Influence Of Developmental Factors Research Articles

Age at menarche and risk of type 2 diabetes among African-American and white women in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study.

We examined race differences in the association between age at menarche and type 2 diabetes before and after adjustment for adiposity. We analysed baseline and 9-year follow-up data from 8,491 women (n = 2,505 African-American, mean age 53.3 years; n = 5,986 white, mean age 54.0 years) in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study. Stratifying by race, we used logistic regression to estimate the OR for prevalent diabetes at baseline, and Cox proportional hazard models to estimate the HR for incident diabetes over follow-up according to age at menarche category (8-11, 12, 13, 14 and 15-18 years). Adjusting for age and centre, we found that early age at menarche (8-11 vs 13 years) was associated with diabetes for white, but not African-American women in both the prevalent (white OR 1.72, 95% CI 1.32, 2.25; African-American OR 1.13, 95% CI 0.84, 1.51; interaction p = 0.043) and incident models (white HR 1.43, 95% CI 1.08, 1.89; African-American HR 1.20, 95% CI 0.87, 1.67; interaction p = 0.527). Adjustment for adiposity and lifestyle confounders attenuated associations for prevalent (white OR 1.41, 95% CI 1.05, 1.89; African-American OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.68, 1.30; interaction p = 0.093) and incident diabetes (white HR 1.22, 95% CI 0.92, 1.63; African-American HR 1.11, 95% CI 0.80, 1.56; interaction p = 0.554). Early menarche was associated with type 2 diabetes in white women, and adulthood adiposity attenuated the relationship. We did not find a similar association in African-American women. Our findings suggest that there may be race/ethnic differences in the influence of developmental factors in the aetiology of type 2 diabetes, which merit further investigation.

Developmental Psychobiology

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book Forum: Aspects of DevelopmentFull AccessDevelopmental PsychobiologyGAVIN P. REYNOLDS, Ph.D., GAVIN P. REYNOLDSSearch for more papers by this author, Ph.D., Belfast, Northern Ireland, U.K.Published Online:1 Feb 2005https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.162.2.409-aAboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail It is increasingly recognized that events and experiences in childhood and infancy, and even in utero, can have medical consequences in later life. This is particularly true in psychiatry. Once the realm of Freud and his followers, the concept that early life experience can influence, if not cause, psychiatric problems in adulthood has recently been embraced by the antithesis of psychoanalysis, biological psychiatry. The embrace, still tentative, is strengthening as supporting evidence steadily accumulates. Animal studies have done much in this respect. Housing rats in solitary cages after weaning instead of in small groups results in the development of behavioral and physiological changes that bear substantial similarities to schizophrenia. The stress associated with frequent brief separations of neonatal rats from their mother can result in long-lasting “depressive” symptoms.It is in the human experiments of social deprivation, often as a consequence of aggression between nations or between individuals, where we see more clearly the influence of developmental factors on mental health. Mednick and associates (1) have shown that there is an increase in psychotic disorders in those born a few months after war-induced starvation and after certain influenza epidemics. Chronic behavioral disturbances and metabolic deficits in several brain regions are consequences of the profound neglect experienced by children left in Romanian orphanages. Related are the findings of Nemeroff and colleagues (2), who showed how childhood sexual or physical abuse can result in adult depressive symptoms that are poorly responsive to current antidepressant pharmacotherapy. A neurobiological understanding of these effects of early neglect or abuse is emerging: excessive stress hormone responses can influence brain development by interfering with normal neuronal function.This little book, part of volume 23 of the annual Review of Psychiatry, does not delve into all these issues, although it does go a long way toward providing an introduction to some interesting aspects of this developmental neurobiology. The first chapter, addressing the psychobiology of infant-mother attachment, is clearly relevant to the interaction between infant trauma and depression. The second covers a specific related process, that of facial recognition. This essay assesses face processing in normal and abnormal development (e.g., autism) and is followed by a useful review on the neurobiology of reading disability. The final two chapters take two disorders, Gilles de la Tourette’s syndrome and schizophrenia, and attempt to put them in a developmental perspective. This works well with Tourette’s syndrome, where the disorder is comprehensively reviewed and we are shown the substantial contribution made by modern imaging techniques. The final report on the neurobiology of schizophrenia is less comprehensive, concentrating on details of the authors’ own, admittedly important, postmortem studies but missing much of the breadth of previous chapters.Throughout the book we are rightly reminded of the importance of genetic factors and their interaction with environmental influences on developmental processes. Had previous psychiatric genetic studies been more open to the potential influence of environmentally determined developmental factors, our understanding of the multifactorial etiology of major psychiatric diseases may well have progressed farther and faster.Edited by B.J. Casey, Ph.D. Washington, D.C., American Psychiatric Publishing, 2004, 176 pp., $34.95 (paper).

Psychodynamic and neurobiological influences in the etiology of alexithymia

This article discusses modern theories about the influence of developmental factors on the genesis of alexithymia and about its influence on maturing neurobiological structures. Against this background it becomes clear that core concepts of psychodynamic psychotherapy, like the concept of a unconscious level of experience, are confirmed by modern neurobiological research. Thus, modern psychosomatic research should strive to validate clinical core concepts by the use of empirical studies which also consider neurobiological parameters.

Erratum: Transactional conflict between psychobiology and culture in the etiology of postpartum depression

In vulnerable individuals, postpartum depression may be triggered by the disruption of neuropsychological processes during pregnancy and parturition. It is proposed that in Western societies pre- and postnatal psychological and instrumental needs are poorly met and this crisis may interact with neurophysiological factors in compromising maternal psychological functioning. The influence of developmental factors and psychological and physical stressors are discussed in relation to women’s neuropsychological health during the peripartal transition. It is hypothesized that the environmental milieu may support, neglect or derail the mother’s psychobiological transition from pregnancy to effective postnatal parenting and resumption of family and work roles.

Full metal jacket or the emperor's new clothes?

Launched with little more than a whimper during the Labour Party Conference the much vaunted National Service Framework for Mental Health (NSF–MH) outlines the Government's ‘ambitious agenda’ for mental health services (Department of Health, 1999a). The official driving force has been the desire to deliver a quality service throughout the whole NHS via clinical governance and underpinned by professional self-regulation. Developed following widespread consultation and with the advice of the External Reference Group (although some of this advice was clearly disregarded), the NSF–MH provides a series of seven core standards with examples of good practice. Although developed with general psychiatry and severe mental illness in mind, the NSF is not quite the ‘National Schizophrenia Framework’ that some envisaged, since it also acknowledges the needs of young people and the influence of developmental factors on adult mental health. The NSF–MH sets standards in five areas: mental health promotion, primary care and access to services, services for the severely mentally ill, caring about carers and preventing suicide. It is only the second to be published (the other being for coronary care) which is hopefully a reflection of the ‘priority’ once more being given to mental health. However, the near-simultaneous appointment of a cancer ‘tsar’ suggests that ‘priority’ is a readily used and easily diluted term.

Transactional conflict between psychobiology and culture in the etiology of postpartum depression

In vulnerable individuals, postpartum depression may be triggered by the disruption of neuropsychological processes during pregnancy and parturition. It is proposed that in Western societies pre- and postnatal psychological and instrumental needs are poorly met and this crisis may interact with neurophysiological factors in compromising maternal psychological functioning. The influence of developmental factors and psychological and physical stressors are discussed in relation to women's neuropsychological health during the peripartal transition. It is hypothesized that the environmental milieu may support, neglect or derail the mother's psychobiological transition from pregnancy to effective postnatal parenting and resumption of family and work roles.

Clinical assessment of anxiety sensitivity in children and adolescents: Where do we go from here?

The literature on the assessment of anxiety sensitivity (AS) in children and adolescents is reviewed. Following a discussion of theoretical and developmental issues relevant to AS and anxiety disorders, the construct validity of measures of childhood AS is reviewed using J. Loevinger's (1957) threefold framework. The collective evidence suggests mixed support at present for the validity of the clinical assessment of AS in youths, owing to (a) a limited number of adequate measures, (b) insufficient data on construct validity, and (c) a deficiency of knowledge regarding the potential influence of developmental factors on AS and anxiety disorders. Limitations of the literature are summarized, and suggestions for future research are provided.

Chronological and Stylistic Aspects of Second Language Acquisition of Consonant Clusters

A major focus in second language acquisition (SLA) studies for the past two or three decades has been the role that universal factors play in acquisition. Prior to then, the influence of transfer had been well documented, since the early work of Lado (1957) and even earlier work of Weinreich (1953). However, in 1971 Nemser reported Hungarian learners of English used substitutions that occurred in neither native English nor Hungarian; likewise, Johansson (1973) noted that L2 learners of Swedish produced sounds that occurred in neither Swedish nor the native languages. These nontransfer substitutions have been termed universal developmental variants (part of Universal Grammar [UG]) because they are similar or identical to those occurring in L1 acquisition. Although these substitutions had been well documented, there was no attempt to describe the interrelationship of transfer and developmental factors until Major (1986a, 1987) proposed the Ontogeny Model (OM) to describe a relationship of these two factors for both chronology and style. The present study further tests this model, the data largely supporting the claims for chronology but not for style. This work is significant because it rigorously tests claims concerning the interaction of transfer and universal factors, and although the claims for stylistic variation were not supported, the study provides extensive data with research implications for variation studies. The importance of variation in SLA has been pointed out by numerous researchers, including Tarone (1988), and in a recently published volume on variation in SLA (Bayley & Preston, 1996), which quite significantly contains a chapter by Labov.Although about a dozen years old, the OM has implications for an ongoing debate in SLA (not restricted to phonology): whether UG is or is not accessible to the learner. The model predicts that at early stages of acquisition, UG will not play a major role because the influence of transfer is strong and the influence of developmental factors (subsumed under UG) is minimal.According to the model, however, at later stages of acquisition the role of UG will increase because transfer decreases and developmental factors decrease.The OM has also had an impact on very recent work in L2 phonology, for example, Broselow, Chen, and Wang (1998) and Hancin‐Bhatt and Bhatt (1997), who employ Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky, 1993). From an Optimality Theory framework, Hancin‐Bhatt and Bhatt discuss the interaction of transfer and developmental factors and state: “In so doing, we can begin to give a linguistic‐theoretic interpretation to Major's (1986, 1987, 1994) ontogeny model” (p. 368).

Postcranial robusticity in Homo. III: Ontogeny.

The influence of developmental factors on long-bone cross-sectional geometry and articular size in modern humans is investigated using two approaches: (1) an analysis of the effects of increased mechanical loading on long-bone structure when applied during different developmental periods, using data collected for a study of upper limb bone bilateral asymmetry in professional tennis players; and (2) an analysis of the relative timing of age changes in femoral dimensions among juveniles from the Pecos Pueblo Amerindian archaeological sample. Results of these analyses are used to interpret the femoral morphology of three pre-Recent Homo juveniles--the H. erectus KNM-WT 15000 and the archaic H. sapiens La Ferrassie 6 and Teshik-Tash 1--as well as observed differences in postcranial morphology between adult Recent and earlier Homo (Ruff et al., 1993). Our findings indicate the following: (1) There are age-related changes in long-bone diaphyseal envelope sensitivity to increased mechanical loading, with the periosteal envelope more responsive prior to mid-adolescence, and the endosteal envelope more responsive thereafter. The periosteal expansion and endosteal contraction of the diaphysis documented earlier for adult pre-Recent Homo relative to Recent humans (Ruff et al., 1993) is thus consistent with a developmental response to increased mechanical loading applied throughout life. The relatively large medullary cavity in the 11-12-year-old KNM-WT 15000 femur is also consistent with this model. However, the two archaic H. sapiens juveniles show relatively small medullary cavities, possibly indicating a modified developmental pattern in this group. (2) Articulations follow a growth pattern similar to that of long-bone length (and stature), while cross-sectional diaphyseal dimensions (cortical area, second moments of area) show a contrasting growth pattern, with slower initial growth from childhood through mid-adolescence, followed by a "catch-up" period that continues through early adulthood. This latter pattern is more similar to the growth curve for body weight, and may in fact partially reflect adaptation of the diaphysis to increased weight bearing. Because of these different growth patterns, articulations appear relatively large, and diaphyseal breadths relatively small during late childhood to mid-adolescence (i.e., about 9-13 years), when compared to adults from the same population. KNM-WT 15000 shows this same proportional difference from adult early Homo specimens, which is therefore interpreted as simply a developmental consequence of his age at death.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

An assessment of children's pain: a review of behavioral, physiological and direct scaling techniques

Research on the assessment and management of pain in infants and children has increased dramatically, with the consequence that a wide variety of behavioral, physiological, and psychological methods are now available for measuring pediatric pain. Although the criteria for a pain measure for children are identical to those required for any measuring instrument, special problems exist in pediatric pain measurement because the influence of developmental factors, previous pain experience, and parental attitudes on children's perceptions and expressions of pain is not known. This article reviews the recent advances in the measurement of pain in children, with special emphasis on the methods that satisfy the criteria for reliability and validity, the methods that can be used to assess multiple dimensions of pain, and the methods that may be appropriate for assessing all types of acute, recurrent, and chronic pediatric pain.

The influence of developmental factors in antimicrobial therapy.

The influence of developmental factors in antimicrobial therapy.