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The present review has the primary goal of describing the state of the art of the relationship between parental use of physical discipline and children's externalizing symptoms. Externalizing symptomatology is more associated to harsh than to mild physical discipline. While the association between the frequency of corporal punishment and the development of externalizing symptoms is still debated. Moreover, there is a corpus of literature that focused on the transactional effects of the examined constructs: corporal punishment and externalizing symptoms tend to reinforce each other. Finally, researches concerning the mediational role of physical punishment in the link between specific psychosocial factors and externalizing symptomatology will be analysed.

We investigated the effect of placenta growth factor-1 (P1GF-1) on cell growth and on the release of nitric oxide (NO), cyclic AMP (cAMP) and cyclic GMP (cGMP) in human malignant epithelial cells. A noteworthy increase in proliferation was induced in choriocarcinoma cells (BeWo) by P1GF-1 treatment, while breast cancer cells (CG-5) were minimally affected. Western blotting and immunocytochemistry demonstrated the expression of the P1GF-1 receptor fms-like tyrosine kinase-1 (Flt-1) in these models. NO was released in the BeWo culture medium as a result of P1GF-1 treatment, with maximal induction occurring after 6 h. Enhanced cAMP levels were observed after 80 min-6 h, while the amounts of cGMP produced were undetectable. In summary, PIGF-1 stimulates the proliferation of cell types that express Flt-1, other than endothelial cells. In BeWo cells, this effect is preceded by the induction of NO and cAMP as probable downstream effectors of Flt-1 activation.