIDI across multiple health domains, especially child-specific developmental outcomes, remains underexplored. Our study utilized brain imaging features and blood-based biomarkers from the Adolescent Brain and Child Development (ABCD) study to assess the trajectory of BRDI and BIDI over multiple time points. We examined their relationships with physical, mental, and academic health outcomes. Lastly, we utilize Bayesian network analysis to examine the relationship between the two indexes and their subcomponents. We found that delayed BRDI and BIDI were significantly associated with adverse future health outcomes across several domains. In addition, Bayesian network analysis revealed BRDI and BIDI subcomponents influence one another across different organ systems. Additionally, males exhibited more advanced BRDI, while females showed more advanced BIDI, revealing important sex differences in adolescent development. This research provides the first comprehensive analysis of BRDI and BIDI trajectories, revealing their predictive power for future health outcomes and offering new insights into the interconnected development of brain and biological systems in children.

The ability to differentiate between different facial expressions is an important part of human social and emotional development that begins in infancy. Studies have shown that within the first year of life, infants develop a distinctive attentional bias towards fearful facial expressions. Investigations into the neural basis for this bias have highlighted the significance of the amygdala. The amygdalas role in directing attention towards fearful facial expressions underscores its importance in early emotional development, significantly influencing how infants interpret and react to facial expressions. To date, no studies have been conducted to investigate the associations between the amygdala microstructure and infants perception of emotional faces. This study aimed to elucidate this relationship while also investigating whether this association is sex specific. We measured the amygdala microstructural properties using diffusion tensor imaging mean diffusivity (MD) measurements in 40 healthy infants aged 2 to 5 weeks. Eye tracking was used to assess attention disengagement from fearful vs. non-fearful (happy and neutral) facial expressions as well as scrambled non-face control picture at 8 months. Generally, infants were age-typically less likely to disengage from fearful faces than from non-fearful faces towards salient distractors. A significant negative association was observed between the right amygdala MD measures and disengagement probability from fearful faces in the overall sample. Moreover, there was a positive association between the bilateral amygdala MD measures and the disengagement probability from scrambled non-face control picture in girls. These results indicate that the amygdala MD is associated with attention disengagement processes already in infancy, both in fear processing and in non-emotional conditions. Specifically, these findings highlight the role of the amygdala microstructure in modulating attentional processes, which may have implications for emotional regulation and susceptibility to emotional dysregulation later in life.

Preterm birth is associated with alterations in early caregiver-infant regulation, with potential consequences for socio-emotional and physiological development. However, the mechanisms through which early interactional experience shapes these processes remain unclear. Here, we tested whether a structured dyadic intervention could modify co-regulatory dynamics across physiological, behavioral, and relational levels. Fifty-four 7-month-old preterm infants and their parents were assigned to either a shared book reading intervention (n = 22) or an active control condition based on a shared building activity (n = 32) and compared with 39 full-term infants. The intervention consisted of an 8-week program of shared book reading, designed to structure parent-infant interaction. Physiological synchrony was assessed at the dyadic level, alongside infants autonomic regulation and cardiovascular signal complexity. Behavioral engagement and parental attachment representations were also evaluated. Results showed that mother-infant physiological synchrony emerged selectively within the interactional context trained by the intervention and only in the intervention group. This context-specific synchrony was accompanied by modulation of vagal activity and increased cardiovascular complexity in preterm infants, consistent with enhanced flexibility of autonomic control. At the behavioral and relational levels, intervention infants showed increased initiating joint attention, while parents reported higher secure attachment. These findings support a model of experience-dependent early synchrony, in which repeated dyadic interaction through shared book reading shapes the coupling between interpersonal coordination and individual physiological regulation. By linking synchrony, autonomic flexibility, and social engagement, this study identifies a mechanism through which early caregiving experience can organize developmental trajectories following prematurity.

This study evaluates the association between ambient temperature exposure during pregnancy and newborn birthweight, using a penalized generalized additive model (GAM) framework with distributed lag non-linear models (DLNM) to identify sensitive windows of exposure. The analysis includes 238 participants from the SHIP study with complete temperature exposure and birthweight data. Weekly maximum temperatures during pregnancy were estimated using Daymet data, and the impact of temperature on birthweight was assessed, adjusting for maternal age, pre-pregnancy BMI, gestational age, race, smoking, diabetes status, and infant biological sex. The model incorporated a crossbasis function for temperature exposure across 42 gestational weeks and allowed penalization for smoother, data-driven lag estimation. Results from the combined-sex model indicated that higher ambient temperatures during the third trimester, particularly in the final weeks of pregnancy, were associated with increased birthweight. Stratified analyses suggested that this association was more pronounced in male infants. These findings highlight the importance of considering prenatal temperature exposures and timing when evaluating determinants of newborn health.

In humans, the first year of life is characterized by rapid developmental changes, including substantial brain maturation. As a result, neural responses to auditory stimuli undergo marked changes during this period. In this study, we followed 69 infants across their first year of life and recorded high-density electroencephalography (hdEEG) at 2 weeks, 6 months, and 12 months postpartum. Infants were presented with pure beep tones to examine the development of neural responses to auditory stimulation. We analysed event-related potentials (ERPs), inter-trial phase coherence (ITPC), and time-frequency (TF) responses to the beep tones and controlled for arousal state during stimulus presentation. We found that with increasing age, neural responses became more pronounced and showed reduced trial-to-trial variability. Phase synchronization increased from 2 weeks to later developmental stages in a broad low-frequency range (0 to 11 Hz), indicating improved temporal alignment of brain responses over time. However, phase synchronization decreased from 6 to 12 months, suggesting a developmental transition towards more differentiated brain activity. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that auditory maturation during the first year of life follows a non-linear trajectory driven by dynamic changes in neural synchronization, reflecting the progressive refinement of functional neural circuits. Our results thus provide a critical benchmark for understanding the neural dynamics underlying sensory development during this period. Impact StatementLongitudinal high-density EEG recordings reveal that neural responses to auditory stimuli undergo non-linear developmental changes during the first year of life, driven by dynamic shifts in neural synchronization that reflect progressive refinement of auditory neural processing.

Both vocalization and gesture are universal modes of communication and fundamental features of language development. Many believe that language evolved out of early gestural use; however, evidence reported here suggests vocalization precedes gesture in human communication and forms the predominant foundation for language. To our knowledge no prior research has investigated the rates of emergence of both gesture and vocalization in human infants to evaluate this question. We evaluated the rates of gesture and speech-like vocalizations (protophones) of 10 infants at 4, 7, and 11 months of age using parent-infant laboratory recordings. We found that infant protophones outnumbered gestures substantially at all three ages, ranging from >30 times more protophones than gestures at 3 months, to more than twice as many protophones as gestures at 11 months. The results suggest that vocalization is the predominant mode of communication in human infants from the beginning of life.

Facial attractiveness plays a central role in first impressions, social interactions, and romantic relationships, yet remains difficult to quantify objectively due to its subjective and socially shaped nature. In the present study, we examined whether facial attractiveness and its modulation by social information can be captured using functional infrared thermal imaging (fITI). Participants rated the attractiveness of faces that were randomly preceded by an autism label. Although such labels influenced explicit attractiveness judgments, particularly among male participants, they did not modulate facial thermal responses. Instead, nose temperature systematically increased or decreased when participants rated faces as attractive or unattractive, respectively. Notably, temperature differences emerged several seconds after image onset, and for female faces, mean attractiveness ratings positively correlated with changes in nose temperature. Together, these findings reveal a dissociation between socially shaped explicit evaluations and autonomic physiological responses, highlighting the potential of fITI as a fully non-invasive tool for capturing implicit affective engagement with facial attractiveness.

Although female rats are typically less aggressive than male rats, lactating females will vigorously defend their nests and pups against an intruder. Much attention has been directed at the consequences of this aggression on the intruder and less on the consequences for the mother and her subsequent interactions with her pups. Here, we exposed resident Sprague-Dawley dams to the resident-intruder paradigm twice daily for five consecutive days, beginning when the dam's (RES) pups were 7 days old, to assess social stress effects on maternal behavior and neurobiology. Controls were dams that had time-matched (TMC) separation from their pups but were not exposed to intruders, and naive moms which were never separated nor exposed to an intruder (CTL). We assessed the dam's subsequent behavior and interactions with her pups on Day 1 and Day 5, and Fos expression after Day 5 in select regions of the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hypothalamus and periaqueductal gray of the midbrain. In separate cohorts, after pups were weaned, the dams underwent restraint stress and plasma corticosterone assayed. PCA analysis of the dam's behaviors identified three components: normal self-focused behaviors; nurturing behaviors and rough non-nurturing behaviors. Relative to CTL, RES dams exhibited more disrupted behaviors towards their pups, including, rough transport, stepping on pups, and flinging/tossing pups around the cage. In contrast, TMC Dams showed some, but fewer changes relative to CTL, suggesting that separation from pups alone does not account for all disrupted behavior in RES dams. The bulk of these behavioral effects occurred in the first 5-10 min after reunion with the pups and were seen on both the first and fifth day of testing. Of the brain regions examined, the prefrontal cortex was activated by both the defeat/intruder stress (RES) and separation stress (TMC), whereas the dorsal PAG was activated specifically by the defeat/intruder stress. The medial and basolateral amygdala exhibited differential neuronal activity between the RES defeat/intruder-exposed dams and the other two groups. The RES moms exhibited an insufficient adrenocortical response to acute restraint stress. The results suggest that amygdala-dPAG activity is important for dissociating disrupted maternal care in RES (due to defense of the nest against an intruder) from simple pup separation, both of which activate the mPFC. The experience of repeatedly defending the nest may induce subsequent disruptions in HPA responses. The amygdala-dPAG pathway may regulate aspects of stress and emotional regulation exhibited by mothers who defend their offspring against intruders.

The hypothalamus plays a central role in integrating physiological stressors to maintain homeostasis, yet how fetal neurodevelopment in the hypothalamus is shaped by intrauterine maternal stress exposure remains understudied. This is especially true in the context of sex-divergent mechanisms underlying neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), which are increasingly being linked to perturbation of the intrauterine environment. Herein, we utilize a mouse model of prenatal maternal cold stress exposure to study the impacts on neural stem and progenitor cell (NSPC) developmental programs in the fetal hypothalamus. Pregnant mice were exposed to cold stress from embryonic day 11.5 (E11.5) to E15.5 and fetal hypothalamic NSPCs from both male and female embryos were analyzed. Maternal stress induced sex-specific effects in the fetal hypothalamus, increasing TUJ1+ neuron number in males, while enhancing neuronal dendritic arborization in females. To define underlying molecular changes, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing of hypothalamic NSPCs. Interestingly, we identified distinct baseline transcriptional profiles between male and female NSPCs and found that maternal stress shifts female NSPCs toward a more male-like transcriptional state. In females, maternal stress upregulated pathways related to GABAergic differentiation and neuronal projection morphogenesis, with these alterations maintained across more differentiated neuronal populations. Ligand-receptor analysis further indicated that maternal stress alters cell-cell communication within NSPCs, predominantly in females. Together, these findings demonstrate that prenatal maternal stress drives sex-specific alterations in hypothalamic NSPC developmental programs and suggest that disrupted intercellular signaling may contribute to underlying sex differences in social behaviors previously reported for this model (Rosin et al., 2021). SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTPrenatal stress is a known risk factor for NDDs, but how it shapes early brain development in a sex-specific manner remains understudied. Here, we examined how maternal stress influences NSPCs in the hypothalamus, a brain region critical for regulating the stress response and homeostasis. Using mice as a model system, we found that maternal stress alters how fetal NSPCs develop into neurons in a sex-specific manner. Molecular analyses suggest that maternal stress shifts female NSPCs to become more male-like and alters cell-cell communication. This work advances our understanding of how prenatal maternal stress drives sex differences in neurodevelopmental programming and may help to begin to explain sex-biased vulnerabilities to NDDs.

While humans cooperate with unrelated individuals to an extent that far outstrips any other species, we also display extreme variation in decisions about whether to cooperate or not. A diversity of cognitive, affective, social, and physiological mechanisms interact to shape these decisions. For example, group membership, shared intentionality talk (i.e. talk about shared goals), and natural initial oxytocin levels affect cooperation in adults in an optimal foraging paradigm that is loosely modelled on the iterated prisoners dilemma. In this egg hunt, shared intentionality talk was key to achieve cooperation, and it occurred more between participants who shared the same group membership and had higher initial oxytocin levels. Such complex interactions raise the question of the age at which humans develop the necessary mechanisms to cooperate effectively in the egg hunt game. Here, we tested children in secondary school aged between 10 and 14 years. We found that, as for adults, shared intentionality talk was crucial for successful cooperation. Furthermore, initial oxytocin levels affected cooperation through shared intentionality talk. In contrast, group membership did not affect behaviour. Finally, pre- and post-experiment oxytocin levels showed various interactions with group membership and gender. Thus, childrens performance was relatively similar to adults while showing some differences with respect to underlying mechanisms. Our study is a rare contribution to further our understanding of the role of oxytocin in early adolescent social behaviour.

Synchrony in developmental science reflects the coordination of mother and child to the same mental state. Mentalisation processes are influenced by individual attachment styles. A mother with an anxious-related attachment style tends to engage in emotional mentalisation that relies on her childs social cues. During an everyday joint activity of watching television shows together, we hypothesised that anxiously-attached mothers are less able to match their mental state to characters in the shows as their attention is likely detracted from the show and directed towards the child. We predict that this mismatch in mothers and childs emotional states would be reflected in reduced dyadic brain-to-brain synchrony. To test this hypothesis, we profiled mothers Maternal Anxiety score using the Preoccupation and Need for Approval subscales of the Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ) and used functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning with 33 mother-child dyads to measure prefrontal cortex (PFC) synchrony while the dyads watched three 1-min animation videos together. Greater Maternal Anxiety is associated with less synchrony in the medial right prefrontal cluster implicated in mentalisation processes. Anxiously-attached mothers appear to exhibit less brain-to-brain synchrony with their child which suggests differences in intersubjective shared experiences that potentially undermines the quality of bonding during everyday joint activities.

ObjectiveThis study aims to examine the relationship between 24-h movement behaviors (MBs) and executive function (EF) in preschool children. MethodsA total of 266 preschool children participated in this study. Physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB) were measured using an accelerometer (ActiGraph GT3X-BT), sleep duration was assessed using sleep logs, and EF was evaluated using the Early Years Toolbox. Compositional data analysis was employed to explore associations among the three movement behaviors. Results(1) The relative distribution of 24-h MBs was significantly associated with inhibition, shifting, and updating (all p < 0.001), with a model explanatory power > 10%. The explanatory power was the highest for inhibition (16.3%). (2) After adjusting for other MBs, SB was negatively associated with inhibition ({gamma}12 = -0.11, p < 0.001), shifting ({gamma}12 = -1.45, p = 0.001), and updating ({gamma}12 = -0.58, p = 0.004). In contrast, sleep (SP) was positively associated with shifting ({gamma}11 = 1.60, p = 0.020). (3) When 15 min/day of SB was isotemporally substituted with SP, inhibition scores increased by 0.003, and shifting scores increased by 0.064; conversely, replacing SP with SB resulted in a significant decline. ConclusionThe relative distribution of 24-h MBs significantly predicted EF in preschool children. Among MBs, SB and SP were most strongly associated with EF. Shifting SB toward SP may effectively improve EF performance, particularly shifting ability.

PurposeCarbamazepine (CBZ) is widely used in the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia, affective disorders, and mainly as an anticonvulsant, specially by fertile women, due to their need to continuously use CBZ during pregnancy and the lactation period. CBZ crosses the placenta barrier and may impair pregnancy and the embryonic development. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of CBZ on maternal reproductive outcome, besides fetal growth and development in Wistar rats. MethodsRat dams received CBZ (20mg/Kg/day) or propylene glycol (vehicle) via intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection throughout the gestational period. On the 19th day of gestation, the ovary and uterine contents were examined, and the placenta and fetuses were analyzed. ResultsThe CBZ exposure during pregnancy caused a reduction in fetal weight, fetal weight classification, and crown-rump distance. CBZ also decreased the implantation index, average number of corpora lutea, fetal weights and crown-rump length and increased the pre and post-implantation loss rate. The CBZ-exposed fetus also presented external congenital malformations. ConclusionThe results suggest that maternal exposure to CBZ interfered on several maternal reproductive outcomes and can cause severe fetal intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR).

The development of face processing system is paramount for social interaction and communication skills. Eye-tracking provides a viable means to investigate face processing even in very young children and can be used to derive indices of affective processing biases that are adaptive in supporting preparedness for emotional encoding. The neural correlates of early-emerging attentional biases have not been explored. In the current study, we gathered diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and eye-tracking data (attention disengagement from neutral, happy, fearful faces, and control pictures towards distractor stimuli) to investigate the association of white matter (WM) microstructural alterations and attentional biases in 117 (55 female) typically developing 5-year-old children. We estimated fractional anisotropy (FA) and used tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) before conducting voxel-wise analyses testing associations between attentional biases and brain diffusivity. We found that reduced WM integrity (indexed as decrease in FA) in widespread WM regions, including the splenium of corpus callosum, left anterior limb of internal capsule (ALIC), left posterior limb of internal capsule (PLIC), left posterior thalamic radiation and optic tract, predicted higher attentional bias toward fearful expressions in females (adjusted for potential confounders). Further, maternal postnatal anxiety and depressive symptoms were detected to associate positively with attentional bias toward fearful expression, but only in females. Based on these findings and prior results on association between maternal distress and reduced WM integrity in female offspring, it is possible that alterations in WM microstructure may transmit the long-term effects of maternal mental distress during early life to increased vigilance towards negative emotional expressions. These hypotheses and sexual dimorphism in the observed associations require replication and are potential focus areas for future studies.