Background We previously showed that continued folic acid (FA) supplementation beyond the first t... more Background We previously showed that continued folic acid (FA) supplementation beyond the first trimester of pregnancy appears to have beneficial effects on neurocognitive performance in children followed for up to 11 years, but the biological mechanism for this effect has remained unclear. Using samples from our randomized controlled trial of folic acid supplementation in second and third trimester (FASSTT), where significant improvements in cognitive and psychosocial performance were demonstrated in children from mothers supplemented in pregnancy with 400 µg/day FA compared with placebo, we examined methylation patterns from cord blood (CB) using the EPIC array which covers approximately 850,000 cytosine–guanine (CG) sites across the genome. Genes showing significant differences were verified using pyrosequencing and mechanistic approaches used in vitro to determine effects on transcription. Results FA supplementation resulted in significant differences in methylation, particularl...
The current study aimed to explore health behaviour, quality of life and well-being in older chil... more The current study aimed to explore health behaviour, quality of life and well-being in older children in relation to social background, parental academic socialisation and academic expectation stress, and the role of emerging constructs of self-compassion and psychological capital as potential protective factors. A survey was administered to a sample of 373 children (150 males and 223 females) aged between 11 and 15 years. Children were assessed on academic expectations stress, home and social background, parenting experience, psychological capital, self-compassion, health behaviour, well-being and quality of life. Academic expectation stress was inversely predictive of well-being and quality of life and through its impact on self-compassion and psychological capital, to health behaviour. Findings from this study would suggest that positive psychology interventions to build self-compassion and psychological capital may be efficacious in reducing the negative impact of academic expec...
A social identity theory of leadership is described that views leadership as a group process gene... more A social identity theory of leadership is described that views leadership as a group process generated by social categorization and prototype-based depersonalization processes associated with social identity. Group identification, as self-categorization, constructs an intragroup prototypicality gradient that invests the most prototypical member with the appearance of having influence; the appearance arises because members cognitively and behaviorally conform to the prototype. The appearance of influence becomes a reality through depersonalized social attraction processes that make followers agree and comply with the leader's ideas and suggestions. Consensual social attraction also imbues the leader with apparent status and creates a status-based structural differentiation within the group into leader(s) and followers, which has characteristics of unequal status intergroup relations. In addition, a fundamental attribution process constructs a charismatic leadership personality fo...
Asthma is one of the most common chronic childhood diseases. While folic acid supplementation aro... more Asthma is one of the most common chronic childhood diseases. While folic acid supplementation around conception helps prevent neural tube defects, an animal model suggests that it may be a risk factor for respiratory diseases, although epidemiologic studies have had conflicting results. We investigated the timing of folic acid-containing prescription filling during pregnancy and child asthma. In a retrospective cohort study of 104,428 children, born 1996-2005, and their mothers enrolled in Tennessee Medicaid, we investigated the association of filling folic acid-containing prescriptions during pregnancy and childhood asthma at ages 4.5-6 years. We categorized women into exposure groups based on prescription filling centered around the first trimester: no folic acid prescription exposure, exposure in first trimester only, exposure after first trimester, and exposure in first trimester and beyond. We defined asthma using asthma-specific healthcare visits and medication fills. Using lo...
Objectives. This study two had two aims: to establish participant’s state of mind (SOM) with rega... more Objectives. This study two had two aims: to establish participant’s state of mind (SOM) with regards to attachment using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) (George, Main, and Kaplan,1985-1996) and to explore the experiences and impact of adoption amongst adults adopted from mother and baby homes in the UK and Ireland.Methods. The current study made use of all information gained by the AAI by analysing the interview transcripts in two ways: (i) by using the AAI scoring system (Main, Goldwyn and Hesse, 2003) to assess each participant’s SOM (ii) thematic analysis of the transcripts producing an inductive set of themes. Results. All participants had an insecure SOM with regards to attachment. Four out of the five participants were unresolved/disorganised, and preoccupied was the most prevalent underlying three-way classification. Qualitative analysis of transcripts identified four overarching themes: (i) Identity and Belonging; (ii) Trauma; (iii) ‘Silenced’ Coping and (iv) Adverse Pa...
Purpose Health-care professionals working in inpatient forensic mental health settings are expose... more Purpose Health-care professionals working in inpatient forensic mental health settings are exposed to a range of traumatic and distressing incidents with impacts discussed variously as “burnout”, “compassion fatigue”, “secondary trauma stress” and “vicarious traumatisation”. This study aims to explore the short- and long-term psychological and physical health effects of trauma exposure in the workplace for frontline staff in a forensic setting. Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 nursing staff members working in the male personality disorders care stream in a Medium Secure Hospital. Findings Thematic analysis yielded five themes: categories of trauma; how well-being is impacted; ways of coping and managing; protective factors; and systemic factors, with sub-themes within each of the superordinate themes. Practical implications The findings demonstrate that some staff members were affected both physically and psychologically as a result of tr...
Figure S3. Median methylation levels at imprint control regions. Methylation levels at imprint co... more Figure S3. Median methylation levels at imprint control regions. Methylation levels at imprint control regions (ICR) were assessed by matching EPIC array probes to the imprint germline DMR intervals defined by [48] (A) or [49] (B) then taking the average (median) across each. The identities of each ICR and number of probes are indicated below. Boxes show the median and interquartile range for the individual averages from each group (Placebo n = 45, Treated n = 41), whiskers represent the range of values, dots indicate outliers. (PDF 1518 kb)
Figure S2. QQ plot shows no evidence of population substructure effects. The observed Chi-squared... more Figure S2. QQ plot shows no evidence of population substructure effects. The observed Chi-squared (χ2) values (open circles), plotted as –log10 of the p value for both sample groups, fit tightly to the expected χ2 values (red line), indicating little evidence of association due to population substructure effects and that the top hits which deviate from the line (right-hand side) are likely to represent true differences due to loci with large effects. (PDF 332 kb)
Figure S1. Correlation between folate levels in cord blood and mother. Scatterplot shows log-conv... more Figure S1. Correlation between folate levels in cord blood and mother. Scatterplot shows log-converted red blood cell folate (RCF) levels in nanomoles per liter (nmol/l) at gestational week 36 (GW36) for mothers (post-intervention) and matched cord blood. The line of best fit shows significant correlation between mothers and offspring (r = 0.619; p =
Additional file 1: Methods. Supplementary details in relation to magnetoencephalographic brain im... more Additional file 1: Methods. Supplementary details in relation to magnetoencephalographic brain imaging. Table S1. Maternal characteristics during pregnancy in all FASSTT trial participants and in the sample whose children completed the FASSTT Offspring trial at 11 years. Table S2. Full Scale IQ, composite and subtest scores for the WISC-IV cognitive assessment in FASSTT Offspring trial participants. Table S3. Maternal characteristics during pregnancy in all FASSTT trial participants and in the sub-sample whose children completed the MEG assessment in the FASSTT Offspring trial.
Background We previously showed that continued folic acid (FA) supplementation beyond the first t... more Background We previously showed that continued folic acid (FA) supplementation beyond the first trimester of pregnancy appears to have beneficial effects on neurocognitive performance in children followed for up to 11 years, but the biological mechanism for this effect has remained unclear. Using samples from our randomized controlled trial of folic acid supplementation in second and third trimester (FASSTT), where significant improvements in cognitive and psychosocial performance were demonstrated in children from mothers supplemented in pregnancy with 400 µg/day FA compared with placebo, we examined methylation patterns from cord blood (CB) using the EPIC array which covers approximately 850,000 cytosine–guanine (CG) sites across the genome. Genes showing significant differences were verified using pyrosequencing and mechanistic approaches used in vitro to determine effects on transcription. Results FA supplementation resulted in significant differences in methylation, particularl...
The current study aimed to explore health behaviour, quality of life and well-being in older chil... more The current study aimed to explore health behaviour, quality of life and well-being in older children in relation to social background, parental academic socialisation and academic expectation stress, and the role of emerging constructs of self-compassion and psychological capital as potential protective factors. A survey was administered to a sample of 373 children (150 males and 223 females) aged between 11 and 15 years. Children were assessed on academic expectations stress, home and social background, parenting experience, psychological capital, self-compassion, health behaviour, well-being and quality of life. Academic expectation stress was inversely predictive of well-being and quality of life and through its impact on self-compassion and psychological capital, to health behaviour. Findings from this study would suggest that positive psychology interventions to build self-compassion and psychological capital may be efficacious in reducing the negative impact of academic expec...
A social identity theory of leadership is described that views leadership as a group process gene... more A social identity theory of leadership is described that views leadership as a group process generated by social categorization and prototype-based depersonalization processes associated with social identity. Group identification, as self-categorization, constructs an intragroup prototypicality gradient that invests the most prototypical member with the appearance of having influence; the appearance arises because members cognitively and behaviorally conform to the prototype. The appearance of influence becomes a reality through depersonalized social attraction processes that make followers agree and comply with the leader's ideas and suggestions. Consensual social attraction also imbues the leader with apparent status and creates a status-based structural differentiation within the group into leader(s) and followers, which has characteristics of unequal status intergroup relations. In addition, a fundamental attribution process constructs a charismatic leadership personality fo...
Asthma is one of the most common chronic childhood diseases. While folic acid supplementation aro... more Asthma is one of the most common chronic childhood diseases. While folic acid supplementation around conception helps prevent neural tube defects, an animal model suggests that it may be a risk factor for respiratory diseases, although epidemiologic studies have had conflicting results. We investigated the timing of folic acid-containing prescription filling during pregnancy and child asthma. In a retrospective cohort study of 104,428 children, born 1996-2005, and their mothers enrolled in Tennessee Medicaid, we investigated the association of filling folic acid-containing prescriptions during pregnancy and childhood asthma at ages 4.5-6 years. We categorized women into exposure groups based on prescription filling centered around the first trimester: no folic acid prescription exposure, exposure in first trimester only, exposure after first trimester, and exposure in first trimester and beyond. We defined asthma using asthma-specific healthcare visits and medication fills. Using lo...
Objectives. This study two had two aims: to establish participant’s state of mind (SOM) with rega... more Objectives. This study two had two aims: to establish participant’s state of mind (SOM) with regards to attachment using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) (George, Main, and Kaplan,1985-1996) and to explore the experiences and impact of adoption amongst adults adopted from mother and baby homes in the UK and Ireland.Methods. The current study made use of all information gained by the AAI by analysing the interview transcripts in two ways: (i) by using the AAI scoring system (Main, Goldwyn and Hesse, 2003) to assess each participant’s SOM (ii) thematic analysis of the transcripts producing an inductive set of themes. Results. All participants had an insecure SOM with regards to attachment. Four out of the five participants were unresolved/disorganised, and preoccupied was the most prevalent underlying three-way classification. Qualitative analysis of transcripts identified four overarching themes: (i) Identity and Belonging; (ii) Trauma; (iii) ‘Silenced’ Coping and (iv) Adverse Pa...
Purpose Health-care professionals working in inpatient forensic mental health settings are expose... more Purpose Health-care professionals working in inpatient forensic mental health settings are exposed to a range of traumatic and distressing incidents with impacts discussed variously as “burnout”, “compassion fatigue”, “secondary trauma stress” and “vicarious traumatisation”. This study aims to explore the short- and long-term psychological and physical health effects of trauma exposure in the workplace for frontline staff in a forensic setting. Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 nursing staff members working in the male personality disorders care stream in a Medium Secure Hospital. Findings Thematic analysis yielded five themes: categories of trauma; how well-being is impacted; ways of coping and managing; protective factors; and systemic factors, with sub-themes within each of the superordinate themes. Practical implications The findings demonstrate that some staff members were affected both physically and psychologically as a result of tr...
Figure S3. Median methylation levels at imprint control regions. Methylation levels at imprint co... more Figure S3. Median methylation levels at imprint control regions. Methylation levels at imprint control regions (ICR) were assessed by matching EPIC array probes to the imprint germline DMR intervals defined by [48] (A) or [49] (B) then taking the average (median) across each. The identities of each ICR and number of probes are indicated below. Boxes show the median and interquartile range for the individual averages from each group (Placebo n = 45, Treated n = 41), whiskers represent the range of values, dots indicate outliers. (PDF 1518 kb)
Figure S2. QQ plot shows no evidence of population substructure effects. The observed Chi-squared... more Figure S2. QQ plot shows no evidence of population substructure effects. The observed Chi-squared (χ2) values (open circles), plotted as –log10 of the p value for both sample groups, fit tightly to the expected χ2 values (red line), indicating little evidence of association due to population substructure effects and that the top hits which deviate from the line (right-hand side) are likely to represent true differences due to loci with large effects. (PDF 332 kb)
Figure S1. Correlation between folate levels in cord blood and mother. Scatterplot shows log-conv... more Figure S1. Correlation between folate levels in cord blood and mother. Scatterplot shows log-converted red blood cell folate (RCF) levels in nanomoles per liter (nmol/l) at gestational week 36 (GW36) for mothers (post-intervention) and matched cord blood. The line of best fit shows significant correlation between mothers and offspring (r = 0.619; p =
Additional file 1: Methods. Supplementary details in relation to magnetoencephalographic brain im... more Additional file 1: Methods. Supplementary details in relation to magnetoencephalographic brain imaging. Table S1. Maternal characteristics during pregnancy in all FASSTT trial participants and in the sample whose children completed the FASSTT Offspring trial at 11 years. Table S2. Full Scale IQ, composite and subtest scores for the WISC-IV cognitive assessment in FASSTT Offspring trial participants. Table S3. Maternal characteristics during pregnancy in all FASSTT trial participants and in the sub-sample whose children completed the MEG assessment in the FASSTT Offspring trial.
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