scholarly journals Electrophysiological Studies of Reception of Facial Communication in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Schizophrenia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily J. Levy ◽  
Jennifer Foss-Feig ◽  
Emily L. Isenstein ◽  
Vinod Srihari ◽  
Alan Anticevic ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Clinical Symptoms ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Facial Stimuli ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Electrophysiological Studies ◽  
Research Findings

ABSTRACTAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SZ) are both characterized by difficulty with social cognition. Likewise, social brain activity is atypical in both disorders and indicates atypical reception of facial communication – a key area in the Research Domain Criteria framework for identifying common biological underpinnings of psychiatric disorders. To identify areas of overlap and dissociation between ASD and SZ, this paper reviews studies of electrophysiological (EEG) response to facial stimuli across ASD and SZ populations. We focus on findings regarding amplitude and latency of four brain responses implicated in social perception: P100, N170, N250, and P300. There were many inconsistent findings in both the ASD and SZ literatures; however, replication across studies was strongest for delayed N170 latency in ASD and attenuated N170 amplitude in SZ. EEG responses corresponded with clinical symptoms in multiple samples. These results highlight the challenges associated with replicating research findings in heterogeneous clinical populations, as well as the need for transdiagnostic research and for designing studies to examine relationships among continuous quantifications of behavior and neural activity across neurodevelopmental disorders.

scholarly journals Reproducible functional connectivity alterations are associated with autism spectrum disorder

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Štefan Holiga ◽  
Joerg F. Hipp ◽  
Christopher H. Chatham ◽  
Pilar Garces ◽  
Will Spooren ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Clinical Symptoms ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Network Connectivity ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Replication Procedure ◽  
Medication Status

AbstractDespite the high clinical burden little is known about pathophysiology underlying autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Recent resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) studies have found atypical synchronization of brain activity in ASD. However, no consensus has been reached on the nature and clinical relevance of these alterations. Here we address these questions in the most comprehensive, large-scale effort to date comprising evaluation of four large ASD cohorts. We followed a strict exploration and replication procedure to identify core rs-fMRI functional connectivity (degree centrality) alterations associated with ASD as compared to typically developing (TD) controls (ASD: N=841, TD: N=984). We then tested for associations of these imaging phenotypes with clinical and demographic factors such as age, sex, medication status and clinical symptom severity. We find reproducible patterns of ASD-associated functional hyper- and hypo-connectivity with hypo-connectivity being primarily restricted to sensory-motor regions and hyper-connectivity hubs being predominately located in prefrontal and parietal cortices. We establish shifts in between-network connectivity from outside to within the identified regions as a key driver of these abnormalities. The magnitude of these alterations is linked to core ASD symptoms related to communication and social interaction and is not affected by age, sex or medication status. The identified brain functional alterations provide a reproducible pathophysiological phenotype underlying the diagnosis of ASD reconciling previous divergent findings. The large effect sizes in standardized cohorts and the link to clinical symptoms emphasize the importance of the identified imaging alterations as potential treatment and stratification biomarkers for ASD.

scholarly journals A novel automated autism spectrum disorder detection system

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shu Lih Oh ◽  
V. Jahmunah ◽  
N. Arunkumar ◽  
Enas W. Abdulhay ◽  
Raj Gururajan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Developmental Disorder ◽  
Detection System ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Limited Range ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Nonlinear Features ◽  
Genetic And Environmental Factors ◽  
Future Work

AbstractAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurological and developmental disorder that begins early in childhood and lasts throughout a person’s life. Autism is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. Lack of social interaction, communication problems, and a limited range of behaviors and interests are possible characteristics of autism in children, alongside other symptoms. Electroencephalograms provide useful information about changes in brain activity and hence are efficaciously used for diagnosis of neurological disease. Eighteen nonlinear features were extracted from EEG signals of 40 children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder and 37 children with no diagnosis of neuro developmental disorder children. Feature selection was performed using Student’s t test, and Marginal Fisher Analysis was employed for data reduction. The features were ranked according to Student’s t test. The three most significant features were used to develop the autism index, while the ranked feature set was input to SVM polynomials 1, 2, and 3 for classification. The SVM polynomial 2 yielded the highest classification accuracy of 98.70% with 20 features. The developed classification system is likely to aid healthcare professionals as a diagnostic tool to detect autism. With more data, in our future work, we intend to employ deep learning models and to explore a cloud-based detection system for the detection of autism. Our study is novel, as we have analyzed all nonlinear features, and we are one of the first groups to have uniquely developed an autism (ASD) index using the extracted features.

Affective-motivational brain responses to direct gaze in children with autism spectrum disorder

2012 ◽  
Vol 53 (7) ◽  
pp. 790-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anneli Kylliäinen ◽  
Simon Wallace ◽  
Marc N. Coutanche ◽  
Jukka M. Leppänen ◽  
James Cusack ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Direct Gaze ◽  
Brain Responses

scholarly journals Neural features of sustained emotional information processing in autism spectrum disorder

Autism ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 941-953 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla A Mazefsky ◽  
Amanda Collier ◽  
Josh Golt ◽  
Greg J Siegle
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Emotion Dysregulation ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Autism Spectrum Disorder Group

Emotion dysregulation is common in autism spectrum disorder; a better understanding of the underlying neural mechanisms could inform treatment development. The tendency toward repetitive cognition in autism spectrum disorder may also increase susceptibility to perseverate on distressing stimuli, which may then increase emotion dysregulation. Therefore, this study investigated the mechanisms of sustained processing of negative information in brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We used an event-related task that alternated between emotional processing of personally relevant negative words, neutral words, and a non-emotional task. A priori criteria were developed to define heightened and sustained emotional processing, and feature conjunction analysis was conducted to identify all regions satisfying these criteria. Participants included 25 adolescents with autism spectrum disorder and 23 IQ-, age-, and gender-matched typically developing controls. Regions satisfying all a priori criteria included areas in the salience network and the prefrontal dorsolateral cortex, which are areas implicated in emotion regulation outside of autism spectrum disorder. Collectively, activity in the identified regions accounted for a significant amount of variance in emotion dysregulation in the autism spectrum disorder group. Overall, these results may provide a potential neural mechanism to explain emotion dysregulation in autism spectrum disorder, which is a significant risk factor for poor mental health. Lay abstract Many individuals with autism spectrum disorder struggle with emotions that are intense and interfering, which is referred to as emotion dysregulation. Prior research has established that individuals with autism may be more likely than individuals who are not autistic to have repetitive thoughts. It is possible that persistent thoughts about negative or distressing stimuli may contribute to emotion dysregulation in autism spectrum disorder. This study aimed to identify areas of the brain with evidence of persistent processing of negative information via functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging. We used a task that alternated between emotional processing of personally relevant negative words, neutral words, and a non-emotional task. Criteria were developed to define heightened and persistent emotional processing, and analyses were conducted to identify all brain regions satisfying these criteria. Participants included 25 adolescents with autism spectrum disorder and 23 typically developing adolescents who were similar to the autism spectrum disorder group in IQ, age, and gender ratios. Brain regions identified as having greater and continued processing following negative stimuli in the autism spectrum disorder group as compared with the typically developing group included the salience network and the prefrontal dorsolateral cortex. These areas have been previously implicated in emotion dysregulation outside of autism spectrum disorder. Collectively, brain activity in the identified regions was associated with parent-reported emotion dysregulation in the autism spectrum disorder group. These results help to identify a potential process in the brain associated with emotion dysregulation in autism spectrum disorder. This information may be useful for the development of treatments to decrease emotion dysregulation in autism spectrum disorder.

scholarly journals The Neurochemistry of Autism

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosa Marotta ◽  
Maria C. Risoleo ◽  
Giovanni Messina ◽  
Lucia Parisi ◽  
Marco Carotenuto ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Endogenous Opioids ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Gamma Aminobutyric Acid ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Treatment And Prevention ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Patterns Of Behavior ◽  
The Central Nervous System

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) refers to complex neurobehavioral and neurodevelopmental conditions characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior or interests, and altered sensory processing. Environmental, immunological, genetic, and epigenetic factors are implicated in the pathophysiology of autism and provoke the occurrence of neuroanatomical and neurochemical events relatively early in the development of the central nervous system. Many neurochemical pathways are involved in determining ASD; however, how these complex networks interact and cause the onset of the core symptoms of autism remains unclear. Further studies on neurochemical alterations in autism are necessary to clarify the early neurodevelopmental variations behind the enormous heterogeneity of autism spectrum disorder, and therefore lead to new approaches for the treatment and prevention of autism. In this review, we aim to delineate the state-of-the-art main research findings about the neurochemical alterations in autism etiology, and focuses on gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glutamate, serotonin, dopamine, N-acetyl aspartate, oxytocin and arginine-vasopressin, melatonin, vitamin D, orexin, endogenous opioids, and acetylcholine. We also aim to suggest a possible related therapeutic approach that could improve the quality of ASD interventions. Over one hundred references were collected through electronic database searching in Medline and EMBASE (Ovid), Scopus (Elsevier), ERIC (Proquest), PubMed, and the Web of Science (ISI).

Correlations Between the Parents’ ADHD Score and the Child's ADOS Score in Parents of Children with Comorbid ADHD–Autism Spectrum Disorder

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. S221-S221
Author(s):  
F. Rad ◽  
L. Kobylinska ◽  
I. Mihailescu ◽  
A. Buica ◽  
I. Dobrescu
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Autism Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Adult Adhd ◽  
Rating Scale ◽  
Clinical Symptoms ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Autism Spectrum Quotient ◽  
Spectrum Disorders

From assortative mating theory to genetic background, several ethipathogenic hypotheses in ASD deal with the traits of parents.Backgroundseveral ethipathogenic hypotheses in ASD deal with the traits of parents. The objectives of our study were to measure the ADHD and autism spectrum disorder quotients in parents of children diagnosed with ASD comorbid with ADHD and to correlate the measurements for the tests in parents with those in their children. The specific aim was to identify whether any significant correlations exist.MethodFifty-two pairs of parents of children with autism spectrum disorders and ADHD were included in this study, based on informed consent and the ethical committee's approval. The child's diagnosis was established by a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry, based on the child's clinical symptoms and on specific diagnostic scales, such as the ADOS and ADHD-rating scale. The parents completed an Autism Spectrum Quotient Scale (ASQS) and an adult ADHD scale. The data were analyzed using SPSS 22.0 and Excel. The correlations were verified using Spearman's non-parametric correlation test.ResultsThere was a strong correlation between the parents’ ADHD scores (r = 0.5, P < 0.001), and a reverse medium correlation between the mother's ADHD score and the child's ADOS score (r = –0.32, P = 0.02). The father's ASQS and ADHD scores correlated between each other (r = 0.31, P = 0.02). There were no correlations between the parents’ and the child's ADHD score, nor between the child's ADOS score and the parents’ ASQS scores.ConclusionOur results suggest that ADHD symptoms in parents of children with autism spectrum disorders comorbid with ADHD might be predictors for the child's prognosis.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

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