Relationships between peak alpha frequency, age, and autistic traits in young children with and without autism spectrum disorder.

Background: Atypical peak alpha frequency (PAF) has been reported in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD); however, the relationships between PAF, age, and autistic traits remain unclear. This study was conducted to investigate and compare the resting-state PAF of young children with ASD and their typically developing (TD) peers using magnetoencephalography (MEG).

Methods: Nineteen children with ASD and 24 TD children, aged 5-7 years, underwent MEG under resting-state conditions.

Language and sensory characteristics are reflected in voice-evoked responses in low birth weight children.

Background: Children born with very low birth weight (VLBW) are at higher risk for cognitive impairment, including language deficits and sensorimotor difficulties. Voice-evoked response (P1m), which has been suggested as a language development biomarker in young children, remains unexplored for its efficacy in VLBW children. Furthermore, the relation between P1m and sensory difficulties in VLBW children remains unclear.

Neural responses to syllable-induced P1m and social impairment in children with autism spectrum disorder and typically developing Peers.

In previous magnetoencephalography (MEG) studies, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been shown to respond differently to speech stimuli than typically developing (TD) children. Quantitative evaluation of this difference in responsiveness may support early diagnosis and intervention for ASD. The objective of this research is to investigate the relationship between syllable-induced P1m and social impairment in children with ASD and TD children.

Effect of transcranial direct current stimulation on the functionality of 40 Hz auditory steady state response brain network: graph theory approach.

Introduction: Measuring whole-brain networks of the 40 Hz auditory steady state response (ASSR) is a promising approach to describe the after-effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of tDCS on the brain network of 40 Hz ASSR in healthy adult males using graph theory. The second objective was to identify a population in which tDCS effectively modulates the brain network of 40 Hz ASSR.

Cooperation and competition between the default mode network and frontal parietal network in the elderly.

Recent research has shown that the Default Mode Network (DMN) typically exhibits increased activation during processing of social and personal information but shows deactivation during working memory (WM) tasks. Previously, we reported the Frontal Parietal Network (FPN) and DMN showed coactivation during task preparation whereas the DMN exhibited deactivation during task execution in working memory tasks. Aging research has shown that older adults exhibited decreased functional connectivity in the DMN relative to younger adults.

Reduced gamma oscillation during visual processing of the mother's face in children with autism spectrum disorder: A pilot study.

Aim: This study aimed to investigate gamma oscillations related to face processing of children with autism spectrum disorders and typically developed children using magnetoencephalography.

Methods: We developed stimuli that included naturalistic real-time eye-gaze situations between participants and their mothers. Eighteen young children with autism spectrum disorders (62-97 months) and 24 typically developed children (61-79 months) were included.

Altered sensory integration from body and language development in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Aim: Although atypical sensory motor processing has been investigated in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), whether or not atypical sensory motor processing is related to altered language function in children with ASD remains unclear.

Methods: This study examined the relationship between sensory motor processing and language conceptual inference ability in 3-10-year-old children with ( = 61) and without ( = 114) ASD. Language performance was assessed using the language conceptual inference task of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC).

Alterations in brain networks in children with sub-threshold autism spectrum disorder: A magnetoencephalography study.

Individuals with sub-threshold autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are those who have social communication difficulties but do not meet the full ASD diagnostic criteria. ASD is associated with an atypical brain network; however, no studies have focused on sub-threshold ASD. Here, we used the graph approach to investigate alterations in the brain networks of children with sub-threshold ASD, independent of a clinical diagnosis.

Mercury levels in hair are associated with reduced neurobehavioral performance and altered brain structures in young adults.

The detrimental effects of high-level mercury exposure on the central nervous system as well as effects of low-level exposure during early development have been established. However, no previous studies have investigated the effects of mercury level on brain morphometry using advance imaging techniques in young adults. Here, utilizing hair analysis which has been advocated as a method for biological monitoring, data of regional gray matter volume (rGMV), regional white matter volume (rWMV), fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD), cognitive functions, and depression among 920 healthy young adults in Japan, we showed that greater hair mercury levels were weakly but significantly associated with diminished cognitive performance, particularly on tasks requiring rapid processing (speed measures), lower depressive tendency, lower rGMV in areas of the thalamus and hippocampus, lower rWMV in widespread areas, greater FA in bilaterally distributed white matter areas overlapping with areas of significant rWMV reductions and lower MD of the widely distributed gray and white matter areas particularly in the bilateral frontal lobe and the right basal ganglia.

Atypical Resting State Functional Neural Network in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Graph Theory Approach.

Measuring whole brain networks is a promising approach to extract features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a brain disorder of widespread regions. Objectives of this study were to evaluate properties of resting-state functional brain networks in children with and without ASD and to evaluate their relation with social impairment severity. Magnetoencephalographic (MEG) data were recorded for 21 children with ASD (7 girls, 60-89 months old) and for 25 typically developing (TD) control children (10 girls, 60-91 months old) in a resting state while gazing at a fixation cross.

Does Implicit Self-Reference Effect Occur by the Instantaneous Own-Name?

Self-reference effect (SRE) is defined as better recall or recognition performance when the materials that are memorized refer to the self. The SRE paradigm usually requires participants to explicitly refer items to themselves, but some researchers have found that the SRE also can occur for implicitly self-referenced items. Few studies though have investigated the effect of self-related stimuli without awareness.

Capacity differences in working memory based on resting state brain networks.

Herein, we compared the connectivity of resting-state networks between participants with high and low working memory capacity groups. Brain network connectivity was assessed under both resting and working memory task conditions. Task scans comprised dual-task (reading sentences while memorizing target words) and single-task (reading sentences) conditions.

Epileptiform discharges relate to altered functional brain networks in autism spectrum disorders.

Many individuals with autism spectrum disorders have comorbid epilepsy. Even in the absence of observable seizures, interictal epileptiform discharges are common in individuals with autism spectrum disorders. However, how these interictal epileptiform discharges are related to autistic symptomatology remains unclear.

Effects of familiarity on child brain networks when listening to a storybook reading: A magneto-encephalographic study.

Parent-child book reading is important for fostering the development of various lifelong cognitive and social abilities in young children. Despite numerous reports describing the effects of familiarity on shared reading for children, the exact neural basis of the functional network architecture remains unclear. We conducted Magnet-Encephalographic (MEG) experiments using graph theory to elucidate the role of familiarity in shared reading in a child's brain network and to measure the connectivity dynamics of a child while Listening to Storybook Reading (LSBR), which represents the daily activity of shared book reading between the child and caregiver.

Decreased grey matter volumes in unaffected mothers of individuals with autism spectrum disorder reflect the broader autism endophenotype.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with an early onset and a strong genetic origin. Unaffected relatives may present similar but subthreshold characteristics of ASD. This broader autism phenotype is especially prevalent in the parents of individuals with ASD, suggesting that it has heritable factors.

Shorter P1m Response in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder without Intellectual Disabilities.

(1) Background: Atypical auditory perception has been reported in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Altered auditory evoked brain responses are also associated with childhood ASD. They are likely to be associated with atypical brain maturation.

Aberrant brain oscillatory coupling from the primary motor cortex in children with autism spectrum disorders.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often involves dysfunction in general motor control and motor coordination, in addition to core symptoms. However, the neural mechanisms underlying motor dysfunction in ASD are poorly understood. To elucidate this issue, we focused on brain oscillations and their coupling in the primary motor cortex (M1).

Brain responses to human-voice processing predict child development and intelligence.

Children make rapid transitions in their neural and intellectual development. Compared to other brain regions, the auditory cortex slowly matures, and children show immature auditory brain activity. This auditory neural plasticity largely occurs as a response to human-voice stimuli, which are presented more often than other stimuli, and can even be observed in the brainstem.

How Two Brains Make One Synchronized Mind in the Inferior Frontal Cortex: fNIRS-Based Hyperscanning During Cooperative Singing.

One form of communication that is common in all cultures is people singing together. Singing together reflects an index of cognitive synchronization and cooperation of human brains. Little is known about the neural synchronization mechanism, however.

The rostral prefrontal cortex underlies individual differences in working memory capacity: An approach from the hierarchical model of the cognitive control.

Neuroimaging and behavioral evidence has suggested that the lateral prefrontal cortex is involved in individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC). However, few studies have localized the neural structures that differentiate high and low WMC individuals, considering the functional architecture of the prefrontal cortex. The present study aimed to identify a frontal region that underlies individual differences from the perspective of the hierarchical architecture of the frontal cortex.

Neural correlates of the self-reference effect: evidence from evaluation and recognition processes.

The self-reference effect (SRE) is defined as better recall or recognition performance when the memorized materials refer to the self. Recently, a number of neuroimaging studies using self-referential and other-referential tasks have reported that self- and other-referential judgments basically show greater activation in common brain regions, specifically in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) when compared with nonmentalizing judgments, but that a ventral-to-dorsal gradient in MPFC emerges from a direct comparison between self- and other-judgments. However, most of these previous studies could not provide an adequate explanation for the neural basis of SRE because they did not directly compare brain activation for recognition/recall of the words referenced to the self with another person.

The anodal tDCS over the left posterior parietal cortex enhances attention toward a focus word in a sentence.

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) has two attentional functions: top-down attentional control and stimulus-driven attentional processing. Using the focused version of the reading span test (RST), in which the target word to be remembered is the critical word for comprehending a sentence (focused word) or a non-focused word, we examined the effect of tDCS on resolution of distractor interference by the focused word in the non-focus condition (top-down attentional control) and on augmented/shrunk attentional capture by the focused word in both the focus and non-focus conditions (stimulus-driven attentional processing). Participants were divided into two groups: anodal tDCS (atDCS) and cathodal tDCS (ctDCS).

Coactivation of the Default Mode Network regions and Working Memory Network regions during task preparation.

The Default Mode Network (DMN) regions exhibit deactivation during a wide variety of resource demanding tasks. However, recent brain imaging studies reported that they also show activation during various cognitive activities. In addition, studies have found a negative correlation between the DMN and the working memory network (WMN).

Serial changes of humor comprehension for four-frame comic Manga: an fMRI study.

Serial changes of humor comprehension evoked by a well organized four-frame comic Manga were investigated by fMRI in each step of humor comprehension. The neural substrates underlying the amusing effects in response to funny and mixed order manga were compared. In accordance with the time course of the four frames, fMRI activations changed serially.

Extrapunitive and intropunitive individuals activate different parts of the prefrontal cortex under an ego-blocking frustration.

Different people make different responses when they face a frustrating situation: some punish others (extrapunitive), while others punish themselves (intropunitive). Few studies have investigated the neural structures that differentiate extrapunitive and intropunitive individuals. The present fMRI study explored these neural structures using two different frustrating situations: an ego-blocking situation which blocks a desire or goal, and a superego-blocking situation which blocks self-esteem.