Childhood self-control and unemployment throughout the life span: evidence from two British cohort studies.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Daly M
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4512256 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jun
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:ObjectiveLow self-control has been linked with smoking, yet it remains unclear whether childhood self-control underlies the emergence of lifetime smoking patterns. We examined the contribution of childhood self-control to early smoking initiation and smoking across adulthood.Methods21,132 participants were drawn from 2 nationally representative cohort studies; the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS) and the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS). Child self-control was teacher-rated at age 10 in the BCS and at ages 7 and 11 in the NCDS. Participants reported their smoking status and number of cigarettes smoked per day at 5 time-points in the BCS (ages 26-42) and 6 time-points in the NCDS (ages 23-55). Both studies controlled for socioeconomic background, cognitive ability, psychological distress, gender, and parental smoking; the NCDS also controlled for an extended set of background characteristics.ResultsEarly self-control made a substantial graded contribution to (not) smoking throughout life. In adjusted regression models, a 1-SD increase in self-control predicted a 6.9 percentage point lower probability of smoking in the BCS, and this was replicated in the NCDS (5.2 point reduced risk). Adolescent smoking explained over half of the association between self-control and adult smoking. Childhood self-control was positively related to smoking cessation and negatively related to smoking initiation, relapse to smoking, and the number of cigarettes smoked in adulthood.ConclusionsThis study provides strong evidence that low childhood self-control predicts an increased risk of smoking throughout adulthood and points to adolescent smoking as a key pathway through which this may occur. (PsycINFO Database Record
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Project description:Childhood adversity is associated with poor health outcomes in adulthood; the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis has been proposed as a crucial biological intermediary of these long-term effects. Here, we tested whether childhood adversity was associated with diurnal cortisol parameters and whether this link was partially explained by self-esteem. In both adults and youths, childhood adversity was associated with lower levels of cortisol at awakening, and this association was partially driven by low self-esteem. Further, we found a significant indirect pathway through which greater adversity during childhood was linked to a flatter cortisol slope via self-esteem. Finally, youths who had a caregiver with high self-esteem experienced a steeper decline in cortisol throughout the day compared with youths whose caregiver reported low self-esteem. We conclude that self-esteem is a plausible psychological mechanism through which childhood adversity may get embedded in the activity of the HPA axis across the life span.
| S-EPMC5017903 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundThere is much evidence showing that childhood socioeconomic position is associated with physical health in adulthood; however existing evidence on how early life disadvantage is associated with adult mental wellbeing is inconsistent. This paper investigated whether childhood socioeconomic position (SEP) is associated with adult mental wellbeing and to what extent any association is explained by adult SEP using harmonised data from four British birth cohort studies.MethodsThe sample comprised 20,717 participants with mental wellbeing data in the Hertfordshire Cohort Study (HCS), the MRC National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD), the National Child Development Study (NCDS), and the British Cohort Study (BCS70). Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) scores at age 73 (HCS), 60-64 (NSHD), 50 (NCDS), or 42 (BCS70) were used. Harmonised socioeconomic position (Registrar General's Social Classification) was ascertained in childhood (age 10/11) and adulthood (age 42/43). Associations between childhood SEP, adult SEP, and wellbeing were tested using linear regression and multi-group structural equation models.ResultsMore advantaged father's social class was associated with better adult mental wellbeing in the BCS70 and the NCDS. This association was independent of adult SEP in the BCS70 but fully mediated by adult SEP in the NCDS. There was no evidence of an association between father's social class and adult mental wellbeing in the HCS or the NSHD.ConclusionsSocioeconomic conditions in childhood are directly and indirectly, through adult socioeconomic pathways, associated with adult mental wellbeing, but findings from these harmonised data suggest this association may depend on cohort or age.
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Project description:Myelin water imaging is a quantitative neuroimaging technique that provides the myelin water fraction (MWF), a metric highly specific to myelin content, and the intra-/extra-cellular T2 (IET2), which is related to water and iron content. We coupled high-resolution data from 100 adults with gold-standard methodology to create an optimized anatomical brain template and accompanying MWF and IET2 atlases. We then used the MWF atlas to characterize how myelin content relates to demographic factors. In most brain regions, myelin content followed a quadratic pattern of increase during the third decade of life, plateau at a maximum around the fifth decade, then decrease during later decades. The ranking of mean myelin content between brain regions remained consistent across age groups. These openly available normative atlases can facilitate evaluation of myelin imaging results on an individual basis and elucidate the distribution of myelin content between brain regions and in the context of aging.
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Project description:Noonan syndrome and related disorders are caused by mutations in genes encoding for proteins of the RAS-ERK1/2 signaling pathway, which affect development by enhanced ERK1/2 activity. However, the mutations' effects throughout adult life are unclear. In this study, we identify that the protein most commonly affected in Noonan syndrome, the phosphatase SHP2, known in Drosophila as corkscrew (CSW), controls life span, triglyceride levels, and metabolism without affecting ERK signaling pathway. We found that CSW loss-of-function mutations extended life span by interacting with components of the insulin signaling pathway and impairing AKT activity in adult flies. By expressing csw-RNAi in different organs, we determined that CSW extended life span by acting in organs that regulate energy availability, including gut, fat body and neurons. In contrast to that in control animals, loss of CSW leads to reduced homeostasis in metabolic rate during activity. Clinically relevant gain-of-function csw allele reduced life span, when expressed in fat body, but not in other tissues. However, overexpression of a wild-type allele did not affect life span, showing a specific effect of the gain-of-function allele independently of a gene dosage effect. We concluded that CSW normally regulates life span and that mutations in SHP2 are expected to have critical effects throughout life by insulin-dependent mechanisms in addition to the well-known RAS-ERK1/2-dependent developmental alterations.
| S-EPMC7221067 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Postzygotic mutations (PZMs) begin to accrue in the human genome immediately after fertilization, but how and when PZMs affect development and lifetime health remain unclear. To study the origins and functional consequences of PZMs, we generated a multitissue atlas of PZMs spanning 54 tissue and cell types from 948 donors. Nearly half the variation in mutation burden among tissue samples can be explained by measured technical and biological effects, and 9% can be attributed to donor-specific effects. Through phylogenetic reconstruction of PZMs, we found that their type and predicted functional impact vary during prenatal development, across tissues, and through the germ cell life cycle. Thus, methods for interpreting effects across the body and the life span are needed to fully understand the consequences of genetic variants.
| S-EPMC11246725 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The relative importance of different factors in the development of human skills has been extensively discussed. Research on expertise indicates that focused practice may be the sole determinant of skill, while intelligence researchers underline the relative importance of abilities at even the highest level of skill. There is indeed a large body of research that acknowledges the role of both factors in skill development and retention. It is, however, unknown how intelligence and practice come together to enable the acquisition and retention of complex skills across the life span. Instead of focusing on the 2 factors, intelligence and practice, in isolation, here we look at their interplay throughout development. In a longitudinal study that tracked chess players throughout their careers, we show that both intelligence and practice positively affect the acquisition and retention of chess skill. Importantly, the nonlinear interaction between the 2 factors revealed that more intelligent individuals benefited more from practice. With the same amount of practice, they acquired chess skill more quickly than less intelligent players, reached a higher peak performance, and arrested decline in older age. Our research demonstrates the futility of scrutinizing the relative importance of highly intertwined factors in human development.
| S-EPMC6744885 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The incidence of age-related neurodegenerative diseases is rising globally. However, the temporal sequence of neurodegeneration throughout adult life is poorly understood. To identify the starting points and schedule of neurodegenerative events, serotonergic and dopaminergic neurons were monitored in the model organism C. elegans, which has a life span of 2-3 weeks. Neural morphology was examined from young to old nematodes that were exposed to silica nanoparticles. Young nematodes showed phenotypes such as dendritic beading of serotonergic and dopaminergic neurons that are normally not seen until late life. During aging, neurodegeneration spreads from specifically susceptible ADF and PDE neurons in young C. elegans to other more resilient neurons, such as dopaminergic CEP in middle-aged worms. Investigation of neurodegenerative hallmarks and animal behavior revealed a temporal correlation with the acceleration of neuromuscular defects, such as internal hatch in 2-day-old C. elegans. Transcriptomics and proteomics of young worms exposed to nano silica showed a change in gene expression concerning the gene ontology groups serotonergic and dopaminergic signaling as well as neuropeptide signaling. Consistent with this, reporter strains for nlp-3, nlp-14 and nlp-21 confirmed premature degeneration of the serotonergic neuron HSN and other neurons in young C. elegans. The results identify young nematodes as a vulnerable age group for nano silica-induced neural defects with a significantly reduced health span. Neurodegeneration of specific neurons impairs signaling by classical neurotransmitters as well as neuropeptides and compromises related neuromuscular behaviors in critical phases of life, such as the reproductive phase.
| S-EPMC10801581 | biostudies-literature
Project description:It is well known that the peripheral visual system declines with age: the yellowing of the lens causes a selective reduction of short-wavelength light and sensitivity losses occur in the cone receptor mechanisms. At the same time, our subjective experience of colour does not change with age. The main purpose of this large-scale study (n?=?185) covering a wide age range of colour-normal observers (18-75 years of age) was to assess the extent to which the human visual system is able to compensate for the changes in the optical media and at which level of processing this compensation is likely to occur. We report two main results: (1) Supra-threshold parafoveal colour perception remains largely unaffected by the age-related changes in the optical media (yellowing of the lens) whereas our ability to discriminate between small colour differences is compromised with an increase in age. (2) Significant changes in colour appearance are only found for unique green settings under daylight viewing condition which is consistent with the idea that the yellow-blue mechanism is most affected by an increase in age due to selective attenuation of short-wavelength light. The data on the invariance of hue perception, in conjunction with the age-related decline in chromatic sensitivity, provides evidence for compensatory mechanisms that enable colour-normal human observers a large degree of colour constancy across the life span. These compensatory mechanisms are likely to originate at cortical sites.
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Project description:ObjectiveTo investigate a life-span health-behavior mechanism relating childhood personality to adult clinical health.MethodsChildhood Big Five personality traits at mean age 10, adult Big Five personality traits, adult clinically assessed dysregulation at mean age 51 (a summary of dysregulated blood glucose, blood pressure, and lipids), and a retrospective, cumulative measure of life-span health-damaging behavior (lifetime smoking, physical inactivity, and body mass index from age 20) were assessed in the Hawaii Personality and Health Cohort (N = 759). Structural equation modeling was used to test the conceptual model with direct and indirect paths from a childhood Conscientiousness factor to an adult Conscientiousness factor, life-span health-damaging behaviors, educational attainment, adult cognitive ability, and adult clinical health.ResultsFor both men and women, childhood Conscientiousness influenced health-damaging behaviors through educational attainment, and life-span health-damaging behaviors predicted dysregulation. Childhood Conscientiousness predicted adult Conscientiousness, which did not predict any other variables in the model. For men, childhood Conscientiousness predicted dysregulation through educational attainment and health-damaging behaviors. For women, childhood Conscientiousness predicted dysregulation through educational attainment and adult cognitive ability.ConclusionsAssessing cumulative life-span health behaviors is a novel approach to the study of health-behavior mechanisms. Childhood Conscientiousness appears to influence health assessed more than 40 years later through complex processes involving educational attainment, cognitive ability, and the accumulated effects of health behaviors, but not adult Conscientiousness.
| S-EPMC4515399 | biostudies-literature