Mental Health of Aboriginal Children and Adolescents in Violent School Environments: Protective Mediators of Violence and Psychological/nervous Disorders.

Mental health of Aboriginal children and adolescents in violent school environments: Protective mediators of violence and psychological/nervous disorders.

Filed under: Addiction Rehab

Soc Sci Med. 2012 Dec 21;
Kaspar V

The effect of school violence on mental health was examined among 12,366 Aboriginal children and adolescents, primarily First Nations, Métis, and Inuit residing off reservations in the Canadian provinces and territories. Analyses were based on the 2006 Aboriginal Peoples’ Survey, a postcensal national survey of Aboriginal youth aged 6-14 years. More than one-fifth of students in the sample attended schools where violence was perceived as a problem. The occurrence of psychological or nervous disorders was about 50% higher among students exposed to school violence than among other students. School violence was a significant predictor of mental health difficulties, irrespective of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Virtually the entire effect was mediated by interpersonal processes, or negative quality of parent-child and peer relationships, while the effect was not explained by cultural detachment through lack of interactions with Elders and traditional language ability/use. Results underscored school violence as a significant public health concern for Aboriginal elementary and high school students, and the need for evidence-based mental health interventions for at-risk populations.
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Postnatal maternal deprivation and pubertal stress have additive effects on dopamine D2 receptor and CaMKII beta expression in the striatum.

Filed under: Addiction Rehab

Int J Dev Neurosci. 2013 Jan 9;
Novak G, Fan T, O’Dowd BF, George SR

The goal of this study was to determine whether two stressors commonly used to model aspects of neuropsychiatric disease in rats have an additive effect on striatal dopamine type 2 receptor (D2R) expression, a key player in the etiology of neuropsychiatric disease. Animals subjected to early postnatal stress show alterations in function of the dopaminergic system thought to be mediated by stress-induced glucocorticoid release. Subsequent stress during puberty is known to further impact the dopaminergic system and result in dopaminergic hyperactivity analogous to schizophrenia. We exposed rats to maternal deprivation (MD) during the second postnatal week, a time of active striatal development. A subset of these animals were then subjected to pubertal stress induced by immobilization. Both procedures are know to induce glucocorticoid release. At the conclusion of the MD protocol, we observed upregulation in the expression of D2R and of dopamine- and cAMP-regulated phosphoprotein 32-KD (DARPP-32; PPP1R1B), but not of D1R, calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II beta (CaMKII?), CaMKII? or neurokinin B (NKB). Animals exposed to pubertal stress showed upregulation in expression of both D2R and CaMKII?. Furthermore, rats previously exposed to MD showed a much greater upregulation in CaMKII? expression, than animals only exposed to pubertal stress. These results support the two-hit hypothesis, indicating that such stressors have an additive effect. The main targets appear to be the D2R and the CaMKII?, the latter being an important member of the DR signalling pathway, both of which are associated with schizophrenia.
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The characteristics of Klebsiella pneumoniae that produce KPC-2 imported from Greece.

Filed under: Addiction Rehab

Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis. 2013 Jan 10;
Chan WW, Peirano G, Smyth DJ, Pitout JD

We report a case of lower urinary tract infection due to KPC-2-producing K. pneumoniae (KpCG02) in an elderly patient who had recently been hospitalized in Greece. The patient was treated successfully on an outpatient basis by removing the Foley catheter and with a prophylactic dose of gentamicin. KpCG02, which belonged to ST258, contained repFII plasmids that tested positive for the vagCD addiction system and the uge, wabG, urea, mrkD, and fimH virulence factors. This case reemphasizes the need for vigilance screening for carbapenem-resistant Gram negatives in patients with a history of travel to endemic areas, such as Greece.
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Plastic modifications within inhibitory control networks induced by practicing a stop-signal task: An electrical neuroimaging study.

Filed under: Addiction Rehab

Cortex. 2012 Dec 19;
Manuel AL, Bernasconi F, Spierer L

INTRODUCTION: Inhibitory control refers to our ability to suppress ongoing motor, affective or cognitive processes and mostly depends on a fronto-basal brain network. Inhibitory control deficits participate in the emergence of several prominent psychiatric conditions, including attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder or addiction. The rehabilitation of these pathologies might therefore benefit from training-based behavioral interventions aiming at improving inhibitory control proficiency and normalizing the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms. The development of an efficient inhibitory control training regimen first requires determining the effects of practicing inhibition tasks. METHODS: We addressed this question by contrasting behavioral performance and electrical neuroimaging analyses of event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded from humans at the beginning versus the end of 1 h of practice on a stop-signal task (SST) involving the withholding of responses when a stop signal was presented during a speeded auditory discrimination task. RESULTS: Practicing a short SST improved behavioral performance. Electrophysiologically, ERPs differed topographically at 200 msec post-stimulus onset, indicative of the engagement of distinct brain network with learning. Source estimations localized this effect within the inferior frontal gyrus, the pre-supplementary motor area and the basal ganglia. CONCLUSION: Our collective results indicate that behavioral and brain responses during an inhibitory control task are subject to fast plastic changes and provide evidence that high-order fronto-basal executive networks can be modified by practicing a SST.
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