| 1. |
- Babarro, Izaro, et al.
(författare)
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Do prepubertal hormones, 2D:4D index and psychosocial context jointly explain 11-year-old preadolescents involvement in bullying?
- 2022
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Ingår i: Biological Psychology. - : Elsevier. - 0301-0511 .- 1873-6246. ; 172
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Bullying is a type of aggressive behavior that occurs repeatedly and intentionally in school environments and where there is a power imbalance. The main objective of this study was to analyze the association that hormones and the psychosocial context jointly have with bullying behavior. Method: Participants were 302 11-year-old preadolescents from the Gipuzkoan cohort of the INMA Project. Bullying was assessed using the Olweus Bully/victim Questionnaire. Prenatal sexual hormones were assessed by calculating 2D:4D ratio and in order to measure prepubertal testosterone and cortisol levels saliva samples were collected within a week of each other. Additionally, various psychosocial factors were evaluated: executive function, family context, school environment and social context. To analyze our complex hypothesis, six metamodels were tested using structural equation modeling. Results: In relation to victims, results showed that victimization was related to worse school environment perception in boys, and higher stress and conflict in the family in girls. In the case of their involvement in bullying as a bully, lower salivary cortisol levels, worse school environment perception and lower peers and social support was related to being more frequently involved as a bully in boys, while having more family stress and conflict was related with being a bully in girls. Conclusions: This approach makes it possible not only to explore the different biological and psychosocial factors affect bullying behavior, but also to explore associations between the predictor variables.
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| 2. |
- Babarro, Izaro, et al.
(författare)
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Hair cortisol as a biomarker of chronic stress in preadolescents: influence of school context and bullying
- 2023
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Ingår i: Child Neuropsychology. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0929-7049 .- 1744-4136. ; 29:5, s. 742-759
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Bullying has been identified as the most common form of aggression and a major source of stress among children and adolescents. The main objective of this study was to analyze the association that school context in general and bullying in particular might have with hair cortisol concentration (HCC), examining the effect of executive function and sex on this association. The study included 659 11-year-old preadolescents from the cohorts of Gipuzkoa and Sabadell of the INMA (INfancia y Medio Ambiente-Children and Environment) project. We gathered information about school-related factors (bullying, school environment, problems with peers and academic performance) and executive function (risky decision-making). Hair samples were collected to measure cortisol concentrations and Structural Equation Modeling was used to examine associations between school-related factors, executive function and HCC. Results showed that being involved as a bully/victim was related to higher HCC and, higher HCC was associated with poorer executive function. This study may contribute to a better understanding of the consequences that chronic exposure to a stressful factors may have on preadolescents' health and developmental outcomes. Besides, our results are relevant for designing programs for prevention and intervention, which could modify individual physiological responses to stress and reduce the effects of stress on the health.
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| 3. |
- Soler-Blasco, Raquel, et al.
(författare)
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Genetic Susceptibility to Neurotoxicity Related to Prenatal Inorganic Arsenic Exposure in Young Spanish Children.
- 2023
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Ingår i: Environmental science & technology. - 1520-5851. ; 57:41, s. 15366-15378
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We explored the influence of child and maternal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes related to neurological function and arsenic metabolism (i.e., ABCA1, ABCB1, PON1, CYP3A, BDNF, GSTP1, MT2A, and APOE as well as AS3MT) on the association between prenatal arsenic (As) exposure and methylation efficiency and neuropsychological development in 4-5-year-old children. Participants were 549 mother-child pairs from the INMA (Environment and Childhood) Spanish Project. We measured inorganic arsenic (iAs) and the metabolites monomethylarsonic acid (MMA) and dimethylarsinic acid (DMA) in urine samples collected during pregnancy. Neuropsychological development was assessed at the age of 4-5 years using the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (MSCA). Several SNPs were determined in maternal and child DNA; AS3MT and APOE haplotypes were inferred. The median ∑As (sum of iAs, DMA, and MMA) was 7.08 μg/g creatinine. Statistically significant interactions for children's APOE haplotype were observed. Specifically, ε4-carrier children had consistently lower MSCA scores in several scales with increasing ∑As and MMA concentrations. These results provide evidence regarding the neurotoxic effects of early life exposure to As, observing that the APOE ε4 allele could make children more vulnerable to this exposure.
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