Effects Of Early Childhood Stress On Behavior And Brain Development Essay

Submitted By Britaney-Bianco
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November 5, 2013

In This Issue
Tunable p-n heterojunction diodes

orphanages. To account for the genetic and environmental factors that influence human studies, the authors mimicked the impoverished caregiving provided by the children’s orphanages in preweaned mice by decreasing nesting material available to the dams for a limited time. The findings uncover lasting effects of early life experiences on human behavior and development, the authors report. Early-onset and long lasting changes in anxious behavior and amygdala function were observed in mice exposed to disorganized parental care early in life, mirroring the heightened emotional reactivity and amygdala changes in orphanage-reared children. The changes persisted long after the children were removed from the stressor, and did not diminish with the development of prefrontal regulatory regions in the brain. According to the authors, the findings highlight how early-life stress can lead to altered brain circuitry and emotional dysregulation, and suggest that such children may benefit from early intervention. — A.G.

The p-n junction diode, a ubiquitous building block of modern electronics, has numerous applications ranging from integrated circuits to photovoltaics and lasers. However, the recent emergence of extremely thin materials suggests that this integral electronic component can be scaled down to thicknesses of a few atoms, potentially enhancing its functionality even further. Deep Jariwala et al.
(pp. 18076–18080) demonstrate the fabrication and operation of a p-n heterojunction diode—an interface that passes current between dissimilar semiconductor types—based on atomically thin molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) and sorted semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). The electrical characteristics of these heterojunction diodes can be precisely tuned to achieve behavior ranging from insulating to rectifying. Furthermore, the diodes respond strongly to optical irradiation with a fast photoresponse and quantum efficiency that compares favorably with other recently reported atomically thin nanomaterials. By combining the highly desirable electrical properties of SWCNTs with the rapidly expand- Maternal bond might influence bonobo ing field of atomically thin materials, the authors report, the p-n social competence heterojunction concept might lead to a new generation of ultrathin,
Previous studies have suggested that social skills, such as expresshigh-performance electronics and optoelectronics. — T. J. ing sympathy and responding to others’ distress, are positively tied to emotion control in humans. Zanna Clay and Frans de Waal (pp.
18121–18126) examined the development of social and emotional competence in our close primate relatives: bonobos (Pan paniscus).
The authors studied a range of social skills, including the apes’ abilities to sustain social interaction through play bouts, overcome selfdistress, and console distressed peers through comforting acts such as touching, stroking, kissing, and embracing, among a group of juvenile bonobos in a forested sanctuary in the Democratic

False-colored scanning electron micrograph of a carbon nanotube/
MoS2 heterojunction diode.

Effects of early-childhood stress on behavior and brain development
Early-childhood stress, such as the disorganized care received by children reared in some orphanages, has been linked to psychopathology later in life but the neurobiological underpinnings of these outcomes remain unclear. Matthew Malter Cohen et al.
(pp. 18274–18278) studied 16 orphanage-reared children, ages
11 and younger, and a group of 10 children who had not lived in One juvenile embraces another after the other loses a fight. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/iti4513110 PNAS
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November 5, 2013 | vol. 110 | no. 45 | 18025–18026

Republic of Congo. Whereas some bonobos were born and mother-reared at the sanctuary, most arrived as orphans rescued in the wild from illegal