Developmental behavior

Wnt signaling is a crucial developmental pathway involved in early development as well as stem cell maintenance in adults and its misregulation leads to numerous diseases. Thus, understanding the regulation of this pathway becomes vitally important. Axin2 and Nkd1 are widely utilized negative feedback regulators in Wnt signaling where Axin2 functions to destabilize cytoplasmic β-catenin, and Nkd1 functions to inhibit the nuclear localization of β-catenin. Here, we set out to further understand how Axin2 and Nkd1 regulate Wnt signaling by creating axin2gh1/gh1 , nkd1gh2/gh2 single mutants and axin2gh1/gh1 ;nkd1gh2 /gh2 double mutant zebrafish using sgRNA/Cas9...

BACKGROUND: In recent years, an abundance of research has substantiated the escalating prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) on a global scale. The aim to assess the level of awareness regarding ASD among the Kazakhstan population, as well as their readiness to offer help to individuals affected by ASD. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted encompassing individuals aged 18 years and above, using both the Russian and Kazakh languages. The survey was administered through Google Forms during April to June 2023...

The existence of neural stem cells (NSCs) in the adult mammalian nervous system, although small in number and restricted to the sub-ventricular zone of the lateral ventricles, the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, and the olfactory epithelium, is a gift of evolution for the adaptive brain function which requires persistent plastic changes of these regions. It is known that most adult NSCs are latent, showing long cell cycles. In the past decade, the concept of quiescent NSCs (qNSCs) has been widely accepted by researchers in the field, and great progress has been made in the biology of qNSCs...

Despite policy emphasis on early identification, many children with Autism are diagnosed late, with some being diagnosed as late as adolescence. The objective of this study was to examine the demographics and clinical characteristics of school-age children and adolescents initially diagnosed with Autism age 7 and older, in an urban, university-affiliated multidisciplinary center that evaluates/treats youth with developmental disabilities. A chart review of all school-age children and adolescents referred for evaluation to determine if the child has developmental disabilities from January 2019 to May 2023 was performed...

Historically, much of the progress made in youth mental health research can be classified as focusing on externalizing problems , characterized by disruptive behavior (e.g. aggression, defiance), or internalizing problems , characterized by intense negative affect (e.g. depression, anxiety). Until recently, however, less attention has been given to topics that lie somewhere in between these domains, topics that we collectively refer to as the affective side of disruptive behavior . Like the far side of the moon, the affective side of disruptive behavior captures facets of the phenomenon that may be less obvious or commonly overlooked, but are nonetheless critical to understand...

BACKGROUND: At the beginning of 21st century, reclassification of fibrosing interstitial lung diseases (ILD) scored academic concerning, and then propelled development. Decade before, pifenidone and nintedanib were approved for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, but no more drugs are yet available. To evaluate the development traits of pirfenidone and nintedanib in fibrosing ILD, including the influential country, institution, authors, keywords, and the major problems or the priorities of the field emerge and evolve, bibliometric analysis was used to summarize and draw scientific knowledge maps...

Cave-adapted animals evolve a suite of regressive and constructive traits that allow survival in the dark. Most studies aiming at understanding cave animal evolution have focused on the genetics and environmental underpinnings of regressive traits, with special emphasis on vision loss. Possibly as a result of vision loss, other non-visual sensory systems have expanded and compensated in cave species. For instance, in many cave-dwelling fish species, including the blind cavefish of the Mexican tetra, Astyanax mexicanus , a major non-visual mechanosensory system called the lateral line, compensated for vision loss through morphological expansions...

Primatologists have a long-standing interest in the study of maternal care and nonmaternal handling (NH) of infants stemming from recognition that early social relationships can have enduring consequences. Though maternal care and NH often include expression of similar behaviors, they are regularly studied in isolation from each other with nonoverlapping terminology, thereby overlooking possible interplay between them and obfuscating potential developmental ramifications that ensue from trade-offs made between maternal (MH) and NH during infancy...

This study aimed to parse between-person heterogeneity in growth of impulsivity across childhood and adolescence among participants enrolled in five childhood preventive intervention trials targeting conduct problems. In addition, we aimed to test profile membership in relation to adult psychopathologies. Measurement items representing impulsive behavior across grades 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 10, and aggression, substance use, suicidal ideation/attempts, and anxiety/depression in adulthood were integrated from the five trials ( N = 4,975)...

Inhibitory control plays an important role in children's cognitive and socioemotional development, including their psychopathology. It has been established that contextual factors such as socioeconomic status (SES) and parents' psychopathology are associated with children's inhibitory control. However, the relations between the neural correlates of inhibitory control and contextual factors have been rarely examined in longitudinal studies. In the present study, we used both event-related potential (ERP) components and time-frequency measures of inhibitory control to evaluate the neural pathways between contextual factors, including prenatal SES and maternal psychopathology, and children's behavioral and emotional problems in a large sample of children ( N = 560; 51...

The purpose of this paper was to examine the physical, emotional, social and school functioning domains of quality of life of individuals with Fragile X Syndrome, in relation to mental health and sleep patterns to gain a better understanding of how these aspects are affected by the disorder. This study included 119 individuals with Fragile X Syndrome who were given different cognitive examinations by a neuropsychologist or by parent-proxy questionnaires. This study focused on the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQoL), the Anxiety, Depression and Mood Scale (ADAMS), the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ), but did include other cognitive tests (Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales, Nonverbal IQ, Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule)...

Interview with Mubarak Hussain Syed, who studies the developmental mechanisms regulating neural diversity, circuit assembly, and behavior at the University of New Mexico.

Peer cybervictimization and cyberaggression are educational and social concerns which have been extensively studied during adolescence but there is less research conducted specifically across all stages of adolescence (early, middle, late, and emerging adulthood). The objective was to analyse the prevalence of cybervictimization and cyberaggression, the roles, and the associated behaviors, depending on the stages of adolescence. The sample was composed of 7295 non-university Spanish adolescents, between 11 and 22 years old from 47 schools...

The emergence of the pointing gesture is a major developmental milestone in human infancy. Pointing fosters preverbal communication and is key for language and theory of mind development. Little is known about its ontogenetic origins and whether its pathway is similar across different cultures. The goal of this study was to examine the theoretical proposal that social pointing is preceded by a non-social use of the index finger and later becomes a social-communicative gesture. Moreover, the study investigated to which extent the emergence of social pointing differs cross-culturally...

Sex/gender differences in personality associated with gender stereotyped behavior are widely studied in psychology yet remain a subject of ongoing debate. Exposure to testosterone during developmental periods is considered to be a primary mediator of many sex/gender differences in behavior. Extensions of this research has led to both lay beliefs and initial research about individual differences in basal testosterone in adulthood relating to "masculine" personality. In this study, we explored the relationships between testosterone, gender identity, and gender stereotyped personality attributes in a sample of over 400 university students (65 % female assigned at birth)...

BACKGROUND: Cancer is a life-threatening, stressful event, particularly for young adults due to delays and disruptions in their developmental transitions. Cancer treatment can also cause adverse long-term effects, chronic conditions, psychological issues, and decreased quality of life (QoL) among young adults. Despite numerous health benefits of health behaviors (eg, physical activity, healthy eating, no smoking, no alcohol use, and quality sleep), young adult cancer survivors report poor health behavior profiles...

PURPOSE: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and autism are characterized by the presence of repetitive behaviors. Differentiating between repetitive behaviors attributable to a diagnosis of autism, and those attributable to OCD, poses challenges for differential and co-occurring diagnosis. Differentiation is important to inform appropriate supports and interventions for phenotypically similar but functionally distinct behaviors. In this systematic review, the quantitative literature was examined to explore the similarities and differences in repetitive behaviors (including restricted and repetitive behaviors and interests, and obsessive-compulsive behaviors) in autistic individuals and those with OCD, and those with co-occurring diagnoses, in terms of: (1) expression, (2) content, and (3) associated factors...

PURPOSE: Recent research has suggested that autism may present differently in girls compared to boys, encouraging the exploration of a sex-differential diagnostic criteria. Gender differences in diagnostic assessments have been shown on the ADOS-II, such that, on average, females score significantly lower than males on all scales and are less likely to show atypicality on most items related to social communicative difficulties. Yet, gender differences in the latent structure of instruments like the ADOS-II have not been examined systematically...

The current longitudinal study (n = 98) utilized a developmental cognitive neuroscience approach to examine whether and how variability in social perception is linked to social behavior in early human development. Cortical responses to processing dynamic faces were investigated using functional near-infrared spectroscopy at 7 months. Individual differences in sociability were measured using the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire at 18 months. Confirming previous work with infants and adults, functional near-infrared spectroscopy results show that viewing changing faces recruited superior temporal cortices in 7-month-old infants, adding to the view that this brain system is specialized in social perception from early in ontogeny...

Organisms utilize gene regulatory networks (GRN) to make fate decisions, but the regulatory mechanisms of transcription factors (TF) in GRNs are exceedingly intricate. A longstanding question in this field is how these tangled interactions synergistically contribute to decision-making procedures. To comprehensively understand the role of regulatory logic in cell fate decisions, we constructed a logic-incorporated GRN model and examined its behavior under two distinct driving forces (noise-driven and signal-driven)...