Temperament, parenting, mental disorders, life stressors and help-seeking behavior of Asian adolescent suicide attempters: A case control study.

Purpose: The need to elucidate risk factors for adolescent suicide is urgent, as suicide consistently ranks among the top causes of death globally. Understanding suicide risk factors could inform more effective interventions. Previous studies have identified certain risk factors associated with suicide, but there is a paucity of research among adolescent and multi-ethnic Asian populations. Materials and methods: This case-control study sampled 13-to-19-year-old Asian adolescents who had attempted suicide (N = 60) and controls (N = 58) matched by age, ethnicity and gender at group-level (73.7% female). Life stressors, temperament, parenting style, mental health conditions and help-seeking behavior were examined. Results: All domains of life stress apart from emerging adult responsibility were higher among cases than controls, especially home life, peer pressure and romantic relationships. Suicide attempters tended to avoid new situations, be less adaptable to changes, have a negative outlook and irregular sleep-wake cycle. Additionally, they perceived their parents to be significantly more aggressive, neglecting, rejecting and cold, while parents' perceptions of their own parenting were only significantly different in the domain of parental neglect. Cases were more likely to exhibit disorders of disruptive behavior, eating, mood, anxiety, symptoms of schizophrenia and experience of disturbing events. Significant differences were also found for 10 out of 12 Axis II disorders, particularly borderline, depressive, and avoidant personality disorder traits. No significant case-control differences were found regarding overall rates of help-seeking. Conclusion: Findings from this study may help in suicide prevention efforts through more tailored interventions.

Reduced physiological plasticity in a fish adapted to stable temperatures.

Plasticity can allow organisms to maintain consistent performance across a wide range of environmental conditions. However, it remains largely unknown how costly plasticity is and whether a trade-off exists between plasticity and performance under optimal conditions. Biological rates generally increase with temperature, and to counter that effect, fish use physiological plasticity to adjust their biochemical and physiological functions. Zebrafish in the wild encounter large daily and seasonal temperature fluctuations, suggesting they should display high physiological plasticity. Conversely, laboratory zebrafish have been at optimal temperatures with low thermal fluctuations for over 150 generations. We treated this domestication as an evolution experiment and asked whether this has reduced the physiological plasticity of laboratory fish compared to their wild counterparts. We measured a diverse range of phenotypic traits, from gene expression through physiology to behavior, in wild and laboratory zebrafish acclimated to 15 temperatures from 10 °C to 38 °C. We show that adaptation to the laboratory environment has had major effects on all levels of biology. Laboratory fish show reduced plasticity and are thus less able to counter the direct effects of temperature on key traits like metabolic rates and thermal tolerance, and this difference is detectable down to gene expression level. Rapid selection for faster growth in stable laboratory environments appears to have carried with it a trade-off against physiological plasticity in captive zebrafish compared with their wild counterparts.

Differential impacts of carp and salmon pituitary extracts on induced oogenesis, egg quality, molecular ontogeny and embryonic developmental competence in European eel.

Low egg quality and embryonic survival are critical challenges in aquaculture, where assisted reproduction procedures and other factors may impact egg quality. This includes European eel (Anguilla anguilla), where pituitary extract from carp (CPE) or salmon (SPE) is applied to override a dopaminergic inhibition of the neuroendocrine system, preventing gonadotropin secretion and gonadal development. The present study used either CPE or SPE to induce vitellogenesis in female European eel and compared impacts on egg quality and offspring developmental competence with emphasis on the maternal-to-zygotic transition (MZT). Females treated with SPE produced significantly higher proportions of floating eggs with fewer cleavage abnormalities and higher embryonic survival. These findings related successful embryogenesis to higher abundance of mRNA transcripts of genes involved in cell adhesion, activation of MZT, and immune response (dcbld1, epcam, oct4, igm) throughout embryonic development. The abundance of mRNA transcripts of cldnd, foxr1, cea, ccna1, ccnb1, ccnb2, zar1, oct4, and npm2 was relatively stable during the first eight hours, followed by a drop during MZT and low levels thereafter, indicating transfer and subsequent clearance of maternal mRNA. mRNA abundance of zar1, epcam, and dicer1 was associated with cleavage abnormalities, while mRNA abundance of zar1, sox2, foxr1, cldnd, phb2, neurod4, and neurog1 (before MZT) was associated with subsequent embryonic survival. In a second pattern, low initial mRNA abundance with an increase during MZT and higher levels persisting thereafter indicating the activation of zygotic transcription. mRNA abundance of ccna1, npm2, oct4, neurod4, and neurog1 during later embryonic development was associated with hatch success. A deviating pattern was observed for dcbld1, which mRNA levels followed the maternal-effect gene pattern but only for embryos from SPE treated females. Together, the differences in offspring production and performance reported in this study show that PE composition impacts egg quality and embryogenesis and in particular, the transition from initial maternal transcripts to zygotic transcription.

Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Exacerbation and Obstructive Hydrocephalus: A Case Report.

We present the case of an 11 year-old boy with a previous history of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), who experienced a dramatic and acute worsening of OCD symptoms in temporal association with obstructive hydrocephalus secondary to a tectal low-grade glioma. Management and resolution of the hydrocephalus was temporally associated with an improvement in his OCD compulsion symptoms. The present case does not establish proof of cause and effect, but highlights potential multifactorial influences on OCD onset and clinical course. Cortico-striatal-thalamic-cortical pathways, physically distorted by hydrocephalus in this case, have long been implicated in OCD etiology. Clinical implications include the importance of conducting an appropriate neurologic work-up to rule out biological causes for acute and dramatic OCD exacerbations with neurologic signs, even in the context of preexisting OCD. Given that neurologic lesions may exist in the absence of typical signs and symptoms, that they may further disrupt OCD circuitry, and that treatment may lead to resolution of associated psychiatric symptoms, it is important to remain cognizant of these differential diagnoses.

Vertebral fracture in a pilot during centrifuge training: finding of osteopenia.

We report on a case of an F-16 pilot who suffered a compression fracture of the L5 vertebral body during centrifuge training. The pilot sustained the injury during a rapid onset to 6 G run. He was subsequently diagnosed to have osteopenia with a bone mineral density T-score of -1.95. This report discusses the medical and operational management of the pilot with this rare condition. The pilot has since returned to flying duties, albeit in a transportplatform.