The differential brain activity pattern on autism spectrum disorder(ASD) by auditory discrimination task feedback -Basic research in terms of social behavior development-

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-104
Author(s):  
Hyo-Woon Yoon
2019 ◽  
pp. 195-207

Background: Autism spectrum disorder is characterized in part by atypical behavior in the communication, social, and visual domains. Success in vision therapy is judged not only by changes in optometric findings, but through improvement in quality of life involving communication, social behavior and visual behavior. It would therefore be beneficial to have a validated questionnaire to assess parent reported quality of life pre and post vision therapy specific to patients with autism spectrum disorder. To our knowledge, a questionnaire of this nature has not been previously published in the literature. Methods: Questionnaire items were generated through surveying medical literature based on symptoms in three different categories: visual behavior, social behavior and communication. A pool of 34 questions was developed initially and then with thorough discussion with other experts, a 20-point questionnaire was developed with each item reflected in the construct concept. A draft of 20 questions was then sent to 10 subject experts with clinical experience in the field for more than 20 years, to review the pooled items. Validity and reliability was established prior to assessing the psychometric properties of the ASD/QOL-VT. Prospective observational study was conducted for a duration of 18 months. The study included individuals undergoing vision therapy in the age range of 3 to 15 years who had been diagnosed with ASD. The questionnaire was administered to parents of these children prior to the start of vision therapy. All subjects completed a minimum of 60 vision therapy sessions. The questionnaire was readministered after completing 60 sessions of vision therapy. Results: Cronbach’s alpha value for this questionnaire was 0.93, which reflected very good internal consistency. Factorial analysis yielded four factors with an Eigen value exceeding 1.0 which accounted for 68% variation in the model. The Cronbach alpha value for subscales identified by factorial analysis is 0.97 indicating excellent internal reliability. The mean pre vision therapy social behavior, communication and visual behavior score was 12.0±3.21, 17.07±4.57 and 26.97±6.41 respectively. The mean post vision therapy scores for social behavior, communication and visual behavior was 8.27±4.16, 11.33±5.27 and 17.93±6.52 respectively. On paired t test, the mean difference in score was statistically significant with P<0.001 in all three subcategories. Conclusions: Our study presents the development of a valid and reliable parent questionnaire, the ASD/QOL-VT, that judges communication, social behavior, and visual behavior in autism. Results of the study conducted indicate that vision therapy can result in significant improvements in the quality of life of patients with ASD as judged by their parents. This is evidenced by statistically significant changes in psychometric properties of the ASD/QOL-VT in social behavior, communication and visual behavior.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 1112-1128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guiyoung Bong ◽  
Jeong‐Heun Kim ◽  
Yoohwa Hong ◽  
Nan‐He Yoon ◽  
Hyunjung Sunwoo ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kohei Kitagawa ◽  
Kensuke Matsumura ◽  
Masayuki Baba ◽  
Momoka Kondo ◽  
Tomoya Takemoto ◽  
...  

AbstractAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a highly prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by core symptoms of impaired social behavior and communication. Recent studies have suggested that the oxytocin system, which regulates social behavior in mammals, is potentially involved in ASD. Mouse models of ASD provide a useful system for understanding the associations between an impaired oxytocin system and social behavior deficits. However, limited studies have shown the involvement of the oxytocin system in the behavioral phenotypes in mouse models of ASD. We have previously demonstrated that a mouse model that carries the ASD patient-derived de novo mutation in the pogo transposable element derived with zinc finger domain (POGZWT/Q1038R mice), showed ASD-like social behavioral deficits. Here, we have explored whether oxytocin (OXT) administration improves impaired social behavior in POGZWT/Q1038R mice and found that intranasal oxytocin administration effectively restored the impaired social behavior in POGZWT/Q1038R mice. We also found that the expression level of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) was low in POGZWT/Q1038R mice. However, we did not detect significant changes in the number of OXT-expressing neurons between the paraventricular nucleus of POGZWT/Q1038R mice and that of WT mice. A chromatin immunoprecipitation assay revealed that POGZ binds to the promoter region of OXTR and is involved in the transcriptional regulation of OXTR. In summary, our study demonstrate that the pathogenic mutation in the POGZ, a high-confidence ASD gene, impairs the oxytocin system and social behavior in mice, providing insights into the development of oxytocin-based therapeutics for ASD.


Author(s):  
Shu Lih Oh ◽  
V. Jahmunah ◽  
N. Arunkumar ◽  
Enas W. Abdulhay ◽  
Raj Gururajan ◽  
...  

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.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 556
Author(s):  
Madalina Andreea Robea ◽  
Alin Ciobica ◽  
Alexandrina-Stefania Curpan ◽  
Gabriel Plavan ◽  
Stefan Strungaru ◽  
...  

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is one of the most salient developmental neurological diseases and remarkable similarities have been found between humans and model animals of ASD. A common method of inducing ASD in zebrafish is by administrating valproic acid (VPA), which is an antiepileptic drug that is strongly linked with developmental defects in children. In the present study we replicated and extended the findings of VPA on social behavior in zebrafish by adding several sleep observations. Juvenile zebrafish manifested hyperactivity and an increase in ASD-like social behaviors but, interestingly, only exhibited minimal alterations in sleep. Our study confirmed that VPA can generate specific ASD symptoms, indicating that the zebrafish is an alternative model in this field of research.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 1190-1205
Author(s):  
Natasha Marrus ◽  
Julia D. Grant ◽  
Brooke Harris-Olenak ◽  
Jordan Albright ◽  
Drew Bolster ◽  
...  

AbstractImpairment in reciprocal social behavior (RSB), an essential component of early social competence, clinically defines autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the behavioral and genetic architecture of RSB in toddlerhood, when ASD first emerges, has not been fully characterized. We analyzed data from a quantitative video-referenced rating of RSB (vrRSB) in two toddler samples: a community-based volunteer research registry (n = 1,563) and an ethnically diverse, longitudinal twin sample ascertained from two state birth registries (n = 714). Variation in RSB was continuously distributed, temporally stable, significantly associated with ASD risk at age 18 months, and only modestly explained by sociodemographic and medical factors (r2 = 9.4%). Five latent RSB factors were identified and corresponded to aspects of social communication or restricted repetitive behaviors, the two core ASD symptom domains. Quantitative genetic analyses indicated substantial heritability for all factors at age 24 months (h2 ≥ .61). Genetic influences strongly overlapped across all factors, with a social motivation factor showing evidence of newly-emerging genetic influences between the ages of 18 and 24 months. RSB constitutes a heritable, trait-like competency whose factorial and genetic structure is generalized across diverse populations, demonstrating its role as an early, enduring dimension of inherited variation in human social behavior. Substantially overlapping RSB domains, measurable when core ASD features arise and consolidate, may serve as markers of specific pathways to autism and anchors to inform determinants of autism's heterogeneity.


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