Overview A growing body of research addresses the issue of “commercial sexual exploitation of children” (CSEC) and “child sex trafficking.” These overlapping terms describe crimes of a sexual nature committed against children and adolescents that involve exploitation for financial or other gain. Existing literature demonstrates that commercially sexually exploited youth typically experience significant and ongoing trauma. The literature teaches that these youths have a unique set of health risks, including violence-related injuries, sexually transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancy, and a variety of mental health problems. Though federal law defines these youth as victims of human trafficking, in many states, commercially sexually exploited children and adolescents are incarcerated for crimes related to their exploitation. Fear of incarceration can prevent victims from seeking available services. While health care providers may play a critical role in connecting commercially sexually exploited youth with community resources, most providers lack the knowledge of human trafficking necessary to fulfill this role effectively. Published research about this vulnerable pediatric population, although rapidly growing, is still extremely limited. Further research into the prevention, identification, intervention, and multidisciplinary management of CSEC and sex trafficking of children and adolescents is needed.

SYNOPSIS Neuronal apoptotic death generally requires de novo transcription, and activation of the transcription factor c-Jun has been shown to be necessary in multiple neuronal death paradigms. Caspase-2 has been implicated in death of neuronal and non-neuronal cells, but its relationship to transcriptional activation has not been clearly elucidated. Here, using two different neuronal apoptotic paradigms, β-amyloid treatment and NGF withdrawal, we examined the hierarchical role of caspase-2 activation in the transcriptional control of neuron death. Both paradigms induce rapid activation of caspase-2 as well as activation of the transcription factor c-Jun and subsequent induction of the pro-apoptotic BH-3 only protein Bim. Caspase-2 activation is dependent on the adaptor protein RAIDD, and both caspase-2 and RAIDD are required for c-Jun activation and Bim induction. Our work, thus, shows that rapid caspase-2 activation is essential for c-Jun activation and Bim induction in neurons subjected to apoptotic stimuli. This places caspase-2 at an apical position in the apoptotic cascade and demonstrates for the first time that caspase-2 can regulate transcription.

Attention is a core function in cognition and also the most prevalent cognitive deficit in mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Predictive timing is an essential element of attention functioning because sensory processing and execution of goal-oriented behavior are facilitated by temporally accurate prediction. It is hypothesized that impaired synchronization between prediction and external events accounts for the attention deficit in mTBI. Other cognitive and somatic or affective symptoms associated with mTBI may be explained as secondary consequences of impaired predictive timing. Eye-Tracking Rapid Attention Computation (EYE-TRAC) is the quantification of predictive timing with indices of dynamic visuo-motor synchronization (DVS) between the gaze and the target during continuous predictive visual tracking. Such quantification allows for cognitive performance monitoring in comparison to the overall population as well as within individuals over time. We report preliminary results of normative data and data collected from subjects with a history of mTBI within 2 weeks of injury and post-concussive symptoms at the time of recruitment. A substantial proportion of mTBI subjects demonstrated DVS scores worse than 95% of normal subjects. In addition, longitudinal monitoring of acute mTBI subjects showed that initially abnormal DVS scores were followed by improvement toward the normal range. In summary, EYE-TRAC provides fast and objective indices of DVS that allow comparison of attention performance to a normative standard and monitoring of within-individual changes.