scholarly journals Selective Changes in Complexity of Visual Scanning for Social Stimuli in Infancy

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Przemysław Tomalski ◽  
David López Pérez ◽  
Alicja Radkowska ◽  
Anna Malinowska-Korczak
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Repeated Sequences ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Developmental Changes ◽  
Visual Scanning ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Quantification Analysis ◽  
Increased Sensitivity ◽  
Social Scenes

In the 1st year of life, infants gradually gain the ability to control their eye movements and explore visual scenes, which support their learning and emerging cognitive skills. These gains include domain-general skills such as rapid orienting or attention disengagement as well as domain-specific ones such as increased sensitivity to social stimuli. However, it remains unknown whether these developmental changes in what infants fixate and for how long in naturalistic scenes lead to the emergence of more complex, repeated sequences of fixations, especially when viewing human figures and faces, and whether these changes are related to improvements in domain-general attentional skills. Here we tested longitudinally the developmental changes in the complexity of fixation sequences at 5.5 and 11 months of age using Recurrence Quantification Analysis. We measured changes in how fixations recur in the same location and changes in the patterns (repeated sequences) of fixations in social and non-social scenes that were either static or dynamic. We found more complex patterns (i.e., repeated and longer sequences) of fixations in social than non-social scenes, both static and dynamic. There was also an age-related increase in the length of repeated fixation sequences only for social static scenes, which was independent of individual differences in orienting and attention disengagement. Our results can be interpreted as evidence for fine-tuning of infants' visual scanning skills. They selectively produce longer and more complex sequences of fixations on faces and bodies before reaching the end of the 1st year of life.

scholarly journals Comparison of dogs and humans in visual scanning of social interaction

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (9) ◽  
pp. 150341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heini Törnqvist ◽  
Sanni Somppi ◽  
Aija Koskela ◽  
Christina M. Krause ◽  
Outi Vainio ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Social Experiences ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Visual Scanning ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Social Images ◽  
Social Scenes

Previous studies have demonstrated similarities in gazing behaviour of dogs and humans, but comparisons under similar conditions are rare, and little is known about dogs' visual attention to social scenes. Here, we recorded the eye gaze of dogs while they viewed images containing two humans or dogs either interacting socially or facing away: the results were compared with equivalent data measured from humans. Furthermore, we compared the gazing behaviour of two dog and two human populations with different social experiences: family and kennel dogs; dog experts and non-experts. Dogs' gazing behaviour was similar to humans: both species gazed longer at the actors in social interaction than in non-social images. However, humans gazed longer at the actors in dog than human social interaction images, whereas dogs gazed longer at the actors in human than dog social interaction images. Both species also made more saccades between actors in images representing non-conspecifics, which could indicate that processing social interaction of non-conspecifics may be more demanding. Dog experts and non-experts viewed the images very similarly. Kennel dogs viewed images less than family dogs, but otherwise their gazing behaviour did not differ, indicating that the basic processing of social stimuli remains similar regardless of social experiences.

Emotion regulation from early adolescence to emerging adulthood and middle adulthood

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Zimmermann ◽  
Alexandra Iwanski
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Early Adolescence ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Developmental Changes ◽  
Middle Adulthood ◽  
Emotion Regulation Strategies ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Emotion Regulation Strategy ◽  
Regulation Strategies ◽  
Age Range

Despite the growing research on emotion regulation, the empirical evidence for normative age-related emotion regulation patterns is rather divergent. From a life-span perspective, normative age changes in emotion regulation may be more salient applying the same methodological approach on a broad age range examining both growth and decline during development. In addition, emotion-specific developmental patterns might show differential developmental trends. The present study examined age differences in seven emotion regulation strategies from early adolescence (age 11) to middle adulthood (age 50) for the three emotions of sadness, fear, and anger. The results showed specific developmental changes in the use of emotion regulation strategies for each of the three emotions. In addition, results suggest age-specific increases and decreases in many emotion regulation strategies, with a general trend to increasing adaptive emotion regulation. Specifically, middle adolescence shows the smallest emotion regulation strategy repertoire. Gender differences appeared for most emotion regulation strategies. The findings suggest that the development of emotion regulation should be studied in an emotion-specific manner, as a perspective solely on general emotion regulation either under- or overestimates existing emotion-specific developmental changes.

scholarly journals Family history of FXTAS is associated with age-related cognitive-linguistic decline among mothers with the FMR1 premutation

2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Klusek ◽  
Amanda Fairchild ◽  
Carly Moser ◽  
Marsha R. Mailick ◽  
Angela John Thurman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Family History ◽  
Neurodegenerative Disease ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Fragile X ◽  
Repeat Length ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Cgg Repeat ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
History Of

Abstract Background Women who carry a premutation allele of the FMR1 gene are at increased vulnerability to an array of age-related symptoms and disorders, including age-related decline in select cognitive skills. However, the risk factors for age-related decline are poorly understood, including the potential role of family history and genetic factors. In other forms of pathological aging, early decline in syntactic complexity is observed and predicts the later onset of neurodegenerative disease. To shed light on the earliest signs of degeneration, the present study characterized longitudinal changes in the syntactic complexity of women with the FMR1 premutation across midlife, and associations with family history of fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS) and CGG repeat length. Methods Forty-five women with the FMR1 premutation aged 35–64 years at study entry participated in 1–5 longitudinal assessments spaced approximately a year apart (130 observations total). All participants were mothers of children with confirmed fragile X syndrome. Language samples were analyzed for syntactic complexity and participants provided information on family history of FXTAS. CGG repeat length was determined via molecular genetic testing. Results Hierarchical linear models indicated that women who reported a family history of FXTAS exhibited faster age-related decline in syntactic complexity than those without a family history, with that difference emerging as the women reached their mid-50 s. CGG repeat length was not a significant predictor of age-related change. Conclusions Results suggest that women with the FMR1 premutation who have a family history of FXTAS may be at increased risk for neurodegenerative disease, as indicated by age-related loss of syntactic complexity. Thus, family history of FXTAS may represent a personalized risk factor for age-related disease. Follow-up study is needed to determine whether syntactic decline is an early indicator of FXTAS specifically, as opposed to being a more general age-related cognitive decline associated with the FMR1 premutation.

scholarly journals Preservation of cognition in hypertension-treated South Indian rural population

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radhika Rajkumar ◽  
Alex Divya Merciline ◽  
Suresh Kumar Muthukrishnan ◽  
Murali Subhashree ◽  
Muniswamy Duraimurugan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rural Population ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Economic Education ◽  
Related Complication ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Normal Cognition ◽  
Addenbrooke’S Cognitive Examination

AbstractChange in diet, life style and increased life expectancy has led to the dramatic escalation in old age related complication like cognitive decline leading to dementia. Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are huge risk factors for dementia, including Alzheimer disease (AD). Hypertension is very well known to cause cognitive impairment. Control of CVD could provide protection against dementia. Earlier, in the mouse model of AD, reserpine, an antihypertensive and antipsychotic drug could elicit improvement in the working memory in AD model mice and enhance the same in normal mice. Hence, Cognitive protection in the patients on chronic antihypertensive drug which contains reserpine was evaluated. Cognition in a cohort (in the South Indian rural population) of hypertensive patients (majority age group – 50-70 years) who have been chronically treated with a combinatorial drug, (adelphane/adelphane esidrex-Novaritis, Switzerland) consisting of reserpine and hydrazine for years was compared with controls without hypertension. The cohorts were age, sex, socio-economic, education background matched. Cognition was scored using the Tamil version of: Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination-III (T-ACEIII) and Tamil-Montreal Cognitive Assessment (T-MoCA) scales. The composite T-ACEIII score of control and treated groups were 53.6 and 53.2, respectively. T-MoCA scores (Control-15.1 and Treated-14.7) did not show much alteration. Further, the mean scores of the control and treated groups’ individual components of cognition in ACE, namely, Attention, Memory, Fluency, Language and visuospatial – cognitive skills also did not reveal significant difference. Thus, controlling blood pressure or hypertension with chronic antihypertensive medication like adelphane/adelphane esirdex (reserpine containing drugs) has retained normal cognition in both genders.

scholarly journals Developmental changes in story-evoked responses in the neocortex and hippocampus

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Syd Cohen ◽  
Christopher Baldassano
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Life Events ◽  
Developmental Changes ◽  
Fmri Data ◽  
Evoked Responses ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Episodic Encoding ◽  
Upcoming Event ◽  
Event Representations

How does the representation of naturalistic life events change with age? Here we analyzed fMRI data from 415 children and adolescents (5 - 19 years) as they watched a narrative movie. In addition to changes in the degree of inter-subject correlation (ISC) with age in sensory and medial parietal regions, we used a novel measure (between-groups ISC) to reveal age-related shifts in the responses across the majority of the neocortex. Over the course of development, brain responses became more discretized into stable and coherent events, and shifted earlier in time to anticipate upcoming event transitions. However, hippocampal responses to event boundaries actually decreased with age, suggesting a shifting division of labor between episodic encoding processes and schematic event representations between the ages of 5 and 19.

Increased sensitivity to positive social stimuli in monozygotic twins at risk of bipolar vs. unipolar disorder

2018 ◽  
Vol 232 ◽  
pp. 212-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Kærsgaard ◽  
I. Meluken ◽  
LV. Kessing ◽  
M. Vinberg ◽  
KW. Miskowiak
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Monozygotic Twins ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Unipolar Disorder ◽  
Increased Sensitivity

scholarly journals O20 Dose-linearity of the pharmacokinetics of an intravenous [14C]midazolam microdose in children

2019 ◽  
Vol 104 (6) ◽  
pp. e9.1-e9
Author(s):  
BD van Groen ◽  
WHJ Vaes ◽  
BK Park ◽  
EHJ Krekels ◽  
E van Duijn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Drug Disposition ◽  
Plasma Concentrations ◽  
Volume Of Distribution ◽  
Developmental Changes ◽  
Developmentally Regulated ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Dose Linearity ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Therapeutic Doses ◽  
Cyp3a Enzyme

BackgroundDrug disposition in children may vary from adults due to age-related variation in drug metabolism, but paediatric pharmacokinetic (PK) studies are challenging. Microdose studies present an innovation to study PK in paediatrics, and can only be used when the PK of a microdose are dose-linear to a therapeutic dose. We aimed to assess dose-linearity of [14C]midazolam (MDZ), a marker for the activity of the developmentally regulated CYP3A enzyme, by comparing the PK of an intravenous (IV) [14C]MDZ microtracer given simultaneously with therapeutic MDZ, with the PK of a single IV [14C]MDZ microdose.MethodsPreterm to 2-year-old infants admitted to the intensive care unit received [14C]MDZ IV either as a microtracer during therapeutic MDZ infusion or as an isolated microdose. Dense blood sampling was done up to 36 hours after dosing. Plasma concentrations of [14C]MDZ and [14C]1-OH-MDZ were determined by accelerator mass spectrometry. A population PK model was developed with NONMEM 7.4 to study whether there was a difference in the PK of the microtracer versus those of a microdose [14C]MDZ.ResultsOf fifteen children (median gestational age 39.4 [range 23.9–41.4] weeks, postnatal age 11.4 [0.6–49.1] weeks), nine received a microdose and six a microtracer [14C]MDZ (111 Bq/kg; 37.6 ng/kg). In a two-compartment PK model, bodyweight was the most significant covariate for volume of distribution. There was no statistically significant difference in any PK parameter between the [14C]MDZ microdose or microtracer, suggesting the PK of MDZ to be linear within the range of the therapeutic doses and microdoses.ConclusionOur data supports the dose-linearity of an IV [14C]MDZ microdose in children, thus a [14C]MDZ microdosing approach can be used to study developmental changes in hepatic CYP3A activity.Disclosure(s)This project was funded by the ZonMw ERA-NET PRIOMEDCHILD programme (projectnumber 113205022). * both authors contributed equally

scholarly journals What you see is what you get: visual scanning failures of naturalistic social scenes in schizophrenia

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Gaurav H. Patel ◽  
Sophie C. Arkin ◽  
Daniel R. Ruiz-Betancourt ◽  
Heloise M. DeBaun ◽  
Nicole E. Strauss ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Peripheral Vision ◽  
Visual Scanning ◽  
Facial Motion ◽  
Video Clips ◽  
Social Scene ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Social Scenes

Abstract Background Impairments in social cognition contribute significantly to disability in schizophrenia patients (SzP). Perception of facial expressions is critical for social cognition. Intact perception requires an individual to visually scan a complex dynamic social scene for transiently moving facial expressions that may be relevant for understanding the scene. The relationship of visual scanning for these facial expressions and social cognition remains unknown. Methods In 39 SzP and 27 healthy controls (HC), we used eye-tracking to examine the relationship between performance on The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT), which tests social cognition using naturalistic video clips of social situations, and visual scanning, measuring each individual's relative to the mean of HC. We then examined the relationship of visual scanning to the specific visual features (motion, contrast, luminance, faces) within the video clips. Results TASIT performance was significantly impaired in SzP for trials involving sarcasm (p < 10−5). Visual scanning was significantly more variable in SzP than HC (p < 10−6), and predicted TASIT performance in HC (p = 0.02) but not SzP (p = 0.91), differing significantly between groups (p = 0.04). During the visual scanning, SzP were less likely to be viewing faces (p = 0.0001) and less likely to saccade to facial motion in peripheral vision (p = 0.008). Conclusions SzP show highly significant deficits in the use of visual scanning of naturalistic social scenes to inform social cognition. Alterations in visual scanning patterns may originate from impaired processing of facial motion within peripheral vision. Overall, these results highlight the utility of naturalistic stimuli in the study of social cognition deficits in schizophrenia.

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