Brain responses to audiovisual speech mismatch in infants are associated with individual differences in looking behaviour

Research on audiovisual speech integration has reported high levels of individual variability, especially among young infants. In the present study we tested the hypothesis that this variability results from individual differences in the maturation of audiovisual speech processing during infancy. A developmental shift in selective attention to audiovisual speech has been demonstrated between 6 and 9 months with an increase in the time spent looking to articulating mouths as compared to eyes (Lewkowicz & Hansen-Tift. (2012) Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, 109, 1431–1436; Tomalski et al. (2012) Eur. J. Dev. Psychol., 1–14). In the present study we tested whether these changes in behavioural maturational level are associated with differences in brain responses to audiovisual speech across this age range. We measured high-density event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to videos of audiovisually matching and mismatched syllables /ba/ and /ga/, and subsequently examined visual scanning of the same stimuli with eye-tracking. There were no clear age-specific changes in ERPs, but the amplitude of audiovisual mismatch response (AVMMR) to the combination of visual /ba/ and auditory /ga/ was strongly negatively associated with looking time to the mouth in the same condition. These results have significant implications for our understanding of individual differences in neural signatures of audiovisual speech processing in infants, suggesting that they are not strictly related to chronological age but instead associated with the maturation of looking behaviour, and develop at individual rates in the second half of the first year of life.

Motor delays in MDMA (ecstasy) exposed infants persist to 2years

Background Recreational use of 3,4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy, MDMA) is increasing worldwide. Its use by pregnant women causes concern due to potentially harmful effects on the developing fetus. MDMA, an indirect monoaminergic agonist and reuptake inhibitor, affects the serotonin and dopamine systems. Preclinical studies of fetal exposure demonstrate effects on learning, motor behavior, and memory. In the first human studies, we found prenatal MDMA exposure related to poorer motor development in the first year of life. In the present study we assessed the effects of prenatal exposure to MDMA on the trajectory of child development through 2 years of age. We hypothesized that exposure would be associated with poorer mental and motor outcomes. Materials and Methods The DAISY (Drugs and Infancy Study, 2003–2008) employed a prospective longitudinal cohort design to assess recreational drug use during pregnancy and child outcomes in the United Kingdom. Examiners masked to drug exposures followed infants from birth to 4, 12, 18, and 24 months of age. MDMA, cocaine, alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and other drugs were quantified through a standardized clinical interview. The Bayley Scales (III) of Mental (MDI) and Motor (PDI) Development and the Behavior Rating Scales (BRS) were primary outcome measures. Statistical analyses included a repeated measures mixed model approach controlling for multiple confounders. Results Participants were pregnant women volunteers, primarily white, of middle class socioeconomic status, average IQ, with some college education, in stable partner relationships. Of 96 women enrolled, children of 93 had at least one follow-up assessment and 81 (87%) had ≥ two assessments. Heavier MDMA exposure (M = 1.3 ± 1.4 tablets per week) predicted lower PDI (p < .002), and poorer BRS motor quality from 4 to 24 months of age, but did not affect MDI, orientation, or emotional regulation. Children with heavier exposure were twice as likely to demonstrate poorer motor quality as lighter and non-exposed children (O.R. = 2.2, 95%, CI = 1.02–4.70, p < .05). Discussion Infants whose mothers reported heavier MDMA use during pregnancy had motor delays from 4 months to two years of age that were not attributable to other drug or lifestyle factors. Women of child bearing age should be cautioned about the use of MDMA and MDMA-exposed infants should be screened for motor delays and possible intervention.

Depressão e optimismo: uma visão do desemprego, sob o prisma da psicologia da saúde

Dissertação mest., Psicologia, Universidade do Algarve, 2009

Funcionamento familiar, suporte social e acontecimentos de vida stressantes em mães de crianças utentes da consulta de psicologia clínica

Numerosos estudos sugerem que na ocorrência de acontecimentos de vida negativos e/ou stressantes, o suporte social desempenha um papel preponderante na sua resolução adequada (Lewis, Byrd, & Ollendick, 2012). A ocorrência de acontecimentos de vida stressantes tende a influenciar a dinâmica individual e familiar do indivíduo (Rydell, 2010; Harland, Reijneveld, Brugman, Verloove-Vanhorick, & Verhulst, 2002; Taggart, Taylor, & Mccrum-gardner, 2010). Porém, dos elementos que compõem a rede de suporte social das mulheres, o suporte disponibilizado pela família é considerado como o principal de entre os apoios recebidos (Ell, 1996). Os objetivos principais da presente investigação são: analisar os tipos de apoio social, e investigar as relações entre a presença de acontecimentos de vida stressantes, a perceção de apoio social e a coesão e adaptabilidade familiares numa amostra de 33 mães de crianças utentes dos serviços de psicologia clínica. Especificamente, procuramos estudar a relação entre as características da rede de suporte social e os acontecimentos de vida stressantes recentes nas participantes; investigar as características do funcionamento familiar e a sua relação com os acontecimentos vitais stressantes, e estudar eventuais relações entre as características da rede de suporte social e a sua relação com a perceção das mães relativamente à adaptabilidade e coesão familiares. Os resultados obtidos sugerem a existência de uma relação entre o funcionamento familiar (determinado pela coesão e adaptabilidade) e a rede de suporte social das participantes. Porém, não foram encontradas relações estatisticamente significativas entre o funcionamento familiar e a ocorrência de acontecimentos de vida negativos e ainda entre a rede de suporte social e a presença de acontecimentos de vida negativos. Por outro lado, o suporte tangível/ material associa-se significativamente a este tipo de acontecimentos. Os resultados encontrados permitem-nos sugerir que o funcionamento familiar desempenha um papel relevante no aumento da rede de suporte social do indivíduo.

Acontecimentos de vida stressantes, stresse parental e estratégias de coping em mães de crianças utentes de serviços de psicologia

No presente estudo, analisámos a relação entre o stresse parental e os acontecimentos de vida stressantes, e também a influência do stresse parental nas estratégias de enfrentamento do stresse. Neste contexto, foi inquirida uma amostra de 33 mães de crianças com idades entre os 6 e os 13 anos, utentes das consultas de Psicologia dos Centros de Saúde de Olhão e Albufeira. Na recolha da amostra foram utilizados um questionário sociodemográfico, o Índice de Stresse Parental – PSI (Abidin, 1976), validado para a população portuguesa por Santos (2003), o Brief COPE (Carver, 1997), adaptado por Pais Ribeiro e Rodrigues (2004) para a população portuguesa, e ainda o Inventário de Acontecimentos Stressantes e de Risco – ISER, da autoria de Hidalgo, Menéndez, Sanchéz, López, Jiménez e Lorence, (2005). Os resultados obtidos apontaram para a existência de elevados níveis de stresse nas mães de crianças utentes dos serviços de Psicologia. No entanto, não se verificaram relações significativas entre o stresse parental e os acontecimentos de vida stressantes. Encontrámos ainda uma considerável tendência para a escolha de estratégias de coping centradas no problema, mesmo perante níveis clinicamente significativos de stresse parental.

Virtual Infants in Zoo Indigo’s Under the Covers This is Now, This is Live…

The article This is Live this is now (2011), contextualises the performance Under the Covers (2009) by Zoo Indigo. The journal article is written by Ildiko Rippel on behalf of Zoo Indigo theatre company (Rosie Garton and Ildiko Rippel) and it is published in the online Body, Space and Technology Journal:

A psicologia da construção da vida : incursões no conceito da adaptabilidade para o estudo da influência parental na construção de carreira em adolescentes

Tese de doutoramento, Psicologia (Psicologia do Desenvolvimento e Aconselhamento de Carreira), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Psicologia, 2016

Separating the effects of ethnicity and socio-economic status on sleep practices of 6- to 7-month-old infants

Infant sleep undergoes significant re-organization throughout the first 12 months of life, with sleep quality having significant consequences for infant learning and cognitive development. While there has been great interest in the neural basis and developmental trajectories of infant sleep in general, relatively little is known about individual differences in infant sleep and the socio-economic and cultural sources of that variability. We investigated this using questionnaire sleep data in a large, unique multi-ethnic sample of 6-7 month-olds (n=174), with families from South Asian ethnic groups in the UK (Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi) being especially well represented. Consistent with previous data from less variable samples, no effects of SES on sleep latency or nocturnal sleep duration emerged. However, perinatal risk factors and ethnic differences did predict daytime sleep, sleep fragmentation and sleep-onset time. While these results should be interpreted with caution due to several limitations, they likely demonstrate that even when socio-economic status and ethnicity are much less confounded than in previous studies, they have a surprisingly limited impact on individual differences in sleep patterns in young infants.

Applying gaze-contingent training within community settings to infants from diverse SES backgrounds

Even in infancy children from low-SES backgrounds differ in frontal cortex functioning and, by the start of preschool, they frequently show poor performance on executive functions including attention control. These differences may causally mediate later difficulties in academic learning. Here, we present a study to assess the feasibility of using computerized paradigms to train attention control in infants, delivered weekly over five sessions in early intervention centres for low-SES families. Thirty-three 12-month-old infants were recruited, of whom 23 completed the training. Our results showed the feasibility of repeat-visit cognitive training within community settings. Training-related improvements were found, relative to active controls, on tasks assessing visual sustained attention, saccadic reaction time, and rule learning, whereas trend improvements were found on assessments of short-term memory. No significant improvements were found in task switching. These results warrant further investigation into the potential of this method for targeting ‘at-risk’ infants in community settings.

Caregiver's interpret infants' early gestures based on shared knowledge about referents

Gestures are the first forms of conventional communication that young children develop in order to intentionally convey a specific message. However, at first, infants rarely communicate successfully with their gestures, prompting caregivers to interpret them. Although the role of caregivers in early communication development has been examined, little is known about how caregivers attribute a specific communicative function to infants' gestures. In this study, we argue that caregivers rely on the knowledge about the referent that is shared with infants in order to interpret what communicative function infants wish to convey with their gestures. We videotaped interactions from six caregiver-infant dyads playing with toys when infants were 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 months old. We coded infants' gesture production and we determined whether caregivers interpreted those gestures as conveying a clear communicative function or not; we also coded whether infants used objects according to their conventions of use as a measure of shared knowledge about the referent. Results revealed an association between infants' increasing knowledge of object use and maternal interpretations of infants' gestures as conveying a clear communicative function. Our findings emphasize the importance of shared knowledge in shaping infants' emergent communicative skills.

Effect of embryo culture media on birthweight and length in singleton term infants after IVF-ICSI.

QUESTIONS UNDER STUDY: To investigate if two distinct, commercially available embryo culture media have a different effect on birthweight and length of singleton term infants conceived after IVF-ICSI. METHODS: University hospital based cohort study. Between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2004, patients conceiving through IVF-ICSI at the University Hospital, Lausanne have been allocated to two distinct embryo culture media. Only term singleton pregnancies were analysed (n = 525). Data analysis was performed according to two commercially available culture media: Vitrolife (n = 352) versus Cook (n = 173). Analysis was performed through linear regression adjusted for confounders. Media were considered equivalent if the 95% confidence interval lay between -150 g/+150 g. RESULTS: Length, gestational age and distribution of birthweight percentiles did not differ between groups (for both genders). Analysis of the whole cohort, adjusted for a subset of confounders, resulted in a statistically not different mean birthweight between the two groups (Vitrolife +37 g vs Cook, 95%CI: -46 g to 119 g) suggesting equivalence. Adjustment for an enlarged number of confounders in a subsample of patients (n = 258) also revealed no relevant mean birthweight difference of +71 g (95%CI: -45 g to 187 g) in favour of Vitrolife; however, lacking power to prove equivalence. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that significant differences in birthweight due to these two distinct, commercially available embryo culture media are unlikely.

Reduction in the use of diagnostic tests in infants with risk factors for early-onset neonatal sepsis does not delay antibiotic treatment.

Despite a low positive predictive value, diagnostic tests such as complete blood count (CBC) and C-reactive protein (CRP) are commonly used to evaluate whether infants with risk factors for early-onset neonatal sepsis (EOS) should be treated with antibiotics. We investigated the impact of implementing a protocol aiming at reducing the number of diagnostic tests in infants with risk factors for EOS in order to compare the diagnostic performance of repeated clinical examination with CBC and CRP measurement. The primary outcome was the time between birth and the first dose of antibiotics in infants treated for suspected EOS. Among the 11,503 infants born at ≥35 weeks during the study period, 222 were treated with antibiotics for suspected EOS. The proportion of infants receiving antibiotics for suspected EOS was 2.1% and 1.7% before and after the change of protocol (p = 0.09). Reduction of diagnostic tests was associated with earlier antibiotic treatment in infants treated for suspected EOS (hazard ratio 1.58; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.20-2.07; p <0.001), and in infants with neonatal infection (hazard ratio 2.20; 95% CI 1.19-4.06; p = 0.01). There was no difference in the duration of hospital stay nor in the proportion of infants requiring respiratory or cardiovascular support before and after the change of protocol. Reduction of diagnostic tests such as CBC and CRP does not delay initiation of antibiotic treatment in infants with suspected EOS. The importance of clinical examination in infants with risk factors for EOS should be emphasised.

Population pharmacokinetic study to evaluate dosing strategies of imipenem in neonates and infants

Objective: Imipenem is a broad spectrum antibiotic used to treat severe infections in critically ill patients. Imipenem pharmacokinetics (PK) was evaluated in a cohort of neonates treated in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Lausanne University Hospital. The objective of our study was to identify key demographic and clinical factors influencing imipenem exposure in this population. Method: PK data from neonates and infants with at least one imipenem concentration measured between 2002 and 2013 were analyzed applying population PK modeling methods. Measurement of plasma concentrations were performed upon the decision of the physician within the frame of a therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) programme. Effects of demographic (sex, body weight, gestational age, postnatal age) and clinical factors (serum creatinine as a measure of kidney function; co-administration of furosemide, spironolactone, hydrochlorothiazide, vancomycin, metronidazole and erythromycin) on imipenem PK were explored. Model-based simulations were performed (with a median creatinine value of 46 μmol/l) to compare various dosing regimens with respect to their ability to maintain drug levels above predefined minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) for at least 40 % of the dosing interval. Results: A total of 144 plasma samples was collected in 68 neonates and infants, predominantly preterm newborns, with median gestational age of 27 weeks (24 - 41 weeks) and postnatal age of 21 days (2 - 153 days). A two-compartment model best characterized imipenem disposition. Actual body weight exhibited the greatest impact on PK parameters, followed by age (gestational age and postnatal age) and serum creatinine on clearance. They explain 19%, 9%, 14% and 9% of the interindividual variability in clearance respectively. Model-based simulations suggested that 15 mg/kg every 12 hours maintain drug concentrations over a MIC of 2 mg/l for at least 40% of the dosing interval during the first days of life, whereas neonates older than 14 days of life required a dose of 20 mg/kg every 12 hours. Conclusion: Dosing strategies based on body weight and post-natal age are recommended for imipenem in all critically ill neonates and infants. Most current guidelines seem adequate for newborns and TDM should be restricted to some particular clinical situations.