The transition from elementary to junior high school presents developmental challenges, particularly for students with neurodevelopmental traits. This study examined how autism, attention-deficit/hype Show more
The transition from elementary to junior high school presents developmental challenges, particularly for students with neurodevelopmental traits. This study examined how autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) traits and effortful control (EC) were related to changes in mental health during this transition in a large Japanese community sample (N = 2,564). This longitudinal study used data from a community-based cohort of Japanese students and their parents/guardians (N = 2,692). Autism traits were measured using the Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ). ADHD traits were assessed with the Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Rating Scale (ADHD-RS). Effortful control (EC) was evaluated using the "Effortful Control" subscale of the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire-Revised (EATQ-R). Mental health problems were assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) before and after the transition. Generalized estimating equations (GEE) and latent profile analysis (LPA) were conducted to examine associations among autism and ADHD traits, EC, and mental health across the transition. GEE revealed that higher autism and ADHD traits and lower EC predicted more severe mental health problems. The LPA identified three distinct subgroups characterized by high, moderate, and low SDQ scores across the transition. The high-SDQ group showed elevated autism and ADHD traits and low EC, whereas the low-SDQ group showed low auism and ADHD traits and high EC. The moderate group exhibited intermediate levels for all measures. These findings suggest that pre-existing mental health problems tend to persist during the transition period. Importantly, students with higher autism and ADHD traits and lower EC exhibited diverse adaptation patterns-some improved while others worsened-highlighting that high autism traits are not necessarily associated with post-transition mental health deterioration. This underscores the need for support tailored to neurodevelopmental and self-regulatory profiles. Show less
The molecular mechanism of thyroid hormone (TH) effects to fatty acid metabolism in liver is yet to be clear. The carbohydrate response element-binding protein (ChREBP) as well as sterol response elem Show more
The molecular mechanism of thyroid hormone (TH) effects to fatty acid metabolism in liver is yet to be clear. The carbohydrate response element-binding protein (ChREBP) as well as sterol response element-binding protein (SREBP)-1c plays a pivotal role in hepatic lipogenesis. Both SREBP-1c and ChREBP are target genes of liver X receptors (LXRs). Because LXRs and TH receptors (TRs) cross talk mutually in many aspects of transcription, we examined whether TRs regulate the mouse ChREBP gene expression. In the current study, we demonstrated that TH up-regulated mouse ChREBP mRNA and protein expression in liver. Run-on and luciferase assays showed that TH and TR-beta1 positively regulated the ChREBP gene transcription. The mouse ChREBP gene promoter contains two direct repeat-4 sites (LXRE1 and LXRE2) and EMSAs demonstrated that LXR-alpha and TR-beta1 prefer to bind LXRE1 and LXRE2, respectively. The direct repeat-4 deletion and LXRE2 mutants of the promoter deteriorate the positive regulation by TR-beta1, indicating that LXRE2 is functionally important for the regulation. We also showed that human ChREBP gene expression and promoter activities were up-regulated by TH. These data suggest that ChREBP mRNA expression is positively regulated by TR-beta1 and TH at the transcriptional level in mammals. This novel observation indicates that TH fine-tunes hepatic lipogenesis via regulating SREBP-1c and ChREBP gene expression reciprocally. Show less