Microbiome function and neurodevelopment in Black infants: vitamin B12 emerges as a key factor.

The early life gut microbiome affects the developing brain, and therefore may serve as a target to support neurodevelopment of children living in stressful and under-resourced environments, such as Black youth living on the South Side of Chicago, for whom we observe racial disparities in health. Microbiome compositions/functions key to multiple neurodevelopmental facets have not been studied in Black children, a vulnerable population due to racial disparities in health; thus, a subsample of Black infants living in urban, low-income neighborhoods whose mothers participated in a prenatal nutrition study were recruited for testing associations between composition and function of the gut microbiome (16S rRNA gene sequencing, shotgun metagenomics, and targeted metabolomics of fecal samples) and neurodevelopment (developmental testing, maternal report of temperament, and observed stress regulation). Two microbiome community types, defined by high Lachnospiraceae or Enterobacteriaceae abundance, were discovered in this cohort from 16S rRNA gene sequencing analysis; the Enterobacteriaceae-dominant community type was significantly negatively associated with cognition and language scores, specifically in male children. Vitamin B12 biosynthesis emerged as a key microbiome function from shotgun metagenomics sequencing analysis, showing positive associations with all measured developmental skills (i.e., cognition, language, motor, surgency, effortful control, and observed stress regulation). Blautia spp. also were identified as substantial contributors of important microbiome functions, including vitamin B12 biosynthesis and related vitamin B12-dependent microbiome functions, anti-inflammatory microbial surface antigens, competitive mechanisms against pathobionts, and production of antioxidants. The results are promising with respect to the potential for exploring therapeutic candidates, such as vitamin B12 nutritional or Blautia spp. probiotic supplementation, to support the neurodevelopment of infants at risk for experiencing racial disparities in health.

Depression screening may not capture significant sources of prenatal stress for Black women.

Exposure to stress during pregnancy, including depression, has a significant impact on maternal health. Black women experience varied stressors that impact pregnancy outcomes. Although the move to engage in universal screening of women for depression is a positive step toward improving women's health, it has been deployed without a comprehensive examination of its utility for capturing exposure to other stressors with known associations with perinatal and neonatal health problems for Black women such as discrimination stress. In the present study, we examine the overlap between several sources of stress and a positive screen on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) in Black pregnant women. Data were gathered from a study examining the effects of stress on prenatal health (N = 168). Discrimination stress, structural and systemic racism stress, perceived stress, and partner abuse were measured using standardized questionnaires during pregnancy. Using a score of ≥ 13 to indicate probable depression the sensitivity of the EPDS to identify women who experienced high levels of discrimination stress (41.7%), structural and systemic racism (39.5%), perceived stress (63.4%), and partner abuse (45.2%) was suboptimal. Lowering the threshold for a positive screen on the EPDS to a score of 10 improved sensitivity but did not solve the problem of under-identification of women whose health is at risk. The focus on depression screening for pregnant women should be re-considered. A screening toolkit that more rigorously and broadly assesses risk and need for support and intervention is needed to improve perinatal health outcomes for Black women.

Maternal socialization of emotion and the development of emotion regulation in early adolescent girls.

Regulation of negative emotions is a core competency of child development. Parental emotion socialization profoundly influences later capacity to regulate negative affect in childhood and adolescence. The present study examined the effects of maternal emotion socialization on the development of emotion regulation in the context of a longitudinal study of 210 mother-daughter dyads. Dyads completed a conflict resolution task when the child was age 11 years during which maternal warmth and hostility were coded. At ages 11 to 13 years, mothers completed self-report measures of supportive and nonsupportive responses to child negative emotion, and children completed self-reports of inhibition and adaptive regulation of sadness and anger. We used latent growth curve modeling to estimate changes in inhibition and adaptive regulation of sadness and anger over time; observed maternal warmth and hostility were included as time-invariant covariates and maternal self-report of supportive and nonsupportive responses were included as time-varying covariates. Observed maternal warmth was positively associated with girls' adaptive regulation of anger and sadness at age 11 years. Maternal self-reported supportive responses to girls' negative affect were positively associated with girls' adaptive regulation of anger, and nonsupportive responses were negatively associated with adaptive regulation of anger and sadness. These findings support the role of maternal emotion socialization and indicate specific effects of maternal warmth and supportive responses in the development of girls' capacity to modulate negative emotions during early adolescence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Delicious and difficult to resist?: Inhibitory control differs in young women after exposure to food and non-food commercials.

Unhealthy food marketing, a ubiquitous food stimulus, may impact response inhibition, making it more difficult to maintain healthy eating behaviors. Individuals with disordered eating may be particularly susceptible to altered inhibition responses to food stimuli, making them more vulnerable to unhealthy food marketing, which could perpetuate their disordered eating behaviors. The present study examined response inhibition following exposure to food commercials in young women who reported either high levels of disordered eating (HEC) or low/no disordered eating (LEC) (N = 27; age: M = 19.28, SD = 1.01) by measuring event related potentials (ERPs) during a stop-signal task embedded with food stimuli. Results indicated that participants had significantly higher accuracy on stop trials displaying unhealthy food stimuli than trials displaying healthy food stimuli after viewing non-food commercials but displayed no difference after viewing food commercials. LEC individuals displayed a smaller N200/P300 amplitude in response to food stimuli on the stop-signal task after watching food commercials as compared to non-food commercials, but this difference did not exist for HEC individuals. Results indicate that unhealthy food commercials may impact behavioral and electrophysiological correlates of response inhibition evoked by food stimuli in young women, and individuals with disordered eating might actually be less responsive to food marketing than those without disordered eating.

Binge eating, but not dietary restraint, moderates the association between unhealthy food marketing exposure and sugary food consumption.

Restrained eaters, those who exercise dietary restraint and often experience dietary lapses, may be particularly susceptible to food marketing. Findings are mixed as to whether restrained eaters consume more food after exposure to unhealthy food marketing, and little is known about whether food marketing may have more impact on those who exercise successful dietary restraint as compared with those who experience dietary lapses, such as binge eating. In the current study, participants were 38 young women, ages 18-22 years old. Both dietary restraint and binge eating were measured by the Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire. Participants viewed both unhealthy food commercials and non-food commercials two separate times in the laboratory, and ad libitum candy intake was subsequently measured. Results indicated that participants who endorsed binge eating ate significantly more candy than those who did not endorse binge eating after they viewed unhealthy food commercials F (1, 35) = 20.49, p < .001, η2 = 0.37, but not after viewing non-food commercials. No significant differences in candy eaten emerged when comparing those who endorsed dietary restraint as compared to those who did not, regardless of commercial type. Findings demonstrate the importance of specific operational definitions of restrained eating to consider the differences between those who report binge eating, and those who do not. They also suggest that individuals who engage in binge eating may be particularly susceptible to overeating in response to unhealthy food marketing, marking a possible area for intervention.

[Artificial reproductive techniques: comparison of embryo transfer on day two or day three]. / Transfer w 2 lub 3 dobie hodowli--porównanie wyników laboratoryjnych i klinicznych.

OBJECTIVES: Due to the lack of adequate media which could support embryo in vitro development in early IVF procedure day 2 transfer has been a dominated procedure. However, day 3 transfers more physiological to in vivo conditions and may pre-select embryos with better prognosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A studied group was 131 infertile couples subjected to classical IVF or ICSI in proportion, and day 2 transfer was performed in 67 cycles, while day 3 transfer in 64 cycles. Average age of both groups was comparable--around 31 years of age. In all cycles the long protocol of stimulation was applied. For in vitro culture--MediCult (Denmark) medium was employed. RESULTS: There were no statistical differences in proportion of class A to B embryos in a group with day 2 transfer (respectively: 65.2% and 30.4%) and in a group with day 3 transfer (respectively: 63.5% and 30.8% for A and B embryos). Similar rates of pregnancies per cycle were obtained--25.4% and 25.0% respectively for day 2 and day 3 transfer. There were also no statistical differences in implantation rate per cycle (28% and 27% respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Performed analysis did not allow to indicate statistical significant differences in laboratory and clinical data for both studied groups. However, retrospective study does not exclude subjective criteria that could be applied to individual will of the patient regarding a day of transfer.