Transcranial direct current stimulation enhances retention of a second (but not first) order conditional visuo-motor sequence.

This study examined the role of the left inferior frontal gyrus in the implicit learning and retention of a 'simple' first order conditional (FOC) sequence and a relatively 'complex' second order conditional (SOC) sequence, using anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (a-tDCS). Groups of healthy adults received either a-tDCS (n = 18) over the left inferior frontal gyrus or sham/placebo (n = 18) stimulation. On separate days, participants completed a serial reaction time (SRT) task whilst receiving stimulation.

Neurodevelopmental difficulties in children with idiopathic clubfoot.

Aim: To evaluate neurodevelopmental difficulties in children with idiopathic clubfoot.

Method: A cross-sectional study of 106 children (29 females, 77 males; aged 8-10y) with idiopathic clubfoot and 109 age-, sex-, and residential area-parallelized children from the general population. Neurodevelopmental difficulties were assessed using the parent-report Five to Fifteen (FTF) questionnaire.

Long-term social skills group training for children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder: a randomized controlled trial.

Social skills group training (SSGT) is widely used for intellectually able children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Previous studies indicate small to moderate effects on social communication capacities. The duration of most available programs is relatively short, and extended training might lead to further improvement.

Enhanced pupillary light reflex in infancy is associated with autism diagnosis in toddlerhood.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition affecting around 1% of the population. We previously discovered that infant siblings of children with ASD had stronger pupillary light reflexes compared to low-risk infants, a result which contrasts sharply with the weak pupillary light reflex typically seen in both children and adults with ASD. Here, we show that on average the relative constriction of the pupillary light reflex is larger in 9-10-month-old high risk infant siblings who receive an ASD diagnosis at 36 months, compared both to those who do not and to low-risk controls.

To be understood: Transitioning to adult life for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to explore the viewpoints of parents of young people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in relation to their child's transition to adulthood.

Methods: Data were collected during four structured focus groups with 19 parents of young people with ASD with average to high intellectual capacities. Condensed meaning units were identified and checked during focus groups, and were subsequently linked to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF).

An International Clinical Study of Ability and Disability in Autism Spectrum Disorder Using the WHO-ICF Framework.

This is the fourth international preparatory study designed to develop International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF, and Children and Youth version, ICF-CY) Core Sets for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Examine functioning of individuals diagnosed with ASD as documented by the ICF-CY in a variety of clinical settings. A cross-sectional study was conducted, involving 11 units from 10 countries.

Reduced orienting to audiovisual synchrony in infancy predicts autism diagnosis at 3 years of age.

Background: Effective multisensory processing develops in infancy and is thought to be important for the perception of unified and multimodal objects and events. Previous research suggests impaired multisensory processing in autism, but its role in the early development of the disorder is yet uncertain. Here, using a prospective longitudinal design, we tested whether reduced visual attention to audiovisual synchrony is an infant marker of later-emerging autism diagnosis.

Genetic Influence on Eye Movements to Complex Scenes at Short Timescales.

Where one looks within their environment constrains one's visual experiences, directly affects cognitive, emotional, and social processing [1-4], influences learning opportunities [5], and ultimately shapes one's developmental path. While there is a high degree of similarity across individuals with regard to which features of a scene are fixated [6-8], large individual differences are also present, especially in disorders of development [9-13], and clarifying the origins of these differences is essential to understand the processes by which individuals develop within the complex environments in which they exist and interact. Toward this end, a recent paper [14] found that "social visual engagement"-namely, gaze to eyes and mouths of faces-is strongly influenced by genetic factors.

Reduced reward-related neural response to mimicry in individuals with autism.

Mimicry is a facilitator of social bonds in humans, from infancy. This facilitation is made possible through changing the reward value of social stimuli; for example, we like and affiliate more with people who mimic us. Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are marked by difficulties in forming social bonds.

Emotion recognition training in autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review of challenges related to generalizability.

Purpose: To assess the generalizability of findings from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating emotion recognition (ER) training for children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Methods: We present a systematic review and narrative synthesis of the determinants of external validity in RCTs on ER training. Generalizability of the findings across situations, populations, settings, treatment delivery, and intervention formats was considered.

Reduced visual disengagement but intact phasic alerting in young children with autism.

Children with autism may have difficulties with visual disengagement-that is, inhibiting current fixations and orienting to new stimuli in the periphery. These difficulties may limit these children's ability to flexibly monitor the environment, regulate their internal states, and interact with others. In typical development, visual disengagement is influenced by a phasic alerting network that increases the processing speed of the visual system after salient events.

Sex-Dimorphic Effects of Prenatal Treatment With Dexamethasone.

Context: Dexamethasone (DEX) is used to prevent virilization in female fetuses at risk of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). Given that treatment has to be started before the genotype is known, 7 out of 8 fetuses will be exposed to DEX without benefit.

Objective: To evaluate long-term cognitive effects of prenatal DEX therapy in healthy (non-CAH) DEX-treated children.

Visual orienting in children with autism: Hyper-responsiveness to human eyes presented after a brief alerting audio-signal, but hyporesponsiveness to eyes presented without sound.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has been associated with reduced orienting to social stimuli such as eyes, but the results are inconsistent. It is not known whether atypicalities in phasic alerting could play a role in putative altered social orienting in ASD. Here, we show that in unisensory (visual) trials, children with ASD are slower to orient to eyes (among distractors) than controls matched for age, sex, and nonverbal IQ.

Spontaneous Facial Mimicry is Modulated by Joint Attention and Autistic Traits.

Joint attention (JA) and spontaneous facial mimicry (SFM) are fundamental processes in social interactions, and they are closely related to empathic abilities. When tested independently, both of these processes have been usually observed to be atypical in individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). However, it is not known how these processes interact with each other in relation to autistic traits.

The TimeStudio Project: An open source scientific workflow system for the behavioral and brain sciences.

This article describes a new open source scientific workflow system, the TimeStudio Project, dedicated to the behavioral and brain sciences. The program is written in MATLAB and features a graphical user interface for the dynamic pipelining of computer algorithms developed as TimeStudio plugins. TimeStudio includes both a set of general plugins (for reading data files, modifying data structures, visualizing data structures, etc.

Rare de novo deletion of metabotropic glutamate receptor 7 (GRM7) gene in a patient with autism spectrum disorder.

GRM7, the gene encoding metabotropic glutamate receptor 7 (mGluR7), have been implicated in multiple neuropsychiatric disorders and shown to mediate excitatory synaptic neurotransmitter signaling and plasticity in the mammalian brain. Here we report a 303 kb de novo deletion at band 3p26.1, disrupting five coding exons of GRM7 in a proband with autism spectrum disorder, and hyperactivity.

Hypersensitive pupillary light reflex in infants at risk for autism.

Background: Post mortem brain tissue data and animal modeling work indicate cholinergic disruptions in autism. Moreover, the cholinergic system plays a key role in the early neurodevelopmental processes believed to be derailed early in life in individuals with the disorder. Yet, there is no data from human infants supporting a developmentally important role of this neurotransmitter system.

Whole-genome sequencing of quartet families with autism spectrum disorder.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is genetically heterogeneous, with evidence for hundreds of susceptibility loci. Previous microarray and exome-sequencing studies have examined portions of the genome in simplex families (parents and one ASD-affected child) having presumed sporadic forms of the disorder. We used whole-genome sequencing (WGS) of 85 quartet families (parents and two ASD-affected siblings), consisting of 170 individuals with ASD, to generate a comprehensive data resource encompassing all classes of genetic variation (including noncoding variants) and accompanying phenotypes, in apparently familial forms of ASD.

Long-term outcomes of pharmacologically treated versus non-treated adults with ADHD and substance use disorder: a naturalistic study.

Background And Aims: The pharmacological treatment of individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and severe substance use disorder (SUD) is controversial, and few studies have examined the long-term psychosocial outcome of these treatments. Our aim was to investigate whether pharmacological treatment was associated with improved long-term psychosocial outcomes.

Methods: The present naturalistic study consisted of a long-term follow-up of 60 male patients with ADHD and comorbid severe SUD; all participants had received compulsory inpatient treatment due to severe substance abuse.

Human infants detect other people's interactions based on complex patterns of kinematic information.

Do infants perceive other people's interactions by means of a mechanism that integrates biological motion information across the observed individuals? In support of this view, the present study demonstrates that infants (N = 28, Age  = 14 months) discriminate between point light displays representing disrupted and non-disrupted interactions between people, even though the two interaction types are identical at the level of individual point light agents. Moreover, a second experiment (sample 2: N = 28, Age  = 14 months) indicated that visual preference in this context is influenced by an audiovisual integration processes that takes into account the presence of an interaction between people. All these results were found exclusively for upright displays--when stimuli were shown upside-down (disrupting biological motion processing), performance was random.

Brief report: Lack of processing bias for the objects other people attend to in 3-year-olds with autism.

Whether gaze following--a key component of joint attention--is impaired in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is currently debated. Functional gaze following involves saccading towards the attended rather than unattended targets (accuracy) as well as a subsequent processing bias for attended objects. Using non-invasive eye tracking technology, we show that gaze following accuracy is intact in intellectually low-functioning 3-year-olds with ASD.

Facial emotion recognition in paranoid schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder.

Schizophrenia (SZ) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) share deficits in emotion processing. In order to identify convergent and divergent mechanisms, we investigated facial emotion recognition in SZ, high-functioning ASD (HFASD), and typically developed controls (TD). Different degrees of task difficulty and emotion complexity (face, eyes; basic emotions, complex emotions) were used.

Structural alterations of the social brain: a comparison between schizophrenia and autism.

Autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia share a substantial number of etiologic and phenotypic characteristics. Still, no direct comparison of both disorders has been performed to identify differences and commonalities in brain structure. In this voxel based morphometry study, 34 patients with autism spectrum disorder, 21 patients with schizophrenia and 26 typically developed control subjects were included to identify global and regional brain volume alterations.