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Summary Background Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and obesity are independently associated with brain/neurocognitive health. Despite a growing emphasis on the importance of early life adversity on health, the relationship between ACEs and neurocognition in adults with overweight/obesity is unclear. The objective was to examine associations between self‐reported ACEs and measured neurocognitive domains in a sample of adults with overweight/obesity. Methods Participants were 95 predominantly white, highly educated adult women (76% female, 81% Caucasian, and 75% ≥ bachelor's degree) with excess adiposity enrolled in the Cognitive and Self‐regulatory Mechanisms of Obesity Study. ACEs and fluid/crystallized neurocognitive domains were measured at baseline using the Adverse Childhood Experiences Scale and the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery and Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metric, respectively. Results Higher ACEs scores were negatively correlated with fluid cognition (r = −.34, P < .001) but not crystallized cognition (r = .01, ns). Individuals with 3 and 4+ ACEs displayed significantly lower fluid cognition scores than those with fewer ACEs F4,89 = 3.24, P < .05. After accounting for body mass index (BMI), age, sex, race, and education, higher ACEs scores were still associated with poorer performance on overall fluid cognition (β = −.36, P < .01), along with the following subtests: Stroop Colour/Word test (β = −.23, P < .05), Go/No‐Go omissions (β = .29, P < .01), and Picture Sequence Memory task (β = −.30, P < .01). Conclusions The role of ACEs in health may be related to their associations with executive function and episodic neurocognitive domains essential to cognitive processing and self‐regulation. Obesity science should further examine the role of ACEs and neurocognition in obesity prevention, prognosis, and treatment using more rigorous, prospective designs and more diverse samples.

The end of the Cold War raised the profiles of international tribunals and truth commissions as official mechanisms for dealing with the legacies of political violence around the world. However, these mechanisms have the tendency to generate somewhat stark accounts of the past and present, and of guilt and heroism, and are thus an inadequate forum for grasping the complexities of protracted, multiple and fracturing intragroup violence. This article is based on fieldwork in Timor Leste. It analyzes the unresolved legacies of Timorese intragroup political violence through a focus on the interventions of political leaders in the Timorese national parliament over time, coupled with an analysis of some of their autobiographies. It reveals how the crisscrossing histories of violence and fluctuating group affiliations have shaped ongoing political struggles, from silence and denial to unsettling voices and deliberations, which constitute sources of enduring political negotiations, mistrust and tension among Timorese leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Background: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and obesity are independently associated with brain/neurocognitive health. Despite a growing emphasis on the importance of early life adversity on health, the relationship between ACEs and neurocognition in adults with overweight/obesity is unclear. The objective was to examine associations between self‐reported ACEs and measured neurocognitive domains in a sample of adults with overweight/obesity. Methods: Participants were 95 predominantly white, highly educated adult women (76% female, 81% Caucasian, and 75% ≥ bachelor's degree) with excess adiposity enrolled in the Cognitive and Self‐regulatory Mechanisms of Obesity Study. ACEs and fluid/crystallized neurocognitive domains were measured at baseline using the Adverse Childhood Experiences Scale and the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery and Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metric, respectively. Results: Higher ACEs scores were negatively correlated with fluid cognition (r = −.34, P <.001) but not crystallized cognition (r =.01, ns). Individuals with 3 and 4+ ACEs displayed significantly lower fluid cognition scores than those with fewer ACEs F4,89 = 3.24, P <.05. After accounting for body mass index (BMI), age, sex, race, and education, higher ACEs scores were still associated with poorer performance on overall fluid cognition (β = −.36, P <.01), along with the following subtests: Stroop Colour/Word test (β = −.23, P <.05), Go/No‐Go omissions (β =.29, P <.01), and Picture Sequence Memory task (β = −.30, P <.01). Conclusions: The role of ACEs in health may be related to their associations with executive function and episodic neurocognitive domains essential to cognitive processing and self‐regulation. Obesity science should further examine the role of ACEs and neurocognition in obesity prevention, prognosis, and treatment using more rigorous, prospective designs and more diverse samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months is recommended; however, women with obesity have lower exclusive breastfeeding rates than their normal weight peers. The impact of the timing of maternal excess adiposity onset is unknown. Research aim: We examined whether the timing of onset of excess weight was related to exclusive breastfeeding duration. Methods: Snowball sampling was used for the cross-sectional Breastfeeding Opinions, Outcomes, Behaviors, and Services online survey. The sample was 1,570 mothers who reported their breastfeeding and weight history. Exclusive breastfeeding duration (for first biological child only) was calculated in months and dichotomously (0=< 6 months exclusive breastfeeding; 1=⩾ 6 months exclusive breastfeeding). Participants self-reported their excess weight onset (0=before/during puberty or 1=after puberty). Results: Analysis of covariance results indicated that earlier onset of excess weight was associated with shorter exclusive breastfeeding (F (1, 1518) = 11.29, p<.001, η 2=.01). Those with excess adiposity onset before or during puberty were 1.6 times more likely to experience exclusive breastfeeding failure (< 6 months exclusive breastfeeding) than those with onset after puberty (OR = 1.57, β =.46, Wald = 11.81, p =.001). Conclusion: Earlier onset of excess adiposity had an adverse influence on exclusive breastfeeding duration. Women with a history of excess adiposity before or during puberty who want to breastfeed may require additional intervention to promote their breastfeeding success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined relations between multiple measures of maternal iron status assessed 3 months post-partum, and infant processing speed (longest look during visual habituation), memory (novelty preference), attention (heart rate changes), and neural response variability (in auditory event-related potentials) at 3 and 9 months. Plasma iron was associated with 9-month novelty preference and longest look, and developmental changes in longest look. Hemoglobin predicted sustained attention, and both plasma iron and soluble transferrin receptors predicted neural response variability at 9 months. Improved maternal iron appears to have a positive impact on infant cognitive development even in a well-nourished, low-risk sample. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The interactions between attention and stimulus encoding in infancy were examined using heart rate ( HR) and visual habituation measures. At 3, 6, and 9 months of age, infants ( N = 119) were habituated to an adult face; longest look ( LL) duration was measured as an indicator of encoding speed. Three groups were formed based on LL change from 3 to 9 months: Large Decrease, Small Decrease, and Increase. Using concurrent electrocardiograph recordings, attention was measured through the percentage of looking time in orienting, sustained attention, and attention termination. We partially replicated previous findings regarding developmental patterns of attention in these three groups, notably that these patterns were different for the Increase group. Looks away from the stimulus were also assessed in each attentional phase and, as predicted, HR acceleration phases showed less visual engagement than HR deceleration phases. We also found anomalous behavior for the LL Increase group. In general, this small but distinct group showed similarities at 3 months to the presumably more mature behavior of typical 9 month olds, but by 9 months, they behaved more like typical 3 month olds regarding some, but not all, cognitive measures. These results are discussed in the context of the development of endogenous attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]