Publications by authors named "Caroline Demily"

Background And Purpose: Disabling dystonia despite optimal medical treatment is common in Wilson disease (WD). No controlled study has evaluated the effect of deep brain stimulation (DBS) on dystonia related to WD. This study was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of DBS on dystonia related to WD.

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  • Previous studies show conflicting results on whether children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome have a specific magnitude representation deficit affecting their arithmetic skills.
  • Fifteen children with the syndrome and 23 healthy controls participated in a task involving non-symbolic magnitude comparisons, alongside assessments of arithmetic and cognitive functioning.
  • Findings indicate that while children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome were as quick as their peers, they made more errors, suggesting a general magnitude representation deficit; however, this wasn't directly linked to their arithmetic performance, highlighting the importance of working memory in supporting math skills.
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Gaze directed at the observer (direct gaze) is a highly salient social signal. Despite the existence of a preferential orientation toward direct gaze, none of the studies carried out so far seem to have explicitly studied the time course of information processing during gaze direction judgment. In an eye direction judgment task, participants were presented with a sketch of a face.

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Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is identified by a set of neurodevelopmental divergences that typically affect the social communication domain. ASD is also characterized by heterogeneous cognitive impairments and is associated with cooccurring physical and medical conditions. As behaviors emerge as the brain matures, it is particularly essential to identify any gaps in neurodevelopmental trajectories during early perinatal life.

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  • - Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is marked by challenges in social communication and repetitive behaviors, with maternal immune activation (MIA) during mid-pregnancy identified as a risk factor, affecting about 15% of those with ASD.
  • - This study hypothesized that individuals with ASD who experienced MIA would show greater socio-adaptive impairments compared to those without, analyzing data from 295 mother-child pairs, with findings indicating more severe socialization difficulties in the ASD-MIA group.
  • - Limitations of the study include its retrospective nature and a relatively small sample size, underscoring the need for larger prospective studies to explore the specific biological mechanisms behind the socio-adaptive challenges in ASD-MIA individuals.
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  • Rearrangements in the 22q11.2 region, particularly deletions and duplications, lead to various congenital disorders with overlapping symptoms.
  • This study presents a rare case of a 6-year-old child with a 22q11.2 triplication and compares their clinical and neurocognitive characteristics to those with deletions and duplications.
  • The findings suggest that the 22q11.2 region is crucial for social skills and attention, with different rearrangements potentially influencing the risk or protection against psychotic symptoms and sociability levels.
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This study aimed to develop a new scale, the Early Psychotic Symptoms screening scale (EPSy), to assess the prodromes of psychotic symptoms in children aged 4 to 13 years. Two versions were proposed: one to assess the child's current behavior and one to assess the child's behavior when he/she was 2 years old. The second aim of this study was to investigate the presence of these symptoms at the age of 2 years and their evolution up to the child's current age.

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Purpose: The "NALCN channelosome" is an ion channel complex that consists of multiple proteins, including NALCN, UNC79, UNC80, and FAM155A. Only a small number of individuals with a neurodevelopmental syndrome have been reported with disease causing variants in NALCN and UNC80. However, no pathogenic UNC79 variants have been reported, and in vivo function of UNC79 in humans is largely unknown.

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Here, we present an optimized iDISCO+ protocol combining tissue clearing and light sheet microscopy to map the postnatal development of oxytocin and vasopressin neurons in mouse hypothalamus. We describe tissue preparation, immunostaining, clearing, and imaging. We then detail how to process the 3D cell dataset to analyze cell network using a point-based recording procedure that accurately maps neurons in the Allen brain atlas.

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  • * Researchers examined SARS-CoV-2 naive patients with specific genetic deficiencies and autoantibodies that affect IFN response to see if this impacted vaccine efficacy.
  • * The study found that despite these deficiencies, the B cell response, including memory B cells and IgG production, remained robust and similar to healthy individuals, indicating type I IFN isn't essential for generating a strong vaccine-induced immune response against SARS-CoV-2.
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Background: There is a lack of knowledge regarding the actionable key predictive factors of homelessness in psychiatric populations. Therefore, we used a machine learning model to explore the REHABase database (for rehabilitation database- = 3416), which is a cohort of users referred to French psychosocial rehabilitation centers in France.

Methods: First, we analyzed whether the different risk factors previously associated with homelessness in mental health were also significant risk factors in the REHABase.

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Background: While adult outcome in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is generally measured using socially valued roles, it could also be understood in terms of aspects related to health status - an approach that could inform on potential gender differences.

Methods: We investigated gender differences in two aspects of outcome related to health-status, i.e.

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Background: Williams syndrome (WS) and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are neurodevelopmental conditions associated with atypical but opposite face-to-face interactions patterns: WS patients overly stare at others, ASD individuals escape eye contact. Whether these behaviors result from dissociable visual processes within the occipito-temporal pathways is unknown. Using high-density electroencephalography, multivariate signal processing algorithms and a protocol designed to identify and extract evoked activities sensitive to facial cues, we investigated how WS (N = 14), ASD (N = 14) and neurotypical subjects (N = 14) decode the information content of a face stimulus.

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Objective: Although international guidelines state that psychoeducation to caregivers should be provided systematically, it remains insufficiently available in psychiatry. This study reports the development and evaluation of an original training course aimed to provide participants with the knowledge and skills to implement "BREF," a psychoeducational program for caregivers.

Methods: The BREF program training course, a free, 1-day course incorporating peer role-play was developed.

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Oxytocin (OXT) and arginine vasopressin (AVP), two neuropeptides involved in socio-emotional behaviors have been anatomically defined in the adult brain. Yet their spatial organization during postnatal development is not clearly defined. We built a developmental atlas using 3D imaging of cleared immunolabeled tissue over four early postnatal (P) stages, from birth (P0, P3, P7, P14) to young adulthood (≥P56).

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The Emotional Enhancement of Memory (EEM) has been well-demonstrated in adults, but less is known about EEM in children. The present study tested the impact of emotional valence of pictures on episodic memory using behavioral and neurophysiological measures. Twenty-six 8- to 11-year-old children were tested and compared to 30 young adults.

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Children and adolescents with Williams-Beuren syndrome (WBS) have been described as having specific memory abilities and emotional reactivity. Although it is well established in the literature that emotion can enhance memory, no such studies have been undertaken in individuals with WBS. In three experiments, the present study tested whether the negative or positive emotional valence of stimuli can influence verbal, visual and visuo-spatial memory by specifically evaluating two memory components: item and associative memory.

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The eyes and the gaze are important stimuli for social interaction in humans. Impaired recognition of facial identity, facial emotions, and inference of the intentions of others may result from difficulties in extracting information relevant to the eye region, mainly the direction of gaze. Therefore, a review of these data is of interest.

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Background: Pathogenic variants of the AUTS2 (Autism Susceptibility candidate 2) gene predispose to intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, facial dysmorphism and short stature. This phenotype is therefore associated with neurocognitive disturbances and social cognition, indicating potential functional maladjustment in the affected subjects, and a potentially significant impact on quality of life. Although many isolated cases have been reported in the literature, to date no families have been described.

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Background: Female sex/gender has been associated with better longitudinal outcomes in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs). Few studies have investigated the relationships between female gender and recovery-related outcomes. Women's specific psychiatric rehabilitation needs remain largely unknown.

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Recognizing facial expressions of emotions is a fundamental ability for adaptation to the social environment. To date, it remains unclear whether the spatial distribution of eye movements predicts accurate recognition or, on the contrary, confusion in the recognition of facial emotions. In the present study, we asked participants to recognize facial emotions while monitoring their gaze behavior using eye-tracking technology.

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Humans make rapid decisions of trustworthiness based on facial appearance. Williams Syndrome (WS) is a genetic disorder associated with hypersociability toward strangers, suggesting a disruption in trust assessment. We recorded eye-movements in neurotypically-developed (TD) participants (N = 21) and in patients with WS (N = 22) as we presented pairs of computer-generated faces, pre-rated as trustworthy or untrustworthy.

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Background: The role of deleterious copy number variations in schizophrenia is well established while data regarding pathogenic variations remain scarce. We report for the first time a case of schizophrenia in a child with a pathogenic mutation of the chromodomain helicase DNA binding protein 2 (CHD2) gene.

Case Presentation: The proband was the second child of unrelated parents.

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Despite advances in neurogenetics of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), many patients fail to be systematically investigated, owing to preconceived ideas, limited access to genetics facilities and inadequacy of consultations to children with behavioural problems. To improve access to services, we reversed the paradigm and delivered on-site genetics consultations to ASD children of Greater Paris day care hospitals and specialized institutions. Since 1998, an ambulatory medical genetics team has been in operation, offering on-site consultations and services to patients and relatives in their usual environment.

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