Cortisol secretion in children with symptoms of reactive attachment disorder

Maltreated children with reactive attachment disorder (RAD) have severe problems with social relationships and affect regulation. An association between early maltreatment and changes in the daily rhythm of cortisol secretion has already been reported for maltreated toddlers. We sought to find out whether such changes were apparent in school-age children with symptoms of RAD, who had experienced early maltreatment but were currently adopted in well-functioning families. We recruited 66 children: 34 adopted children, aged 5-12 years, with an early history of maltreatment and with social difficulties such as indiscriminate friendliness; and 32 age- and sex-matched comparison children with no history of maltreatment or social difficulties. Daily rhythms of cortisol production were determined from saliva samples collected over 2 days. The adopted group had significantly lower absolute levels of cortisol compared to the control group, but a typical profile of cortisol secretion. There was no association between cortisol secretion and symptom scores for psychopathology.

Can psychopathology at age 7 be predicted from clinical observation at one year? Evidence from the ALSPAC cohort

One of the challenges of developmental psychopathology is to determine whether identifiable pathways to developmental disorders exist in the first months or years of life. Early identification of such disorders poses a similar challenge for clinical services. Using data from a large contemporary birth cohort, we examined whether psychopathology at age seven can be predicted from clinician observation at one year. Two groups of clinical raters observed videos of caregiver-infant interaction. Neither group of raters could reliably identify any precursors of later development of psychopathology in the one-year-old infants in this setting.

Neurodevelopmental problems in maltreated children referred with indiscriminate friendliness

We aimed to explore the extent of neurodevelopmental difficulties in severely maltreated adopted children. We recruited 34 adopted children, referred with symptoms of indiscriminate friendliness and a history of severe maltreatment in their early childhood and 32 typically developing comparison children without such a history, living in biological families. All 66 children, aged 5-12 years, underwent a detailed neuropsychiatric assessment. The overwhelming majority of the adopted/indiscriminately friendly group had a range of psychiatric diagnoses, including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) and one third exhibited the disorganised pattern of attachment. The mean IQ was 15 points lower than the comparison group and the majority of the adopted group had suspected language disorder and/or delay. Our findings show that school-aged adopted children with a history of severe maltreatment can have very complex and sometimes disabling neuropsychiatric problems.

Insect lipid transfer particle can facilitate net vectorial lipid transfer via a carrier-mediated mechanism

The mechanism of facilitated lipid transfer by insect or mammalian plasma lipid transfer proteins has not been elucidated. Transfer catalysts may act as carriers of lipid between donor and acceptor lipoproteins or, alternatively, transfer may require formation of a ternary complex. This study was designed to determine if Manduca sexta hemolymph lipid transfer particle (LTP) can facilitate net vectorial transfer of lipid without concomitant contact between donor and acceptor lipoproteins and LTP. M. sexta [3H]diacylglycerol-high density lipophorin-larval ([3H]DAG-HDLp-L) and human low density lipoprotein (LDL) were covalently bound to Sepharose matrices and packed into separate columns. In incubations lacking LTP, greater than 98% of the recovered DAG remained associated with HDLp-L. An unrelated hemolymph storage protein, arylphorin, was unable to catalyze the transfer of DAG between solid-phase lipoproteins. Facilitated transfer of DAG from HDLp-L to LDL was observed when LTP was circulated between the columns. Under these conditions, facilitated transfer occurred at a rate of 2.24 ng of DAG/h (versus 0.16 microgram of DAG/h in the control), and after 16 h greater than 26% of recovered labeled DAG was transferred to LDL. This corresponds to a 14-fold rate enhancement induced by LTP. The LTP-specific transfer of DAG between physically separated lipoproteins demonstrates the ability of LTP to facilitate net lipid transfer via a carrier-mediated mechanism in the absence of a ternary complex involving donor, acceptor, and catalyst. In experiments aimed at assessing the relative contribution of ternary complex formation to DAG transfer, acceptor LDL was circulated with HDLp-L remaining immobilized. Under these conditions, LTP induced a 13-fold rate enhancement from 1.3 to 16.3 micrograms of DAG/h. The similar rate enhancements observed with both lipoproteins bound and only donor bound suggest the overall contribution of ternary complex formation to facilitated lipid transfer is insignificant. The described system should prove useful in mechanistic studies of other transfer proteins as well as studies of transfer of other lipids.