Peers Versus Parents In Modern China

In metropolitan China, high school students' self-esteem depends more on good relations with peers than parents, a new UC Davis study shows. But the opposite is true for younger adolescents and young adults: Both base their self-esteem more on good relations with parents.

The study by Hairong Song, a doctoral candidate in psychology, Emilio Ferrer-Caja, an associate professor of psychology, and Ross Thompson, a professor of psychology, will be presented during a 1 p.m. (EDT) poster session on Thursday, Aug. 17, at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Boston. The title of the session is "Cognitive and Sociocognitive Development."

The UC Davis researchers surveyed 584 students ages 11 to 23 from Guangzhou and Hangzhou. The students filled out questionnaires that assessed the quality of their relationships with their mothers, fathers and peers. They also filled out self-evaluations that measured self-esteem.

"This study suggests that high school is a period of special challenge to Chinese adolescents because of the competitive academic pressures they face. High school is a time when many Chinese adolescents experience intense pressures from parents to perform well in school," Thompson said.

"Even in a society that traditionally emphasizes family ties, enhanced by the government's one-child policy, competition to get into the best universities may be causing high-schoolers to turn to their peers for support and affirmation."

Source:
Claudia Morain
University of California - Davis

Leishmaniasis Parasites Evade Death By Exploiting The Immune Response To Sand Fly Bites

Cutaneous leishmaniasis, a disease characterized by painful skin ulcers, occurs when the parasite Leishmania major, or a related species, is transmitted to a mammalian host by the bite of an infected sand fly. In a new study from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, scientists have discovered L. major does its damage by not only evading but also by exploiting the body's wound-healing response to sand fly bites, as reported in the August 15 issue of Science.

"This work changes the textbook picture of the life cycle of the leishmaniasis parasite, identifying the inflammatory cell known as the neutrophil as the predominant cell involved during the initiation of infection," says NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.

Employing advanced microscopy techniques, which allowed real-time imaging of the skin of living mice infected with L. major, NIAID collaborators Nathan C. Peters, Ph.D., and Jackson Egen, Ph.D., found that the neutrophils - white blood cells that ingest and destroy bacteria - play a surprising role in the development of the disease.

Neutrophils were rapidly recruited out of the circulating blood and into the skin of infected mice, where they swarmed around the sand fly bite sites and efficiently engulfed the parasites. But unlike many other infectious organisms that die inside neutrophils, L. major parasites appear to have evolved in a way to evade death, actually surviving for long periods of time inside the neutrophils. Eventually the parasites escape from neutrophils and enter macrophages, another immune cell population in the skin, where they can establish long-term infection.

"Parasites transmitted by sand flies to mice lacking neutrophils have more difficulty establishing an infection and surviving. This demonstrates the importance of neutrophils at the site of an infected sand fly bite and suggests the unexpected path taken by the parasite from sand fly to neutrophil to macrophage is a critical component of this disease," says Dr. Peters.

In addition, says Dr. Egen, the study reveals how neutrophils leave locally inflamed blood vessels and move into tissues; provides new information on the movement of these immune cells within damaged tissue environments and upon contact with pathogens; and provides video images revealing active neutrophil entry into areas of damaged skin.

Notes:

NIAID is a component of the National Institutes of Health. NIAID supports basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose and treat infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, influenza, tuberculosis, malaria and illness from potential agents of bioterrorism. NIAID also supports research on basic immunology, transplantation and immune-related disorders, including autoimmune diseases, asthma and allergies.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) - The Nation's Medical Research Agency - includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

Reference: NC Peters et al. In vivo imaging reveals an essential role for neutrophils in leishmaniasis transmitted by sand flies. Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1159194 (2008).

News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID Web site at http://www.niaid.nih.gov.

Source:
Linda Perrett
NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases