A latent profile analysis of empathizing-systemizing cognitive style among Chinese children aged 6 - 12 years: Links to intelligence, executive function, and autistic traits.

Background: Empathizing and systemizing abilities are respectively associated with key developmental outcomes like intelligence, executive function, and autistic traits, particularly in typically developing (TD) children. However, how specific cognitive styles-defined by the balance between empathizing and systemizing-relate to these outcomes remains unclear.

Methods: We conducted a latent profile analysis on 502 TD children aged 6‒12 years to identify cognitive styles based on multiple dimensions of empathizing and systemizing, measured by the Children's Empathy Quotient and Systemizing Quotient.

Developing a simplified measure to predict the risk of autism spectrum disorders: Abbreviating the M-CHAT-R using a machine learning approach in China.

Background: Early screening for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is crucial, yet current assessment tools in Chinese primary child care are limited in efficacy.

Objective: This study aims to employ machine learning algorithms to identify key indicators from the 20-item Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers, revised (M-CHAT-R) combining with ASD-related sociodemographic and environmental factors, to distinguish ASD from typically developing children.

Methods: Data from our prior validation study of the Chinese M-CHAT-R (August 2016-March 2017, n = 6,049 toddlers) were reviewed.

Pharmacotherapy for the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a range of neurodevelopmental diseases characterized by social dysfunction and stereotypic behaviors. The etiology of ASD remains largely unexplored, resulting in a diverse array of described clinical manifestations and varying degrees of severity. Currently, there are no drugs approved by a supervisory organization that can effectively treat the core symptoms of ASD.

Association between hearing ability and cortical morphology in the elderly: multiparametric mapping, cognitive relevance, and neurobiological underpinnings.

Background: Hearing impairment is a common condition in the elderly. However, a comprehensive understanding of its neural correlates is still lacking.

Methods: We recruited 284 elderly adults who underwent structural MRI, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, audiometry, and cognitive assessments.

Aberrant single-subject morphological brain networks in first-episode, treatment-naive adolescents with major depressive disorder.

Background: Neuroimaging-based connectome studies have indicated that major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with disrupted topological organization of large-scale brain networks. However, the disruptions and their clinical and cognitive relevance are not well established for morphological brain networks in adolescent MDD.

Objective: To investigate the topological alterations of single-subject morphological brain networks in adolescent MDD.

Altered Cortical Information Interaction During Respiratory Events in Children with Obstructive Sleep Apnea-Hypopnea Syndrome.

Obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) significantly impairs children's growth and cognition. This study aims to elucidate the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying OSAHS in children, with a particular focus on the alterations in cortical information interaction during respiratory events. We analyzed sleep electroencephalography before, during, and after events, utilizing Symbolic Transfer Entropy (STE) for brain network construction and information flow assessment.

m6A/m1A/m5C-Associated Methylation Alterations and Immune Profile in MDD.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a prevalent psychiatric condition often accompanied by severe impairments in cognitive and functional capacities. This research was conducted to identify RNA modification-related gene signatures and associated functional pathways in MDD. Differentially expressed RNA modification-related genes in MDD were first identified.

Examining associations of folic acid supplements administered to mothers during pre-conceptional and prenatal periods with autism spectrum disorders in their offspring: insights from a multi-center study in China.

Objective: To investigate the relationship between maternal folic acid (FA) supplementation during the pre-conceptional and prenatal periods and the subsequent risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in offspring.

Methods: A total of 6,049 toddlers aged 16-30 months were recruited from August 2016 to March 2017 for this cross-sectional study conducted in China. The parents of the enrolled toddlers provided information on maternal supplemental FA, socio-demographic information, and related covariates.

The cognitive dysfunction of claustrum on Alzheimer's disease: A mini-review.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases characterized by cognitive deficits and dementia. AD entails predominant pathological characteristics including amyloid beta (Aβ) plaque formation, neurofibrillary entanglements, and brain atrophy, which gradually result in cognitive dysfunctions. Studies showed that these pathological changes are found in a myriad of brain structures, including the claustrum (CLA), a nucleus that penetrates deeply into the brain and is extensively interconnected to various brain structures.

Selective Impairments in Fine Neural Tuning for Print in Chinese Children with Developmental Dyslexia.

Neural tuning for print refers to differential neural responses (e.g., the N1 component of event-related potentials) to different orthographic forms and other visual stimuli.

Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder in the United States is Stable in the COVID-19 Era.

Although the United States (US) have been monitoring the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) prevalence, whether the prevalence has continued to increase, decrease, fluctuate or reached a stable level remained unclear during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have requested the 2016-2021 National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH) data in the United States to estimate weighted ASD prevalence and assess linearity/nonlinearity in the time trend. We did not observe linear or nonlinear trends of the ASD prevalence during the 2016-2021 periods.

Top-down modulation and cortical-AMG/HPC interaction in familiar face processing.

Humans can accurately recognize familiar faces in only a few hundred milliseconds, but the underlying neural mechanism remains unclear. Here, we recorded intracranial electrophysiological signals from ventral temporal cortex (VTC), superior/middle temporal cortex (STC/MTC), medial parietal cortex (MPC), and amygdala/hippocampus (AMG/HPC) in 20 epilepsy patients while they viewed faces of famous people and strangers as well as common objects. In posterior VTC and MPC, familiarity-sensitive responses emerged significantly later than initial face-selective responses, suggesting that familiarity enhances face representations after they are first being extracted.

Effects of Long-Term Exposure to 2260 m Altitude on Working Memory and Resting-State Activity in the Prefrontal Cortex: A Large-Sample Cross-Sectional Study.

It has been well established that very-high-altitude (>4000 m) environments can affect human cognitive function and brain activity. However, the effects of long-term exposure to moderate altitudes (2000−3000 m) on cognitive function and brain activity are not well understood. In the present cross-sectional study, we utilized an N-back working memory task and resting-state functional near-infrared spectroscopy to examine the effects of two years of exposure to 2260 m altitude on working memory and resting-state brain activity in 208 college students, compared with a control group at the sea level.

Early visual exposure primes future cross-modal specialization of the fusiform face area in tactile face processing in the blind.

The fusiform face area (FFA) is a core cortical region for face information processing. Evidence suggests that its sensitivity to faces is largely innate and tuned by visual experience. However, how experience in different time windows shape the plasticity of the FFA remains unclear.

Subregion-specific, modality-dependent and timescale-sensitive hippocampal connectivity alterations in patients with first-episode, drug-naïve major depression disorder.

Background: Despite accumulating evidence for the hippocampus as a key dysfunctional node in major depressive disorder (MDD), previous findings are controversial possibly due to heterogeneous and small clinical samples, complicated hippocampal structure, and different imaging modalities and analytical methods.

Methods: We collected structural and resting-state functional MRI data from 100 first-episode, drug-naïve MDD patients and 99 healthy controls. A subset of the participants (34 patients and 33 controls) also completed a battery of neuropsychological tests and childhood trauma questionnaires.

Prevalence of Developmental Dyslexia in Primary School Children: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Background: Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a specific learning disorder concerning reading acquisition that may has a lifelong negative impact on individuals. A reliable estimate of the prevalence of DD serves as the basis for diagnosis, intervention, and evidence-based health resource allocation and policy-making. Hence, the present meta-analysis aims to generate a reliable prevalence estimate of DD worldwide in primary school children and explore the potential variables related to that prevalence.

Neural responses to facial attractiveness in the judgments of moral goodness and moral beauty.

The judgments of moral goodness and moral beauty objectively refer to the perception and evaluation of moral traits, which are generally influenced by facial attractiveness. For centuries, people have equated beauty with the possession of positive qualities, but it is not clear whether the association between beauty and positive qualities exerts a similarly implicit influence on people's responses to moral goodness and moral beauty, how it affects those responses, and what is the neural basis for such an effect. The present study is the first to examine the neural responses to facial attractiveness in the judgments of moral goodness and moral beauty.

DeepHBV: a deep learning model to predict hepatitis B virus (HBV) integration sites.

Background: The hepatitis B virus (HBV) is one of the main causes of viral hepatitis and liver cancer. HBV integration is one of the key steps in the virus-promoted malignant transformation.

Results: An attention-based deep learning model, DeepHBV, was developed to predict HBV integration sites.

Higher-order sensorimotor circuit of the brain's global network supports human consciousness.

Consciousness is a mental characteristic of the human mind, whose exact neural features remain unclear. We aimed to identify the critical nodes within the brain's global functional network that support consciousness. To that end, we collected a large fMRI resting state dataset with subjects in at least one of the following three consciousness states: preserved (including the healthy awake state, and patients with a brain injury history (BI) that is fully conscious), reduced (including the N1-sleep state, and minimally conscious state), and lost (including the N3-sleep state, anesthesia, and unresponsive wakefulness state).

Charting brain growth in tandem with brain templates at school age.

Brain growth charts and age-normed brain templates are essential resources for researchers to eventually contribute to the care of individuals with atypical developmental trajectories. The present work generates age-normed brain templates for children and adolescents at one-year intervals and the corresponding growth charts to investigate the influences of age and ethnicity using a common pediatric neuroimaging protocol. Two accelerated longitudinal cohorts with the identical experimental design were implemented in the United States and China.

DeepHPV: a deep learning model to predict human papillomavirus integration sites.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) integrating into human genome is the main cause of cervical carcinogenesis. HPV integration selection preference shows strong dependence on local genomic environment. Due to this theory, it is possible to predict HPV integration sites.