The quality of family life in childhood predicts the risk for multiple mental disorders, implying sustained effects on relevant brain circuits. Indeed, there is evidence for the idea that the social environment shapes individual differences in brain development and function. A limitation of this evidence is that most studies focus on extreme social adversity, such as parental deprivation (i.e.,...

BACKGROUND Area-level socioeconomic disparities have long been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Crime is an important element of the neighborhood environment inadequately investigated in the reproductive and public health literature. When crime has been used in research, it has been variably defined, resulting in non-comparable associations across studies. METHODS Using geocoded li...

After 24 hr of maternal deprivation, significant elevations in ACTH and the naturally occurring glucocorticoid corticosterone (CORT) are observed during the stress-hyporesponsive period. The deprived pups also showed in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) a marked increase of stress-induced c-fos mRNA and a reduction of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and glucocorticoid receptor (GR) mRNA; ...

Maternal investment for offspring's growth and survival is widespread among diverse organisms. Vertical symbiont transmission via maternal passage is also pivotal for offspring's growth and survival in many organisms. Hence, it is expected that vertical symbiont transmission may coevolve with various organismal traits concerning maternal investment in offspring. Here we report a novel phenotypi...

Two studies were conducted to investigate the possibility that pteroylmonoglutamic acid supplementation would alleviate teratogenesis in zinc-deficient rats. Pregnant rats of the Wistar strain were fed on Zn-deficient (less than 0.5 mg Zn/kg) or Zn-supplemented (75 or 95 mg Zn/kg) diets from mating until day 18.5 of gestation. The basal level of pteroylmonoglutamic acid added to all diets (0.56...

An optimal coordination between parents and their offspring involves a sequence of reciprocal behaviors to ensure the adequate care of the young, which is critical for a healthy physical, emotional, and social development. Parental deprivation, particularly an impaired child-mother attachment, induces lasting changes in emotional as well as in cognitive capacities in later life. We assessed in ...

BACKGROUND Injuries in childhood are largely preventable yet an estimated 2,400 children die every day because of injury and violence. Despite this, the factors that contribute to injury occurrence have not been quantified at the population scale using primary care data. We used The Health Improvement Network (THIN) database to identify risk factors for thermal injury, fractures and poisoning i...