Genetic variation in the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene is associated with Asperger Syndrome

Background Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) are a group of neurodevelopmental conditions characterized by impairments in communication and social interaction, alongside unusually repetitive behaviors and narrow interests. ASC are highly heritable and have complex patterns of inheritance where multiple genes are involved, alongside environmental and epigenetic factors. Asperger Syndrome (AS) is a subgroup of these conditions, where there is no history of language or cognitive delay. Animal models suggest a role for oxytocin (OXT) and oxytocin receptor (OXTR) genes in social-emotional behaviors, and several studies indicate that the oxytocin/oxytocin receptor system is altered in individuals with ASC. Previous studies have reported associations between genetic variations in the OXTR gene and ASC. Methods The present study tested for an association between nine single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the OXTR gene and AS in 530 individuals of Caucasian origin, using SNP association test and haplotype analysis. Results There was a significant association between rs2268493 in OXTR and AS. Multiple haplotypes that include this SNP (rs2268493-rs2254298, rs2268490-rs2268493-rs2254298, rs2268493-rs2254298-rs53576, rs237885-rs2268490-rs2268493-rs2254298, rs2268490-rs2268493-rs2254298-rs53576) were also associated with AS. rs2268493 has been previously associated with ASC and putatively alters several transcription factor-binding sites and regulates chromatin states, either directly or through other variants in linkage disequilibrium (LD). Conclusions This study reports a significant association of the sequence variant rs2268493 in the OXTR gene and associated haplotypes with AS.

Significados e percepções de puérperas sobre as síndromes hipertensivas da gravidez e parto prematuro

Hypertensive syndromes in pregnancy (HSP) are configured as one of the major complications in the pregnancy and postpartum period and can lead premature newborn and subsequent hospitalization of the newborn to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). This study aimed to analyze the perceptions, meanings and feelings of mothers on the hypertensive syndromes in pregnancy and premature obstetric labor. The research was qualitative and has a theoretical methodological the Social Representations Theory(SRT) in the approach to the Central Nucleus Theory. The study included 70 women, mean age 29 years, predominantly school to high school, most of them married or in consensual union, primiparous and prevalence of cesarean delivery occurred between 32 and 37 weeks of pregnancy.The data were collected from may to december 2008 in the Maternity School Januário Cicco in Natal , and obtained through the following instruments for data collection: questionnaire including questions about socio-demographic status; the Free Words Association Test (FWAT) and and verbalized mental image construction used three stimuli: such as pregnancy with high blood pressure, preterm birth and NICU, and interview with the following guiding question: what it meant for you to have a pregnancy with high blood pressure and consequently the birth of a premature baby? Data analysis was performed using multi-method obtained from the data processing by EVOC (Ensemble Programmes Permettant L 'Analyze des Évocations) and ALCESTE (Analyse Lexicale par Contexte d'un Ensemble de Segment de Texte) and thematic analysis in categories. The results will be presented in four thematic units under the following representative universes: HSP, prematurity as a result of HSP, NICU and the social representations of mothers on the hypertensive disorder of pregnancy sequenced premature birth and hospitalization of the child in the NICU. The results obtained by multimethod analyses showed similar constructions and point to death as the central nucleus and negative aspects, coping strategies, need of care, knowledge about the disease, fragility and meanings of the NICU as peripheral elements. It is considered that the perceptions, meanings and feelings of puerperal women in relation to HSPs and to premature delivery are a negative social representation, with representational elements that may have influenced the adverse effects on the disease and its consequences. We suggest action on the peripheral elements of this representation, with adequate orientation, early diagnosis, effective conduct, receptive attitude on the part of the team, health promotion measures and effective public policies, in order to improve the care provided to puerperal women, making them feel welcome and minimizing their suffering

Significados e percepções do homem diante da gravidez de sua companheira com síndromes hipertensivas

The general aim of the research was to comprehend the Social Representations constructed by the man in the face of his companion s risk pregnancy caused by hypertensive syndromes. The study is of exploratory and descriptive character in a qualitative approach developed at two public maternity hospitals, both located in Natal-RN, with 65 men whose wives had undergone high-risk pregnancy. The project was submitted to the Ethics on Research Committee of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil (CEP-UFRN), with favorable report no. 81/07. For data collection, the following multimethods were employed: a word free association test; a projective test for registering mental images; and a semistructured interview schedule. The speech contents were analyzed in accordance with the Theory of Social Representations and complemented by the Central Nucleus Theory. The discussion of the results was grounded on literary findings of the companion s participation in pregnancy as well as in risk pregnancy associated with hypertensive syndromes. The data showed fear as representation s central nucleus, while recollections of that feeling referred to death of both companion and child in addition to fear of the unknown. The categories preoccupation and carefulness, other feelings, and clinical picture of the disease represented components of the peripheral nucleus. The results concerning mental images followed the same category criteria of the word free association test fear, other feelings, preoccupation, carefulness, and clinical picture of the disease. After being processed in accordance with the principles of content analysis, the statements originated three thematic unities: fear and insecurity in the presence of the companion s risk pregnancy; attitudes of carefulness to the risk pregnancy of the partner; and humanized assistance during the companion s risk pregnancy. Considering the results, the conclusion is that the partner s risk pregnancy caused by hypertensive syndromes represents, for the man, feelings of fear, preoccupation, insecurity, lack of acceptance and information, as well as attitudes of carefulness. The results reveal necessity of reorganizing the obstetric assistance with an eye to including the man as participant in the reproductive process. That demands extension of humanized carefulness to the companion with a view to make him an active coadjutor in the assistance of high-risk pregnant

Representações sociais de enfermeiros brasileiros e portugueses sobre o estresse em serviço de urgência

This study aimed to analyze the social representations of Brazilian and Portuguese nurses on stress in the emergency service. A semi-structured interview and the free word association test, with "stress" as the inductive stimulus, were used as research instruments. Data were collected from 120 nurses, being 60 from an emergency hospital in the city of Natal, Brazil and 60 from an urgency hospital in the city of Aveiro, Portugal. Data from the word association test were analyzed with the EVOC 2002 program, after thematic categorical content analysis, enabling construction of a data bank. Data gathered from the interview were analyzed by ALCESTE 4.8 software. Nurse represent the stress in the urgency department as a generation of physical and mental detrition where adaptation is unsatisfactorily, resulting in the onset of fatigne, irritability, lack of concentration, lack of motivation, pessimism, impaired interpersonal relationship and low productivity. The solution is part of a complex whole, which demands an integrated way of acting that has demanded increasingly professional attitudes based on multidisciplinarity

Campo educacional e representação social da formação docente :o olhar dos agentes

Teaching formation has been the target of many changes, having been forged according to numerous formats and models through different times and spaces, composing thus, different codes and curricular proposals for different levels of qualification. We've tried in this work to pinpoint the main discussions which take place in the area of the teaching formation, based in the views of modern writers. We ve also tried, through the Social Representations Theory, to reveal and learn how the agents directly involved in this process realize and react, that is, the teachers who cope with the beginning stages of the Fundamental Teaching in the public school system in Natal/RN, taking into account that, in many cases, such formation demands the rethinking of the very formation policies. We've also adopted the concepts of field and educational field introduced by the praxiology of Pierre Bourdieu. It s been considered a fundamental theoretical reference which enables the understanding of social phenomena, both in macro and micro viewpoints. Thus, we do not neglect the whole, and particularly, the nuances of each context or specific situation. In the methodological track we ve used for data gathering the Free Word Association Test, and the Semi-Structured Interview, and also secondary sources for the characterization of the research spectre. Data treatment and analysis were performed with the help of the following software: SPSS Statistical Package for Social Sciences and EVOC; and the method of Content Category Analysis. The combination of the concepts and techniques mentioned above was necessary to cope with the qualitative and quantitative aspects, in our attempt to offer a wider range of contributions and outcome validations, which have shown, among other less explicit elements, the existence of a social representation of the teaching formation such as: knowledge theoretical and practical; a necessity imposed by the symbolical conflicts of the social field; capacitation and compromisse. We acknowledge the relevance of the thoughts discussed here, though aware that this is just one of the possible approaches to the theme

Avaliacão da satisfação do usuário e da qualidade dos tratamentos endodônticos em Centros de Especialidades Odontológicas da Grande Natal-RN

Objective: To evaluate the degree of users satisfaction and technical quality of endodontic treatment in specialized dental clinics (CEO) of Grande Natal / RN between 2006 and 2008. Methodology: evaluated 282 endodontically treated teeth in CEOs through clinical and radiographic examinations. A questionnaire about the clinical condition of the tooth, evaluation of care and satisfaction with treatment was applied. Data on pre-and trans-operative were noted by the patient's clinical record. Endodontically treated teeth were examined by a specialist in endodontics, which compared with previous radiographs and current ones. The collected datas were presented descriptively by absolute numbers, percentages, averages. To determine the association between the independent and dependent variables was carried out through the bivariate association test Chi-square and Fisher exact test. Results: 79.8% presented with radiographic normal and 84.4% without pain symptoms. 8.2% of the teeth were fractured and 3.2% extracted. The persistence of the periapical lesion was associated with initial periapical status (p <0.05). 91.5% of patients are satisfied with the outcome of treatment. Such satisfaction is associated with absence of pain and an adequate esthetic tooth position (p <0.05). Conclusion: endodontic treatment in specialized dental clinics have an adequate technical quality, resulting in the success of endodontic therapy performed in these centers and that users are satisfied with the treatment

Os significados do tabagismo construídos na dinâmica social

The present study has the purpose of catching the significances of smoking in the social dinamics based on the Theory of Social Representations. It was developed among adults with ages from 20 to 59 years, low social and economic conditions, at Natal RN, Brazil. The Free-words Association Test was applied as the instrument of data collection and a semi-structured interview with the smokers and non-smokers, besides a structured interview with smokers, non-smokers and ex-smokers. All data was analyzed by the descriptive statistics using the Analysis of Content Technique of the thematic kind and by the softwares ALCESTE and EVOC 2000. Elaborations about smoking were marked by social, cultural and historical dimension, however they showed sensibility to changes and revealed positive and negative aspects of the habit. The analysis of the semi-structured interviews showed the following categories and under-categories respectively: Initiation of the habit (Friends and Family and Appreciation and Beauty); Psychosocial Implications of smoking (Personal relationship, Work and Financial); Behavior when facing smoking (Positive, Negative and Neutral); Smoking Effects (Smokers´ health and the other people health); Description about oral diseases ( Bad breath, Oral cancer and Dental problems); Smoking treatment (Physician and psychological, Supernatural and Difficulties). ALCESTE analysis presented 4 classes: Ambivalence between pleasure and get ill, Smoking as a trouble and danger to society, Social discrimination of smokers and Mouth as a place of reaffirmation of the discrimination. Those helped us to understand the psychosocial repercussion of the habit. On the social representation structure we identified as a probable central nucleus of the smoker group the categories Pleasure and Bad to the health and as peripheral elements Alcoholic Drink, Financial damage and Nervousness. For the non-smoker group the category Bad to the health comes first and Stop Smoking comes as a peripheral element. Finally, we hope that the knowledge of these representations can contribute to plan and/or to rethink over the professional practices and public policies related to smoking. Besides that, for an amplified comprehension of the study object the discussions over the identified representations should be deepen and amplified to other population and social groups

Aplicativo computacional para a análise de experimentos envolvendo variáveis respostas categorizadas

Pós-graduação em Agronomia (Energia na Agricultura) - FCA

Desordens osteomusculares em alunos de odontologia

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

Tuberculosis and latent tuberculosis in prison inmates

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalences of tuberculosis and latent tuberculosis ill inmates. METHODS: Observational study was carried out with inmates of a prison and a jail in the State of Sao Paulo, Southeastern Brazil, between March and December of 2008. Questionnaires were used to collect sociodemographic and epidemiological data. Tuberculin skin testing was administered (PPD-RT23-2TU/0.1 mL), and the following laboratory tests were also performed: sputum smear examination, sputum culture, identification of strains isolated and drug susceptibility testing. The variables were compared using Pearson's chi-square (chi(2)) association test, Fisher's exact test and the proportion test. RESULTS: Of the 2,435 inmates interviewed, 2,237(91.9%) agreed to submit to tuberculin skin testing and of these, 73.0% had positive reactions. The prevalence of tuberculosis was 830.6 per 100,000 inmates. The coefficients of prevalence were 1,029.5/100,000 for inmates of the prison and 525.7/100,000 for inmates of the jail. The sociodemographic characteristics of the inmates in the two groups studied were similar; most of the inmates were young and single with little schooling. The epidemiological characteristics differed between the prison units, with the number of cases of previous tuberculosis and of previous contact with the disease greater in the prison and coughing, expectoration and smoking more common in the jail. Among the 20 Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains identified, 95.0% were sensitive to anti-tuberculosis drugs, and 5.0% were resistant to streptomycin. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalences of tuberculosis and latent tuberculosis were higher in the incarcerated population than in the general population, and they were also higher in the prison than in the jail.

Investigating the Role of System Justification in Mental Illness Stigma

The current study integrates system justification theory with research on mental illness stigma. Stereotypes of both low- and high-status groups in society can be a means of satisfying the system justification motive, or the motive to view societal inequalities as justified (as reviewed in Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004). Corrigan, Watson, and Ottati (2003) proposed that system justification theory may be able to explain the origins of particular stereotypes of people with mental illness, such as dangerousness and incompetence. The primary goal of the present study was to investigate whether the stigmatization of people with mental illness – a specific form of stigmatization of a lowstatus group – can be at least partially attributed to a broader motive to justify societal inequalities. To test this, the current study included both an experimental manipulation of the perceived legitimacy of the social system and a measure of system-justifying beliefs. Stigmatization of individuals with mental illness was measured with both explicit selfreport measures (semantic differentials and the Attribution Questionnaire) and an implicit measure (a computer-based Implicit Association Test). The relationships between participant characteristics, such as personal experience with mental illness, and stigma were also investigated. Consistent with past research demonstrating only modest correlations between explicit and implicit stigma, greater self-reported fear toward a person with a chronic mental illness was weakly associated with increased implicit bias against mental illness in favor of physical disability. There was little support for the involvement of system justification in explicit stigma. Participants with personal experience with mental illness were less likely to self-report fear and avoidance of a person with a chronic mental illness. These findings have implications for stigmareduction efforts.

Tracking the implicit self using event-related potentials

Negative biases in implicit self-evaluation are thought to be detrimental to subjective well-being and have been linked to various psychological disorders, including depression. An understanding of the neural processes underlying implicit self-evaluation in healthy subjects could provide a basis for the investigation of negative biases in depressed patients, the development of differential psychotherapeutic interventions, and the estimation of relapse risk in remitted patients. We thus studied the brain processes linked to implicit self-evaluation in 25 healthy subjects using event-related potential (ERP) recording during a self-relevant Implicit Association Test (sIAT). Consistent with a positive implicit self-evaluation in healthy subjects, they responded significantly faster to the congruent (self-positive mapping) than to the incongruent sIAT condition (self-negative mapping). Our main finding was a topographical ERP difference in a time window between 600 and 700 ms, whereas no significant differences between congruent and incongruent conditions were observed in earlier time windows. This suggests that biases in implicit self-evaluation are reflected only indirectly, in the additional recruitment of control processes needed to override the positive implicit self-evaluation of healthy subjects in the incongruent sIAT condition. Brain activations linked to these control processes can thus serve as an indirect measure for estimating biases in implicit self-evaluation. The sIAT paradigm, combined with ERP, could therefore permit the tracking of the neural processes underlying implicit self-evaluation in depressed patients during psychotherapy.

Differentiation in Male and Female Speech Styles

From the moment of their birth, a person's life is determined by their sex. Ms. Goroshko wants to know why this difference is so striking, why society is so concerned to sustain it, and how it is able to persist even when certain national or behavioural stereotypes are erased between people. She is convinced of the existence of not only social, but biological differences between men and women, and set herself the task, in a manuscript totalling 126 pages, written in Ukrainian and including extensive illustrations, of analysing these distinctions as they are manifested in language. She points out that, even before 1900, certain stylistic differences between the ways that men and women speak had been noted. Since then it has become possible, for instance in the case of Japanese, to point to examples of male and female sub-languages. In general, one can single out the following characteristics. Males tend to write with less fluency, to refer to events in a verb-phrase, to be time-oriented, to involve themselves more in their references to events, to locate events in their personal sphere of activity, and to refer less to others. Therefore, concludes Ms Goroshko, the male is shown to be more active, more ego-involved in what he does, and less concerned about others. Women, in contrast, were more fluent, referred to events in a noun-phrase, were less time-oriented, tended to be less involved in their event-references, locate events within their interactive community and refer more to others. They spent much more time discussing personal and domestic subjects, relationship problems, family, health and reproductive matters, weight, food and clothing, men, and other women. As regards discourse strategies, Ms Goroshko notes the following. Men more often begin a conversation, they make more utterances, these utterances are longer, they make more assertions, speak less carefully, generally determine the topic of conversation, speak more impersonally, use more vulgar expressions, and use fewer diminutives and more imperatives. Women's speech strategies, apart from being the opposite of those enumerated above, also contain more euphemisms, polite forms, apologies, laughter and crying. All of the above leads Ms. Goroshko to conclude that the differences between male and female speech forms are more striking than the similarities. Furthermore she is convinced that the biological divergence between the sexes is what generates the verbal divergence, and that social factors can only intensify or diminish the differentiation in verbal behaviour established by the sex of a person. Bearing all this in mind, Ms Goroshko set out to construct a grammar of male and female styles of speaking within Russian. One of her most important research tools was a certain type of free association test. She took a list comprising twelve stimuli (to love, to have, to speak, to fuck, a man, a woman, a child, the sky, a prayer, green, beautiful) and gave it to a group of participants specially selected, according to a preliminary psychological testing, for the high levels of masculinity or femininity they displayed. Preliminary responses revealed that the female reactions were more diverse than the male ones, there were more sentences and word combinations in the female reactions, men gave more negative responses to the stimulus and sometimes didn't want to react at all, women reacted more to adjectives and men to nouns, and that, surprisingly, women coloured more negatively their reactions to the words man, to love and a child (Ms. Goroshko is inclined to attribute this to the present economic situation in Russia). Another test performed by Ms. Goroshko was the so-called "defective text" developed by A.A. Brudny. All participants were distributed with packets of complete sentences, which had been taken from a text and then mixed at random. The task was to reconstruct the original text. There were three types of test, the first descriptive, the second narrative, and the third logical. Ms. Goroshko created computer programmes to analyse the results. She found that none of the reconstructed texts was coincident with the original, differing both from the original text and amongst themselves and that there were many more disparities in the male than the female texts. In the descriptive and logical texts the differences manifested themselves more clearly in the male texts, and in the narrative texts in the female texts. The widest dispersal of values was observed at the outset, while the female text ending was practically coincident with the original (in contrast to the male ending). The greatest differences in text reconstruction for both males and females were registered in the middle of the texts. Women, Ms. Goroshko claims, were more sensitive to the semantic structure of the texts, since they assembled the narrative text much more accurately than the other two, while the men assembled more accurately the logical text. Texts written by women were assembled more accurately by women and texts by men by men. On the basis of computer analysis, Ms. Goroshko found that female speech was substantially more emotional. It was expressed by various means, hyperbole, metaphor, comparisons, epithets, ways of enumeration, and with the aid of interjections, rhetorical questions, exclamations. The level of literacy was higher for female speech, and there were fewer mistakes in grammar and spelling in female texts. The last stage of Ms Goroshko's research concerned the social stereotypes of beliefs about men and women in Russian society today. A large number of respondents were asked questions such as "What merits must a woman possess?", "What are male vices and virtues?", etc. After statistical manipulation, an image of modern man and woman, as it exists in the minds of modern Russian men and women, emerged. Ms. Goroshko believes that her findings are significant not only within the field of linguistics. She has already successfully worked on anonymous texts and been able to decide on the sex of the author and consequently believes that in the future her research may even be of benefit to forensic science.

Clocking the social mind by identifying mental processes in the IAT with electrical neuroimaging

Why do people take longer to associate the word “love” with outgroup words (incongruent condition) than with ingroup words (congruent condition)? Despite the widespread use of the implicit association test (IAT), it has remained unclear whether this IAT effect is due to additional mental processes in the incongruent condition, or due to longer duration of the same processes. Here, we addressed this previously insoluble issue by assessing the spatiotemporal evolution of brain electrical activity in 83 participants. From stimulus presentation until response production, we identified seven processes. Crucially, all seven processes occurred in the same temporal sequence in both conditions, but participants needed more time to perform one early occurring process (perceptual processing) and one late occurring process (implementing cognitive control to select the motor response) in the incongruent compared with the congruent condition. We also found that the latter process contributed to individual differences in implicit bias. These results advance understanding of the neural mechanics of response time differences in the IAT: They speak against theories that explain the IAT effect as due to additional processes in the incongruent condition and speak in favor of theories that assume a longer duration of specific processes in the incongruent condition. More broadly, our data analysis approach illustrates the potential of electrical neuroimaging to illuminate the temporal organization of mental processes involved in social cognition.

Nonlinear tests for genetic studies of complex disease

Linkage and association studies are major analytical tools to search for susceptibility genes for complex diseases. With the availability of large collection of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and the rapid progresses for high throughput genotyping technologies, together with the ambitious goals of the International HapMap Project, genetic markers covering the whole genome will be available for genome-wide linkage and association studies. In order not to inflate the type I error rate in performing genome-wide linkage and association studies, multiple adjustment for the significant level for each independent linkage and/or association test is required, and this has led to the suggestion of genome-wide significant cut-off as low as 5 × 10 −7. Almost no linkage and/or association study can meet such a stringent threshold by the standard statistical methods. Developing new statistics with high power is urgently needed to tackle this problem. This dissertation proposes and explores a class of novel test statistics that can be used in both population-based and family-based genetic data by employing a completely new strategy, which uses nonlinear transformation of the sample means to construct test statistics for linkage and association studies. Extensive simulation studies are used to illustrate the properties of the nonlinear test statistics. Power calculations are performed using both analytical and empirical methods. Finally, real data sets are analyzed with the nonlinear test statistics. Results show that the nonlinear test statistics have correct type I error rates, and most of the studied nonlinear test statistics have higher power than the standard chi-square test. This dissertation introduces a new idea to design novel test statistics with high power and might open new ways to mapping susceptibility genes for complex diseases. ^