Psycholinguistic abilities of children with Williams syndrome

The objective of this study was to investigate the psycholinguistic abilities of children with Williams syndrome (WS) and typically developing children using the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA). Performance on the ITPA was analysed in a group with WS (N = 20, mean age = 8.5 years, SD = 1.62) and two typically developing groups, matched in mental (MA, N = 20, mean age = 4.92 years, SD = 1.14) and chronological age (CA, N = 19, mean age = 8.35 years, SD = 3.07). Overall, within-group analyses showed that individuals with WS displayed higher scalar scores on the visual reception and visual association subtests. When groups were compared, we observed inferior performance of the WS group on all ITPA subtests when compared with typically developing groups. Moreover, an interaction between reception and group was found, only the WS group demonstrated superior performance on the visual reception subtest when compared to the auditory reception subtest. Evidence from this study offers relevant contributions to the development of educational intervention programs for children with WS. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Auditory processing in children and adolescents in situations of risk and vulnerability

CONTEXTO E OBJETIVO: Crianças e adolescentes que vivem em situação de vulnerabilidade social apresentam uma série de problemas de saúde. Apesar disso, ainda é controversa a afirmação sobre a existência de alterações cognitivas e/ou sensoriais. O objetivo deste estudo foi investigar aspectos relacionados ao processamento auditivo, através da aplicação de testes de potencial evocado auditivo de tronco encefálico (PEATE) e avaliação comportamental do processamento auditivo em crianças em situação de rua, comparando a um grupo controle. TIPO DE ESTUDO E LOCAL: Estudo transversal no Laboratório de Processamento Auditivo, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo. MÉTODOS: Os testes de processamento auditivo foram aplicados em um grupo de 27 indivíduos, subdivididos em grupos de 11 crianças (7 a 10 anos) e 16 adolescentes (11 a 16 anos) de ambos os sexos, em situação de vulnerabilidade social, e comparado a um grupo controle, formado por 21 crianças, subdivididas em grupos de 10 crianças e 11 adolescentes, pareados por idade, sem queixas. Também se aplicou os PEATE para investigação da integridade da via auditiva. RESULTADOS: Para ambas as faixas etárias, foram encontradas diferenças significantes entre grupos estudo e controle para a maioria dos testes aplicados, sendo que o grupo estudo apresentou desempenho estatisticamente pior do que o controle para todos os testes, exceto para o teste pediatric speech intelligibility. Apenas uma criança apresentou resultado alterado para os PEATE. CONCLUSÕES: Os resultados demonstraram pior desempenho do grupo estudo (crianças e adolescentes) para os testes comportamentais de processamento auditivo, apesar de estes apresentarem integridade da via auditiva em nível de tronco encefálico, demonstrada pela normalidade nos resultados do PEATE.

Auditory processing disorder in patients with language-learning impairment and correlation with malformation of cortical development

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Association between central auditory processing mechanism and cardiac autonomic regulation

Background: This study was conducted to describe the association between central auditory processing mechanism and the cardiac autonomic regulation. Methods: It was researched papers on the topic addressed in this study considering the following data bases: Medline, Pubmed, Lilacs, Scopus and Cochrane. The key words were: “auditory stimulation, heart rate, autonomic nervous system and P300”. Results: The findings in the literature demonstrated that auditory stimulation influences the autonomic nervous system and has been used in conjunction with other methods. It is considered a promising step in the investigation of therapeutic procedures for rehabilitation and quality of life of several pathologies. Conclusion: The association between auditory stimulation and the level of the cardiac autonomic nervous system has received significant contributions in relation to musical stimuli.

Auditory processing disorder in perisylvian syndrome

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

C-terminal processing of the teneurin proteins: Independent actions of a teneurin C-terminal associated peptide in hippocampal cells

Many neuropsychiatric conditions have a common set of neurological substrates associated with the integration of sensorimotor processing. The teneurins are a recently described family of proteins that play a significant role in visual and auditory development. Encoded on the terminal exon of the teneurin genes is a family of bioactive peptides, termed teneurin C-terminal associated peptides (TCAP), which regulate mood-disorder associated behaviors. Thus, the teneurin-TCAP system could represent a novel neurological system underlying the origins of a number of complex neuropsychiatric conditions. However, it is not known if TCAP-1 exerts its effects as part of a direct teneurin function, whereby TCAP represents a functional region of the larger teneurin protein, or if it has an independent role, either as a splice variant or post-translational proteolytic cleavage product of teneurin. In this study, we show that TCAP-1 can be transcribed as a smaller mRNA transcript. After translation, further processing yields a smaller 15. kDa protein containing the TCAP-1 region. In the mouse hippocampus, immunoreactive (ir) TCAP-1 is exclusively localized to the pyramidal layers of the CA1, CA2 and CA3 regions. Although the localization of TCAP and teneurin in hippocampal regions is similar, they are distinct within the cell as most ir-teneurin is found at the plasma membrane, whereas ir-TCAP-1 is predominantly found in the cytosol. Moreover, in mouse embryonic hippocampal cell culture, FITC-labeled TCAP-1 binds to the plasma membrane and is taken up into the cytosol via dynamin-dependent caveolae-mediated endocytosis. Our data provides novel evidence that TCAP-1 is structurally and functionally distinct from the larger teneurins. © 2012.

Auditory middle latency response and phonological awareness in students with learning disabilities

Introduction Behavioral tests of auditory processing have been applied in schools and highlight the association between phonological awareness abilities and auditory processing, confirming that low performance on phonological awareness tests may be due to low performance on auditory processing tests. Objective To characterize the auditory middle latency response and the phonological awareness tests and to investigate correlations between responses in a group of children with learning disorders. Methods The study included 25 students with learning disabilities. Phonological awareness and auditory middle latency response were tested with electrodes placed on the left and right hemispheres. The correlation between the measurements was performed using the Spearman rank correlation coefficient. Results There is some correlation between the tests, especially between the Pa component and syllabic awareness, where moderate negative correlation is observed. Conclusion In this study, when phonological awareness subtests were performed, specifically phonemic awareness, the students showed a low score for the age group, although for the objective examination, prolonged Pa latency in the contralateral via was observed. Negative weak to moderate correlation for Pa wave latency was observed, as was positive weak correlation for Na-Pa amplitude.

Características clínicas, comportamentais, cognitivas e comunicativa na síndrome Smith-Magenis

TEMA: o objetivo deste estudo foi descrever os aspectos clínico, comportamental, cognitivo e comunicativo de indivíduos com o diagnóstico genético da Síndrome Smith-Magenis. PROCEDIMENTOS: participaram dois indivíduos do sexo masculino, de nove e 19 anos. Realizou-se a avaliação genética clínica e laboratorial (teste FISH, utilizando sonda para região 17p11.2). A avaliação psicológica constou da observação comportamental e aplicação da Escala Wechsler de Inteligência. A avaliação Fonoaudiológica foi realizada por meio de procedimentos formais e informais e avaliação auditiva periférica. RESULTADOS: a análise genética clínica evidenciou as características fenotípicas da síndrome Smith-Magenis, confirmada pela avaliação laboratorial. A avaliação psicológica evidenciou o fenótipo comportamental peculiar da síndrome Smith-Magenis e comprovou a deficiência intelectual de grau moderado nos dois indivíduos. A avaliação fonoaudiológica mostrou alterações no desempenho linguístico, com alterações nos níveis fonológico, semântico, sintático e pragmático e nas habilidades psicolinguísticas, interferindo nas habilidades comunicativas e de aprendizagem. A avaliação auditiva indicou audição periférica dentro de parâmetros de normalidade. CONCLUSÃO: a avaliação multidisciplinar favoreceu a descrição dos aspectos clínicos, comportamentais, cognitivos que pertencem ao fenótipo comportamental da síndrome Smith-Magenis e permitiu verificar que estes apresentam graves alterações da linguagem oral, das habilidades psicolinguísticas e do processamento das informações visuais e auditivas com reflexos marcantes no desenvolvimento das habilidades comunicativas e processos de aprendizagem.

Radionuclide concentrations in raw and purified phosphoric acids from Brazil and their processing wastes: implications for radiation exposures

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Vegetable-origin foam employed in dye extraction in tanning and leather processing facilities

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Use of comet assay to assess DNA damage in patients infected by Helicobacter pylori - Comparisons between visual and image analyses

Studies of DNA damage in gastric epithelial cells of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori)-infected patients are conflicting, possibly due to different methods used for scoring DNA damage by Comet assay. Therefore, we compared the sensitivity of visual microscopic analysis (arbitrary units-scores and comets%) and image analysis system (tail moment), in the gastric epithelial cells from the antrum and corpus of 122 H. pylori-infected and 32 non-infected patients. The feasibility of cryopreserved peripheral blood lymphocytes and whole-blood cells for DNA damage biomonitoring was also investigated. In the antrum, the levels of DNA damage were significantly higher in H. pylori-infected patients with gastritis than in non-infected patients with normal mucosa, when evaluated by image analysis system, arbitrary units and comets%. In the corpus, the comets% was not sufficiently sensitive to detect the difference between H. pylori-infected patients with gastritis and non-infected patients with normal mucosa. The image analysis system was sensitive enough to detect differences between non-infected patients and H. pylori-infected patients with mild gastritis and between infected patients with moderate and severe gastritis, in both antrum, and corpus, while arbitrary units and comets% were unable to detect these differences. In cryopreserved peripheral blood lymphocytes, the levels of DNA damage (tail moment) were significantly higher in H. pylori-infected patients with moderate and severe gastritis than in non-infected patients. Overall, our results indicate that the image analysis system is more sensitive and adequate to measure the levels of DNA damage in gastric epithelial cells than the other methods assayed. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Visual and acoustic communication in the Brazilian torrent frog, Hylodes asper (Anura : Leptodactylidae)

We studied the signaling, territorial, and courtship behaviors of the diurnal frog Hylodes asper. Visual and acoustic communication were used during intraspecific interactions involving males, females. and subadults. Hylodes aspcr has a complex visual communication system, of which foot-flagging is the most distinctive display observed in the repertoire of visual signals. The splash zone produced by the waterfalls and torrents creates a high, nearly constant, humidity near the streams, reducing the risk of desiccation which enables the diurnal activity of H. asper. Although the ambient sound pressure levels (SPL), measured at the calling sites, are similar to the SPL of the advertisement calls, the high-pitched calls of H, asper, are spectrally different from the noise produced by the water current. Thus. The ambient noise produced by the water current may not interfere significantly with the acoustic communication of this species. The noise and the nearly constant and high humidity produced by the torrents and waterfalls, along with the availability of Light, probably favored the evolution of contrasting colors and visual communication in H. asper: Males of H, aspcr excavate underwater chambers that are probably used to shelter the eggs and to prevent the clutch from being drifted downstream.