scholarly journals Unique Pattern of N-Glycosylation, Sialylation, and Sulfonation on TSH Molecules in Serum of Children Up to 18 Months

2019 ◽  
Vol 104 (10) ◽  
pp. 4651-4659 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leif Wide ◽  
Karin Eriksson
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Outcome Measures ◽  
Biological Properties ◽  
Receptor Function ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Third Trimester ◽  
Serum Samples ◽  
Unique Pattern ◽  
Normal Adults ◽  
Serum Tsh

Abstract Context N-glycosylation and glycan composition of human TSH molecules modulate the biological properties of TSH in different physiological and clinical situations. The degree of sialylation of serum TSH was reported to be very low in normal third-trimester fetuses compared with normal adults. The circulating TSH glycoforms and their glycan compositions in young children have hitherto not been determined. Objective To characterize N-glycosylation and glycan composition of circulating TSH molecules in young children. Design, Participants, Main Outcome Measures Serum samples were obtained from euthyroid individuals: 33 children, age 2 weeks to 3 years, and 264 adults. The di-glycosylated TSH and tri-glycosylated TSH glycoforms were determined and characterized with respect to sialylation and sulfonation. The TSH N-glycosylation was also examined in pituitary extracts of 75 individuals. Results In children up to 18 months of age, most TSH molecules were low-N-glycosylated, high-sulfonated, and low-sialylated compared with older children and adults. The degree of N-glycosylation was similar in serum and pituitary extracts up to 3 months of age and after that was higher in serum than in pituitary extracts. Conclusions Children up to age 18 months had low-sialylated TSH molecules, similar to those reported for third-trimester fetuses. Most TSH molecules in young children were of smaller size and less negatively charged, favoring transport into their target tissues. The low sialylation favors a high biopotency at thyroid and extrathyroidal TSH receptors. A delayed development of the liver SO3-N-acetylgalactosamine receptor function after birth is a likely explanation of the highly sulfonated TSH molecules in serum samples of infants.

There is no privileged link between kinds and essences early in development

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Noyes ◽  
Frank Keil
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Biological Properties ◽  
Social Category ◽  
Category Representation ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Cultural Properties ◽  
Generic Language ◽  
American Children ◽  
Causal Structures

[Please note the Y-axis for Figure 1 is incorrect. It should read: "Percent endorsing formal explanations."] According to the dominant view of category representation, people preferentially infer that kinds (richly structured categories) reflect essences. Generic language (“Boys like blue”) often occupies the central role in accounts of the formation of essentialist interpretations – especially in the context of social categories. In a pre-registered study (N = 240 American children, ages 4-9), we tested whether children assume essences in the presence of generic language or whether they flexibly assume diverse causal structures. Children learned about a novel social category described with generic statements containing either biological properties or cultural properties. Although generic language always led children to believe that properties were non-accidental, young children (4-5) in this sample inferred the non-accidental structure was socialization. Older children (6-9) flexibly interpreted the category as essential or socialized depending on the type of properties that generalized. We uncovered early-emerging flexibility and no privileged link between kinds and essences.

scholarly journals There is no privileged link between kinds and essences early in development

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (20) ◽  
pp. 10633-10635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Noyes ◽  
Frank C. Keil
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Biological Properties ◽  
Social Category ◽  
Category Representation ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Cultural Properties ◽  
Generic Language ◽  
American Children ◽  
Causal Structures

According to the dominant view of category representation, people preferentially infer that kinds (richly structured categories) reflect essences. Generic language (“Boys like blue”) often occupies the central role in accounts of the formation of essentialist interpretations—especially in the context of social categories. In a preregistered study (n = 240 American children, ages 4 to 9 y), we tested whether children assume essences in the presence of generic language or whether they flexibly assume diverse causal structures. Children learned about a novel social category described with generic statements containing either biological properties or cultural properties. Although generic language always led children to believe that properties were nonaccidental, young children (4 or 5 y) in this sample inferred the nonaccidental structure was socialization. Older children (6 to 9 y) flexibly interpreted the category as essential or socialized depending on the type of properties that generalized. We uncovered early-emerging flexibility and no privileged link between kinds and essences.

Instruction Helps and Hinders Young Children’s Feature Learning

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Kalish ◽  
Nigel Noll
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Feature Learning ◽  
Irrelevant Information ◽  
Diagnostic Feature ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Prediction Task ◽  
Feature Correlation ◽  
The Future

Existing research suggests that adults and older children experience a tradeoff where instruction and feedback help them solve a problem efficiently, but lead them to ignore currently irrelevant information that might be useful in the future. It is unclear whether young children experience the same tradeoff. Eighty-seven children (ages five- to eight-years) and 42 adults participated in supervised feature prediction tasks either with or without an instructional hint. Follow-up tasks assessed learning of feature correlations and feature frequencies. Younger children tended to learn frequencies of both relevant and irrelevant features without instruction, but not the diagnostic feature correlation needed for the prediction task. With instruction, younger children did learn the diagnostic feature correlation, but then failed to learn the frequencies of irrelevant features. Instruction helped older children learn the correlation without limiting attention to frequencies. Adults learned the diagnostic correlation even without instruction, but with instruction no longer learned about irrelevant frequencies. These results indicate that young children do show some costs of learning with instruction characteristic of older children and adults. However, they also receive some of the benefits. The current study illustrates just what those tradeoffs might be, and how they might change over development.

scholarly journals Population (Antibody) Testing for COVID-19—Technical Challenges, Application and Relevance, an English Perspective

Vaccines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 550
Author(s):  
Peter A. C. Maple
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Biological Properties ◽  
Limited Extent ◽  
Antibody Testing ◽  
Serum Samples ◽  
Oral Fluids ◽  
Antibody Assays ◽  
The Uk

In the UK, population virus or antibody testing using virus swabs, serum samples, blood spots or oral fluids has been performed to a limited extent for several diseases including measles, mumps, rubella and hepatitis and HIV. The collection of population-based infection and immunity data is key to the monitoring of disease prevalence and assessing the effectiveness of interventions such as behavioural modifications and vaccination. In particular, the biological properties of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its interaction with the human host have presented several challenges towards the development of population-based immunity testing. Measuring SARS-CoV-2 immunity requires the development of antibody assays of acceptable sensitivity and specificity which are capable of accurately detecting seroprevalence and differentiating protection from non-protective responses. Now that anti-COVID-19 vaccines are becoming available there is a pressing need to measure vaccine efficacy and the development of herd immunity. The unprecedented impact of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in the UK in terms of morbidity, mortality, and economic and social disruption has mobilized a national scientific effort to learn more about this virus. In this article, the challenges of testing for SARS-CoV-2 infection, particularly in relation to population-based immunity testing, will be considered and examples given of relevant national level studies.

scholarly journals Multilab Direct Replication of Flavell, Beach, and Chinsky (1966): Spontaneous Verbal Rehearsal in a Memory Task as a Function of Age

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 251524592110181
Author(s):  
Emily M. Elliott ◽  
Candice C. Morey ◽  
Angela M. AuBuchon ◽  
Nelson Cowan ◽  
Chris Jarrold ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Development ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Continuous Increase ◽  
Verbal Rehearsal ◽  
Picture Memory ◽  
Spontaneous Production

Work by Flavell, Beach, and Chinsky indicated a change in the spontaneous production of overt verbalization behaviors when comparing young children (age 5) with older children (age 10). Despite the critical role that this evidence of a change in verbalization behaviors plays in modern theories of cognitive development and working memory, there has been only one other published near replication of this work. In this Registered Replication Report, we relied on researchers from 17 labs who contributed their results to a larger and more comprehensive sample of children. We assessed memory performance and the presence or absence of verbalization behaviors of young children at different ages and determined that the original pattern of findings was largely upheld: Older children were more likely to verbalize, and their memory spans improved. We confirmed that 5- and 6-year-old children who verbalized recalled more than children who did not verbalize. However, unlike Flavell et al., substantial proportions of our 5- and 6-year-old samples overtly verbalized at least sometimes during the picture memory task. In addition, continuous increase in overt verbalization from 7 to 10 years old was not consistently evident in our samples. These robust findings should be weighed when considering theories of cognitive development, particularly theories concerning when verbal rehearsal emerges and relations between speech and memory.

Age Effects in the Processing of Typical and Distinctive Faces

1995 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 447-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Johnston ◽  
Hadyn D. Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Recognition Memory ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Age Effects ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Cognitive Architectures ◽  
Differential Processing ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Adults And Children

Two experiments exploring the differential processing of distinctive and typical faces by adults and children are reported. Experiment 1 employed a recognition memory task. On three out of four dimensions of measurement, children of 5 years of age did not show an advantage for distinctive faces, whereas older children and adults did. In Experiment 2, however, subjects of all ages classified typical faces faster than distinctive ones in a face/non-face decision task: the 5-year-olds performed exactly as did adults and older children. The different patterns in performance between these two tasks are discussed in relation to possible cognitive architectures for the way young children represent faces in memory. Specifically, we examine two alternative architectures proposed by Ellis (1992) as precursors for Valentine's (1991a) multidimensional adult face-space and discuss whether implementations of these spaces should be based on a norm-based or an exemplar-based framework.

Do Monkeys and Young Children Understand Exclusive “Or” Relations? A Commentary on Ferrigno et al. (2021)

2021 ◽  
pp. 095679762110246
Author(s):  
Shalini Gautam ◽  
Thomas Suddendorf ◽  
Jonathan Redshaw
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Response Pattern ◽  
Compelling Evidence ◽  
Experimental Task ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Disjunctive Syllogism ◽  
Identical Response ◽  
Exclusive Or

Ferrigno et al. (2021) claim to provide evidence that monkeys can reason through the disjunctive syllogism (given A or B, not A, therefore B) and conclude that monkeys therefore understand logical “or” relations. Yet their data fail to provide evidence that the baboons they tested understood the exclusive “or” relations in the experimental task. For two mutually exclusive possibilities—A or B—the monkeys appeared to infer that B was true when A was shown to be false, but they failed to infer that B was false when A was shown to be true. In our own research, we recently found an identical response pattern in 2.5- to 4-year-old children, whereas 5-year-olds demonstrated that they could make both inferences. The monkeys’ and younger children’s responses are instead consistent with an incorrect understanding of A and B as having an inclusive “or” relation. Only the older children provided compelling evidence of representing the exclusive “or” relation between A and B.

Why are Mongolian Infants Treated Like ‘Kings’?

Inner Asia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aude Michelet
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Infants And Toddlers ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Privileged Status ◽  
Daily Interactions ◽  
Children In The Middle

As infants and toddlers, Mongolian children grow up as the centre of attention in their home, promptly taken care of and tenderly indulged. In this paper, I seek to explain why young children in the middle Gobi enjoy a privileged status, in contrast with their status as older children. I show how the physical, emotional and moral peculiarities of infants’ and toddlers’ personhood converge in conferring upon them ‘kingly’ prerogatives. I then examine what leads to their loss of privileges, as they grow older. Unlike most studies examining the changes of status that children undergo, I do not focus on rites de passage, but analyse daily interactions. The loss of young children’s privileges occurs according to different timelines for each aspect of their personhood, while the prerogatives enjoyed by young children also reoccur at different periods in life, thus inviting us to reconsider what is meant by infancy as a discrete stage.

scholarly journals Selective trust in young children and distracted adults: halo-effects outweigh rational choices

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Hermes ◽  
Franziska Brugger ◽  
hannes rakoczy ◽  
Tanya Behne
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Cognitive Strategies ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Selective Trust ◽  
Rational Choices ◽  
Cognitive Foundations ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

Research has shown that young children are selective in whom they trust, for example, learning selectively from the previously more reliable sources. To explain what cognitive foundations this capacity may build upon, is has recently been proposed that children recruit different kinds of cognitive strategies. These may include, on the one hand, simple heuristics such as favoring the overall better protagonist or those who score high on a salient, accessible characteristic, and, on the other hand, more systematic and cognitively effortful strategies, e.g., taking into account the individual properties of a protagonist. Based on such dual-process account, the present studies investigated the prediction that the more systematic processes require cognitive resources and develop with age. Children and adults were familiarized with two protagonists: The strong-and-shy protagonist scored high on a highly accessible trait (strength), whereas the weak-and-extraverted protagonist scored high on a less accessible trait (extraversion). In test trials, participants chose between these two protagonists for strength- and extraversion-related tasks. The results were consistent with the prediction of the dual-process account: Older children, and adults under normal conditions, showed a pattern of systematic reasoning, selecting the protagonists with the relevant trait for a given task. Yet, younger children, and adults whose cognitive capacities were burdened with a secondary task, showed a pattern of heuristic reasoning, selecting the strong-and-shy protagonist not only in the strength tasks but often also in the extraversion tasks. This is the first piece of direct evidence for the applicability of a dual-process account on selective trust.

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