Memory development: implications for adults recalling childhood experiences in the courtroom

Adults frequently provide compelling, detailed accounts of early childhood experiences in the courtroom. Judges and jurors are asked to decide guilt or innocence based solely on these decades-old memories using 'common sense' notions about memory. However, these notions are not in agreement with findings from neuroscientific and behavioural studies of memory development. Without expert guidance, judges and jurors may have difficulty in properly adjudicating the weight of memory evidence in cases involving adult recollections of childhood experiences

Drug use in children: cohort study in three European countries

Objective To provide an overview of drug use in children in three European countries

Determinants of cognitive function in childhood: A cohort study in a middle income context

BACKGROUND: There is evidence that poverty, health and nutrition affect children's cognitive development. This study aimed to examine the relative contributions of both proximal and distal risk factors on child cognitive development, by breaking down the possible causal pathways through which poverty affects cognition. METHODS: This cohort study collected data on family socioeconomic status, household and neighbourhood environmental conditions, child health and nutritional status, psychosocial stimulation and nursery school attendance. The effect of these on Wechsler Pre-School and Primary Scale of Intelligence scores at five years of age was investigated using a multivariable hierarchical analysis, guided by the proposed conceptual framework. RESULTS: Unfavourable socioeconomic conditions, poorly educated mother, absent father, poor sanitary conditions at home and in the neighbourhood and low birth weight were negatively associated with cognitive performance at five years of age, while strong positive associations were found with high levels of domestic stimulation and nursery school attendance. CONCLUSION: Children's cognitive development in urban contexts in developing countries could be substantially increased by interventions promoting early psychosocial stimulation and preschool experience, together with efforts to prevent low birth weight and promote adequate nutritional status

Coaggregation of RNA-Binding Proteins in a Model of TDP-43 Proteinopathy with Selective RGG Motif Methylation and a Role for RRM1 Ubiquitination

TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) is a major component within ubiquitin-positive inclusions of a number of neurodegenerative diseases that increasingly are considered as TDP-43 proteinopathies. Identities of other inclusion proteins associated with TDP-43 aggregation remain poorly defined. In this study, we identify and quantitate 35 co-aggregating proteins in the detergent-resistant fraction of HEK-293 cells in which TDP-43 or a particularly aggregate prone variant, TDP-S6, were enriched following overexpression, using stable isotope-labeled (SILAC) internal standards and liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). We also searched for differential post-translational modification (PTM) sites of ubiquitination. Four sites of ubiquitin conjugation to TDP-43 or TDP-S6 were confirmed by dialkylated GST-TDP-43 external reference peptides, occurring on or near RNA binding motif (RRM) 1. RRM-containing proteins co-enriched in cytoplasmic granular structures in HEK-293 cells and primary motor neurons with insoluble TDP-S6, including cytoplasmic stress granule associated proteins G3BP, PABPC1, and eIF4A1. Proteomic evidence for TDP-43 co-aggregation with paraspeckle markers RBM14, PSF and NonO was also validated by western blot and by immunocytochemistry in HEK-293 cells. An increase in peptides from methylated arginine-glycine-glycine (RGG) RNA-binding motifs of FUS/TLS and hnRNPs was found in the detergent-insoluble fraction of TDP-overexpressing cells. Finally, TDP-43 and TDP-S6 detergent-insoluble species were reduced by mutagenesis of the identified ubiquitination sites, even following oxidative or proteolytic stress. Together, these findings define some of the aggregation partners of TDP-43, and suggest that TDP-43 ubiquitination influences TDP-43 oligomerization

Study of pallial neurogenesis in shark embryos and the evolutionary origin of the subventricular zone

The dorsal part of the developing telencephalon is one of the brain areas that has suffered most drastic changes throughout vertebrate evolution. Its evolutionary increase in complexity was thought to be partly achieved by the appearance of a new neurogenic niche in the embryonic subventricular zone (SVZ). Here, a new kind of amplifying progenitors (basal progenitors) expressing Tbr2, undergo a second round of divisions, which is believed to have contributed to the expansion of the neocortex. Accordingly, the existence of a pallial SVZ has been classically considered exclusive of mammals. However, the lack of studies in ancient vertebrates precludes any clear conclusion about the evolutionary origin of the SVZ and the neurogenic mechanisms that rule pallial development. In this work, we explore pallial neurogenesis in a basal vertebrate, the shark Scyliorhinus canicula, through the study of the expression patterns of several neurogenic markers. We found that apical progenitors and radial migration are present in sharks, and therefore, their presence must be highly conserved throughout evolution. Surprisingly, we detected a subventricular band of ScTbr2-expressing cells, some of which also expressed mitotic markers, indicating that the existence of basal progenitors should be considered an ancestral condition rather than a novelty of mammals or amniotes. Finally, we report that the transcriptional program for the specification of glutamatergic pallial cells (Pax6, Tbr2, NeuroD, Tbr1) is also present in sharks. However, the segregation of these markers into different cell types is not clear yet, which may be linked to the lack of layering in anamniotesThis work was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad-FEDER (BFU2014-5863-1P)S

Search for lepton flavour violating decays of a neutral heavy Higgs boson to μτ and eτ in proton-proton collisions at s√ = 13 TeV

A search for lepton flavour violating decays of a neutral non-standard-model Higgs boson in the μτ and eτ decay modes is presented. The search is based on proton-proton collisions at a center of mass energy s√ = 13 TeV collected with the CMS detector in 2016, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb−1. The τ leptons are reconstructed in the leptonic and hadronic decay modes. No signal is observed in the mass range 200–900 GeV. At 95% confidence level, the observed (expected) upper limits on the production cross section multiplied by the branching fraction vary from 51.9 (57.4) fb to 1.6 (2.1) fb for the μτ and from 94.1 (91.6) fb to 2.3 (2.3) fb for the eτ decay modes