Quotidian resilience: exploring mechanisms that drive resilience from a perspective of everyday stress and coping

Resilience is often associated with extreme trauma or overcoming extraordinary odds. This way of thinking about resilience leaves most of the ontogenetic picture a mystery. In the following review we put forth the Everyday Stress Resilience Hypothesis where resilience is analyzed from a systems perspective and seen as a process of regulating everyday life stressors. Successful regulation accumulates into regulatory resilience which emerges during early development from successful coping with the inherent stress in typical interactions. These quotidian stressful events lead to activation of behavioral and physiologic systems. Stress that is effectively resolved in the short run and with reiteration over the long-term increases children's as well as adults’ capacity to cope with more intense stressors. Infants, however, lack the regulatory capacities to take on this task by themselves. Therefore, through communicative and regulatory processes during infant-adult interactions, we demonstrate that the roots of regulatory resilience originate in infants’ relationship with their caregiver and that maternal sensitivity can help or hinder the growth of resilience.     

Relationship between Hair Cortisol and Perceived Chronic Stress in a Diverse Sample

Hair cortisol (CORT) is a biomarker of chronic stress via long‐term alterations in hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis activity. Relationships to perceived stress measures, however, have rarely been specifically investigated. A diverse sample of 135 adults participated in a study assessing relationships between chronic stress indicator CORT to perceived stress and health indicators. CORT was not correlated to single perceived domain indices but with a global stress composite. Differences in objective and subjective measures were found for sociodemographics: racial/ethnic identity, sex and socioeconomic status (SES). Race by SES interactions predicted both CORT and perceived stress, but produced a complex and partially unanticipated pattern of results. For minorities, low and high SES showed the highest CORT, with mid‐SES showing the lowest CORT; there was little change in perceived stress at all levels of SES. For non‐minorities, mid‐SES showed the highest CORT, with decreases in both CORT and perceived stress in high SES. The unanticipated findings of deleterious outcomes for high SES minorities highlight the importance of investigating potential stressors and moderators, including perceived discrimination and social identity. Moreover, these results suggest that CORT may not always correlate with single stress indices but may provide a global assessment of chronic stress, with implications for the allostatic load literature. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Early resilience in the context of parent-infant relationships: a social developmental perspective

The growth of infants' regulatory capacities is foundational to the capacity for resilience. Variations in the quality of early social--emotional experience can promote or undermine infants' regulatory capacities. Such capacities are also dynamically sculpted by the relationships among infant, parent, and contextual--cultural factors. Brief periods of disorganization in parent-infant relationships are inevitable, common, and reflect everyday demands on parents and infants. The uneven nature of parent-infant interactions fosters the emergence of new infant capacities. Parental depression and anxiety as well as infant medical, behavioral, and temperamental issues can result in prolonged periods of dyadic disorganization and maladaptive infant outcomes. Child health clinicians can help parents anticipate the normal periods of disorganization and assist parents as they strive to develop optimal parent-infant relationships.     

Immunomodulation of LPS Ability to Induce the Local Shwartzman Reaction

Immunologically, the septic shock is a natural model of immunomediated vascular pathology where the interaction between cytokines and the endothelium mediates the syndrome and lethality. Tumour necrosis factor (TNF), a non-species-specific cytokine, has outstanding pleiotropic activities as an important mediator of the septic shock syndrome. In rabbits, passive immunization with anti-lipopolysaccharide (LPS) polyclonal antibodies prior to the intravenous (i.v.) injection of LPS inhibits the haemorrhagic necrotic lesion characteristic of the local Shwartzman reaction (an excellent localized in vivo correlate of the septic shock). Paradoxically, tested in an ex vivo assay (short-term whole human blood culture, stimulated with LPS), these antibodies mediated an increase in TNF production by mononuclear phagocytes and, in the rabbit model, they induced an increase in body temperature, as compared with the pre-immune reagent. Although anchoring of immune complexes containing LPS to receptors (Fc or C4b-C3b) on circulating monocytes may facilitate the access of LPS to these cells, access to localized, LPS-sensitized macrophages may be impaired. Consequently inhibition of the local Shwartzman reaction and increased TNF production in the ex vivo system were observed. Concordantly, the higher temperature in the passively immunized animals may be a consequence of a higher, immune complex-induced, systemic TNF production. These experimental results suggest that the use of anti-LPS immunoglobulins, as a potential immunotherapy for septic shock syndrome in vertebrates, may lead to increased TNF production, with adverse effects such as the pyrogenic.     

Identification of T-cell stimulating antigens from Giardia lamblia by using Giardia-specific T-cell hybridomas

T-cell immune response plays an important role in controlling Giardia lamblia infections. Little is known about the G. lamblia -specific antigens that stimulate a cell-mediated immune response. The aim of the present study was to identify T-cell stimulating G. lamblia antigens. For this purpose, we generated a group of Giardia -specific T-cell hybridomas (2F9, 4D5, 6D10, 8B9, 9B10, 10F7 and 10G5). Hybridomas were screened for reactivity with G. lamblia protein extract by the CTLL bioassay. These T-cell hybridomas did not exhibit any significant activation either in the absence of G. lamblia protein extract or in the presence of irrelevant antigen (hen white egg lysozyme). To further characterize the T-cell hybridomas generated, we selected three hybridomas (10G5, 4D5 and 9B10). Giardia lamblia proteins of 90–110, 65–77 and 40–64 kDa showed T-cell stimulating activity for the hybridomas 10G5, 4D5 and 9B10, respectively, in a concentration-dependent manner. Protein extract obtained from different G. lamblia strains (GS/M-83-H7, WB C6 and a clinical isolate (YJJ)) stimulated all T-cell hybridomas, indicating that T-cell-stimulating antigens are expressed among different G. lamblia strains. In conclusion, we identified T-cell stimulating G. lamblia antigens by using Giardia -specific T-cell hybridomas. To our knowledge, these hybridomas are the first-described T-cell hybridomas specific for G. lamblia.     

Islet cell tumour with vacuolated lipid-rich cytoplasm: a new histological variant of islet cell tumour

Aims: A previously unreported clear cell variant of islet cell tumour of the pancreas is described. Methods and results: By light microscopy, the cytoplasm of the clear cells was finely reticulated and vacuolated. Immunohistochemical and electron microscopy studies confirmed the endocrine nature of the tumour. Conclusions: The clear cell morphology was due to the accumulation of lipid in the cytoplasm.     

Meningeal melanocytoma: case report and review of the literature

We report a case of meningeal melanocytoma in the thoracic spinal cord of a 44-year-old woman and review previously documented cases. Our patient experienced numbness and tingling in her left leg for 8 years, and low back pains with intermittent claudication for the previous 2 months. A histologically benign 20-mm tumour was totally resected. Radiation therapy was not given. The tumour showed the histological, immunohistochemical and ultrastructural features of a meningeal melanocytoma. The patient is alive without recurrence 4.5 years after surgery.     

Rate-Responsive Pacing: Clinical Experience

Single chamber, rate-responsive pacing is emerging as a new modality in cardiac pacing and in ihe near future, dual chamber rule-responsive pacing may be the optimal solution for most pacemaker patients. In this report we describe our short- and long-term clinical experience with two different rate-responsive pacemakers: the RS4, an asynchronous atrial sensing ventricular pacemaker, and the TX-pacemaker, which senses the evoked QT after a ventricular paced beat, as an indicator of metoholic demand. Both systems use a single ventricular lead. Nine palients received RS4 and 10 palients received TX units. All of these patients had AV block and good ventricular function except for three patients with sinas node disease in the TX group. Between 1 and 3 months after implantation, a 24-hour Holter monitoring was performed, durifig which two maximal symptom-limited treadmill exercise tests (Bruce protocol) were conducted in VVI (70 bpm) and rate-responsive modes, in a random fashion. The mean follow-up was 25 months in RS4 group and 10 months in TX group. Significant improvements in patient exercise tolerance were found in the rate-responsive mode (9.0 vs. 6.6 METs in VVI) with similar results in both groups (RS4 and TX) despite higher ventricular pacing rates in the TX group (721 bpm vs. 102 bpm in RS4). An autolimited rate-responsive pacemaker-mediated tachycardia, induced by retrograde ventriculoatrial conduction, was observed in a patient with an RS4. There are still many problems with these units; at the end of follow-up, only 4 out of 9 with the RS4 unit and 9 out of 10 with the TX unit have pacers that are functioning properly. Single chamber rate-responsive pacing should be considered as a step forward in cardiac pacing.     

The predicted DBL oncogene product defines a distinct class of transforming proteins

The DBL transforming gene was originally identified by transfection of NIH 3T3 cells with DNA from a human B-cell lymphoma. This gene was found to have arisen as a result of recombination of the 3' portion of the DBL protooncogene coding sequences with an unrelated segment of human DNA. It encodes a cytoplasmic protein that is equally distributed between cytosol and crude membrane fractions. To further characterize this transforming gene, a biologically active cDNA clone of the DBL transforming gene mRNA was isolated. Analysis of the sequence of the DBL oncogene cDNA revealed a long open reading frame that encodes a hybrid protein whose first 50 amino acids (at least) derive from a complete exon of a different locus. No significant homology with known oncogenes or any known protein sequences was demonstrated. The computer analysis of the predicted DBL protein indicated it is highly hydrophilic with no hydrophobic domains characteristic of a membrane-spanning region or signal peptide. Thus, the DBL oncoprotein is distinct among known transforming gene products.