1. |
- Alarifi, Hana, et al.
(författare)
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Machine learning for distinguishing saudi children with and without autism via eye-tracking data
- 2023
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Ingår i: CHILD AND ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY AND MENTAL HEALTH. - 1753-2000. ; 17:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BackgroundDespite the prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) globally, there's a knowledge gap pertaining to autism in Arabic nations. Recognizing the need for validated biomarkers for ASD, our study leverages eye-tracking technology to understand gaze patterns associated with ASD, focusing on joint attention (JA) and atypical gaze patterns during face perception. While previous studies typically evaluate a single eye-tracking metric, our research combines multiple metrics to capture the multidimensional nature of autism, focusing on dwell times on eyes, left facial side, and joint attention.MethodsWe recorded data from 104 participants (41 neurotypical, mean age: 8.21 +/- 4.12 years; 63 with ASD, mean age 8 +/- 3.89 years). The data collection consisted of a series of visual stimuli of cartoon faces of humans and animals, presented to the participants in a controlled environment. During each stimulus, the eye movements of the participants were recorded and analyzed, extracting metrics such as time to first fixation and dwell time. We then used these data to train a number of machine learning classification algorithms, to determine if these biomarkers can be used to diagnose ASD.ResultsWe found no significant difference in eye-dwell time between autistic and control groups on human or animal eyes. However, autistic individuals focused less on the left side of both human and animal faces, indicating reduced left visual field (LVF) bias. They also showed slower response times and shorter dwell times on congruent objects during joint attention (JA) tasks, indicating diminished reflexive joint attention. No significant difference was found in time spent on incongruent objects during JA tasks. These results suggest potential eye-tracking biomarkers for autism. The best-performing algorithm was the random forest one, which achieved accuracy = 0.76 +/- 0.08, precision = 0.78 +/- 0.13, recall = 0.84 +/- 0.07, and F1 = 0.80 +/- 0.09.ConclusionsAlthough the autism group displayed notable differences in reflexive joint attention and left visual field bias, the dwell time on eyes was not significantly different. Nevertheless, the machine algorithm model trained on these data proved effective at diagnosing ASD, showing the potential of these biomarkers. Our study shows promising results and opens up potential for further exploration in this under-researched geographical context.
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2. |
- Andreén, Lisa, et al.
(författare)
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Developing tolerance to eye contact in autism: A feasibility study with adults using behavioral, interview, and psychophysiological data
- 2021
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Ingår i: Psychology of Language and Communication. - : University of Warsaw. - 1234-2238 .- 2083-8506. ; 25:1, s. 240-263
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many individuals with autism report that eye contact makes them stressed or uncomfortable. Besides expressing their right to respect for neurodiverse ways of nonverbal communication, some autistic individuals also express the wish to improve their capacity to tolerate eye contact. In the current study, five autistic adults completed a 21-to 28-day computerized program that combines psychoeducation with graduated exposure to eye contact through photos. Interview data, questionnaires, gaze patterns, and psychophysiological measures indexing stress and arousal (pupillary and galvanic skin response levels) were collected to monitor and evaluate outcomes. At intake, discomfort resulting from eye contact in everyday life was described as overwhelming and multifaceted. Post-training data showed that observed increases in eye contact were not happening at the expense of heightened arousal. These results provide information about the (complex) nature of eye gaze discomfort in autism while pointing toward promising techniques to increase discomfort tolerance. © 2021 Lisa Andreén et al., published by Sciendo.
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3. |
- Ashina, M., et al.
(författare)
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Migraine: disease characterisation, biomarkers, and precision medicine
- 2021
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Ingår i: The Lancet. - : Elsevier BV. - 0140-6736. ; 397:10283, s. 1496-1504
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Migraine is a disabling neurological disorder, diagnosis of which is based on clinical criteria. A shortcoming of these criteria is that they do not fully capture the heterogeneity of migraine, including the underlying genetic and neurobiological factors. This complexity has generated momentum for biomarker research to improve disease characterisation and identify novel drug targets. In this Series paper, we present the progress that has been made in the search for biomarkers of migraine within genetics, provocation modelling, biochemistry, and neuroimaging research. Additionally, we outline challenges and future directions for each biomarker modality. We also discuss the advances made in combining and integrating data from multiple biomarker modalities. These efforts contribute to developing precision medicine that can be applied to future patients with migraine.
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4. |
- Bader, M., et al.
(författare)
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The concept of instability: A French perspective on the concept of ADHD
- 2014
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Ingår i: ADHD Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorders. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1866-6116 .- 1866-6647. ; 6:1, s. 11-17
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Historical references to the emergence of the current concept of ADHD typically cite descriptions from medical textbooks by Weikard (1775) and Crichton (An inquiry into the nature and origin of mental derangement: Comprehending a concise system of the physiology and pathology of the human mind and a history of the passion and their affects. Cardell Jr and Davies, Londres, 1798) on attention disorders, poems of Hoffman on hyperactive and impulsive behaviors (Der Struwwelpeter. Frankfurt am Main, Literarische Anstalt, 1843), as well as the work of Still (Lancet 1:1008-1012, 1077-1082, 1163-1168, 1902a, Lancet 159(4102):1008-1013, 1902b, Lancet 159(4103):1077-1082, 1902c, Lancet 159(4104):1163-1168, 1902d) on impulsive behaviors and defective moral regulation of behavior. The notion of "instability" developed by French physicians between 1887 and 1910 is rarely mentioned and often ignored. Writings from this period show that in France, the emergence of the concept of ADHD according to modern terminology comes from the notion of "mental instability" introduced in the 1890s under the leadership of Désiré-Magloire Bourneville at the Hospital Bicêtre in Paris, based on his observations of children and adolescents who had been labeled "abnormal" and placed in medical and educational institutions. In the early twentieth century, elaborating on the observations of Bourneville, Jean Phillipe and Georges Paul-Boncour showed the presence of a subgroup of "unstable" children who suffered from a disease entity in its own right within the population of "abnormal" schoolchildren (the terminology of the time). This new pathological entity included symptoms of hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention, corresponding to today's classic triad of ADHD symptoms. While noting the lack of behavioral inhibition, clinical descriptions of Bourneville, Philip and Paul-Boncour also considered the notion of "moral disorder" which at that time played an important role in psychopathology. This resulted in some degree of confusion between impulsive symptoms and major behavioral disturbances often associated with ADHD.
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5. |
- Bader, M., et al.
(författare)
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The Zappel-Philipp a historical example of ADHD Clinics
- 2018
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Ingår i: Adhd-Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorders. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1866-6116 .- 1866-6647. ; 10:2, s. 119-127
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In his book "Die Geschichte von dem Zappel-Philipp," the German psychiatrist Heinrich Hoffmann (1809-1894) offers a clinical vignette which raises the question of the description of a disobedient child or presenting hyperactivity symptoms. This article describes the historical context and the biographical aspects related to this interesting approach to describing a psychiatric syndrome to children and adults. It also underlines the importance of a global approach of ADHD that considers the familial environment and situational context of symptoms.
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6. |
- Brusaferri, Ludovica, et al.
(författare)
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Neuroimmune activation and increased brain aging in chronic pain patients after the COVID-19 pandemic onset
- 2024
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Ingår i: Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. - 0889-1591 .- 1090-2139. ; 116, s. 259-266
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The COVID-19 pandemic has exerted a global impact on both physical and mental health, and clinical populations have been disproportionally affected. To date, however, the mechanisms underlying the deleterious effects of the pandemic on pre-existing clinical conditions remain unclear. Here we investigated whether the onset of the pandemic was associated with an increase in brain/blood levels of inflammatory markers and MRI-estimated brain age in patients with chronic low back pain (cLBP), irrespective of their infection history. A retrospective cohort study was conducted on 56 adult participants with cLBP (28 ‘Pre-Pandemic’, 28 ‘Pandemic’) using integrated Positron Emission Tomography/ Magnetic Resonance Imaging (PET/MRI) and the radioligand [11C]PBR28, which binds to the neuroinflammatory marker 18 kDa Translocator Protein (TSPO). Image data were collected between November 2017 and January 2020 (‘Pre-Pandemic’ cLBP) or between August 2020 and May 2022 (‘Pandemic’ cLBP). Compared to the Pre-Pandemic group, the Pandemic patients demonstrated widespread and statistically significant elevations in brain TSPO levels (P =.05, cluster corrected). PET signal elevations in the Pandemic group were also observed when 1) excluding 3 Pandemic subjects with a known history of COVID infection, or 2) using secondary outcome measures (volume of distribution -VT- and VT ratio - DVR) in a smaller subset of participants. Pandemic subjects also exhibited elevated serum levels of inflammatory markers (IL-16; P <.05) and estimated BA (P <.0001), which were positively correlated with [11C]PBR28 SUVR (r's ≥ 0.35; P's < 0.05). The pain interference scores, which were elevated in the Pandemic group (P <.05), were negatively correlated with [11C]PBR28 SUVR in the amygdala (r = −0.46; P<.05). This work suggests that the pandemic outbreak may have been accompanied by neuroinflammation and increased brain age in cLBP patients, as measured by multimodal imaging and serum testing. This study underscores the broad impact of the pandemic on human health, which extends beyond the morbidity solely mediated by the virus itself.
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7. |
- Brusaferri, L., et al.
(författare)
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The pandemic brain: Neuroinflammation in non-infected individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic
- 2022
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Ingår i: Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. - : Elsevier BV. - 0889-1591. ; 102, s. 89-97
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While COVID-19 research has seen an explosion in the literature, the impact of pandemic-related societal and lifestyle disruptions on brain health among the uninfected remains underexplored. However, a global increase in the prevalence of fatigue, brain fog, depression and other “sickness behavior”-like symptoms implicates a possible dysregulation in neuroimmune mechanisms even among those never infected by the virus. We compared fifty-seven ‘Pre-Pandemic’ and fifteen ‘Pandemic’ datasets from individuals originally enrolled as control subjects for various completed, or ongoing, research studies available in our records, with a confirmed negative test for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. We used a combination of multimodal molecular brain imaging (simultaneous positron emission tomography / magnetic resonance spectroscopy), behavioral measurements, imaging transcriptomics and serum testing to uncover links between pandemic-related stressors and neuroinflammation. Healthy individuals examined after the enforcement of 2020 lockdown/stay-at-home measures demonstrated elevated brain levels of two independent neuroinflammatory markers (the 18 kDa translocator protein, TSPO, and myoinositol) compared to pre-lockdown subjects. The serum levels of two inflammatory markers (interleukin-16 and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1) were also elevated, although these effects did not reach statistical significance after correcting for multiple comparisons. Subjects endorsing higher symptom burden showed higher TSPO signal in the hippocampus (mood alteration, mental fatigue), intraparietal sulcus and precuneus (physical fatigue), compared to those reporting little/no symptoms. Post-lockdown TSPO signal changes were spatially aligned with the constitutive expression of several genes involved in immune/neuroimmune functions. This work implicates neuroimmune activation as a possible mechanism underlying the non-virally-mediated symptoms experienced by many during the COVID-19 pandemic. Future studies will be needed to corroborate and further interpret these preliminary findings. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.
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8. |
- Caly, H., et al.
(författare)
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Machine learning analysis of pregnancy data enables early identification of a subpopulation of newborns with ASD
- 2021
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- To identify newborns at risk of developing ASD and to detect ASD biomarkers early after birth, we compared retrospectively ultrasound and biological measurements of babies diagnosed later with ASD or neurotypical (NT) that are collected routinely during pregnancy and birth. We used a supervised machine learning algorithm with a cross-validation technique to classify NT and ASD babies and performed various statistical tests. With a minimization of the false positive rate, 96% of NT and 41% of ASD babies were identified with a positive predictive value of 77%. We identified the following biomarkers related to ASD: sex, maternal familial history of auto-immune diseases, maternal immunization to CMV, IgG CMV level, timing of fetal rotation on head, femur length in the 3rd trimester, white blood cell count in the 3rd trimester, fetal heart rate during labor, newborn feeding and temperature difference between birth and one day after. Furthermore, statistical models revealed that a subpopulation of 38% of babies at risk of ASD had significantly larger fetal head circumference than age-matched NT ones, suggesting an in utero origin of the reported bigger brains of toddlers with ASD. Our results suggest that pregnancy follow-up measurements might provide an early prognosis of ASD enabling pre-symptomatic behavioral interventions to attenuate efficiently ASD developmental sequels.
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9. |
- Christensen, R. H., et al.
(författare)
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Imaging the inflammatory phenotype in migraine
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Headache and Pain. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1129-2369 .- 1129-2377. ; 23:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Several preclinical and clinical lines of evidence suggest a role of neuroinflammation in migraine. Neuroimaging offers the possibility to investigate and localize neuroinflammation in vivo in patients with migraine, and to characterize specific inflammatory constituents, such as vascular permeability, and macrophage or microglia activity. Despite all imaging data accumulated on neuroinflammation across the past three decades, an overview of the imaging evidence of neuroinflammation in migraine is still missing. We conducted a systematic review in the Pubmed and Embase databases to evaluate existing imaging data on inflammation in migraine, and to identify gaps in the literature. We included 20 studies investigating migraine without aura (N = 4), migraine with aura (N = 8), both migraine with and without aura (N = 3), or hemiplegic migraine (N = 5). In migraine without aura, macrophage activation was not evident. In migraine with aura, imaging evidence suggested microglial and parameningeal inflammatory activity. Increased vascular permeability was mostly found in hemiplegic migraine, and was atypical in migraine with and without aura. Based on the weight of existing and emerging data, we show that most studies have concentrated on demonstrating increased vascular permeability as a marker of neuroinflammation, with tools that may not have been optimal. In the future, novel, more sensitive techniques, as well as imaging tracers delineating specific inflammatory pathways may further bridge the gap between preclinical and clinical findings.
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10. |
- Dinkler, Lisa, et al.
(författare)
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Anorexia nervosa and autism: a prospective twin cohort study
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines. - : Wiley. - 0021-9630 .- 1469-7610. ; 62:3, s. 316-326
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- © 2020 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health. Background: Anorexia nervosa (AN) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be phenotypically and etiologically linked. However, due to the absence of prospective studies, it remains unclear whether the elevation of autistic traits in AN is evident in early childhood. Here, we prospectively investigated autistic traits before and after the first diagnosis of AN. Methods: In a population-based sample of 5,987 individuals (52.4% female) from the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden, parents reported autistic traits at ages 9 and 18. AN and ASD diagnoses were retrieved from the Swedish National Patient Register. In addition, AN diagnoses were ascertained by parent-reported treatment for AN. We compared whether individuals with and without AN differed in autistic traits before the first diagnosis of AN (age 9) and after the first diagnosis of AN (age 18). Results: We did not find evidence for elevated autistic traits in 9-year-old children later diagnosed with AN. At age 18, however, there was a marked elevation in restricted/repetitive behavior and interests, but only in the subgroup of individuals with acute AN. A less pronounced elevation was observed for social communication problems. Conclusions: Coping strategies in individuals with ASD and the somewhat different female ASD phenotype may explain why we did not find elevated autistic traits in children who later developed AN. Alternatively, it is possible that elevated autistic traits were not present prior to the onset of AN, thus questioning the previously reported elevated prevalence of ASD in AN. Future studies should use tailored measurements in order to investigate whether autistic traits in individuals with AN are best conceptualized as an epiphenomenon of the acute AN phase or whether these symptoms indeed represent ASD as a clinically verifiable neurodevelopmental disorder.
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11. |
- Dinkler, Lisa, et al.
(författare)
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Association of etiological factors across the extreme end and continuous variation in disordered eating in female Swedish twins
- 2021
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Ingår i: Psychological Medicine. - 0033-2917 .- 1469-8978. ; 51:5, s. 750-760
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BackgroundAccumulating evidence suggests that many psychiatric disorders etiologically represent the extreme end of dimensionally distributed features rather than distinct entities. The extent to which this applies to eating disorders (EDs) is unknown.MethodsWe investigated if there is similar etiology in (a) the continuous distribution of the Eating Disorder Inventory-2 (EDI-2), (b) the extremes of EDI-2 score, and (c) registered ED diagnoses, in 1481 female twin pairs at age 18 years (born 1992-1999). EDI-2 scores were self-reported at age 18. ED diagnoses were identified through the Swedish National Patient Register, parent-reported treatment and/or self-reported purging behavior of a frequency and duration consistent with DSM-IV criteria. We differentiated between anorexia nervosa (AN) and other EDs.ResultsThe heritability of the EDI-2 score was 0.65 (95% CI 0.61-0.68). The group heritabilities in DeFries-Fulker extremes analyses were consistent over different percentile-based extreme groups [0.59 (95% CI 0.37-0.81) to 0.65 (95% CI 0.55-0.75)]. Similarly, the heritabilities in liability threshold models were consistent over different levels of severity. In joint categorical-continuous models, the twin-based genetic correlation was 0.52 (95% CI 0.39-0.65) between EDI-2 score and diagnoses of other EDs, and 0.26 (95% CI 0.08-0.42) between EDI-2 score and diagnoses of AN. The non-shared environmental correlations were 0.52 (95% CI 0.32-0.70) and 0.60 (95% CI 0.38-0.79), respectively.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that some EDs can partly be conceptualized as the extreme manifestation of continuously distributed ED features. AN, however, might be more distinctly genetically demarcated from ED features in the general population than other EDs.
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12. |
- Dinkler, Lisa, et al.
(författare)
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Development of a parent-reported screening tool for avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID): Initial validation and prevalence in 4-7-year-old Japanese children
- 2022
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Ingår i: Appetite. - : Elsevier BV. - 0195-6663. ; 168
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The prevalence of avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) in the general child population is still largely unknown and validated screening instruments are lacking. The aims of this study were (1) to investigate the prevalence of children screening positive for ARFID in a Japanese birth cohort using a newly developed parent-reported screening tool, (2) to estimate the prevalence of children with ARFID experiencing physical versus psychosocial consequences of their eating pattern, and (3) to provide preliminary evidence for the validity of the new screening tool. Data were collected from 3728 4-7-year-old children born between 2011 and 2014 in Kochi prefecture, Japan (response rate was 56.5%); a sub-sample of the Japan Environment and Children's Study (JECS). Parents completed a questionnaire including the ARFID screener and several other measures to assess convergent validity. The point prevalence of children screening positive for ARFID was 1.3%; half of them met criteria for ARFID based on psychosocial impairment alone, while the other half met diagnostic criteria relating to physical impairment (and additional psychosocial impairment in many cases). Sensory sensitivity to food characteristics (63%) and/or lack of interest in eating (51%) were the most prevalent drivers of food avoidance. Children screening positive for ARFID were lighter in weight and shorter in height, they showed more problem behaviors related to mealtimes and nutritional intake, and they were more often selective eaters and more responsive to satiety, which together provides preliminary support for the validity of the new screening tool. This is the largest screening study to date of ARFID in children up to 7 years. Future studies should examine the diagnostic validity of the new ARFID screener using clinically ascertained cases. Further research on ARFID prevalence in the general population is needed.
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13. |
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14. |
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15. |
- Dinkler, Lisa, et al.
(författare)
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Visual scanning during emotion recognition in long-term recovered anorexia nervosa : An eye-tracking study
- 2019
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Ingår i: International Journal of Eating Disorders. - : Wiley. - 0276-3478 .- 1098-108X. ; 52:6, s. 691-700
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objective: To examine Facial Emotion Recognition (FER) and visual scanning behavior (eye-tracking) during FER in women long-term recovered from teenage-onset anorexia nervosa (recAN) with and without autism spectrum disorder (±ASD) and age-matched comparison women (COMP), using a sensitive design with facial emotion expressions at varying intensities in order to approximate real social contexts. Method: Fifty-seven 38–47-year-old women (26 recAN of whom six with ASD, 31 COMP) participated in the study. They completed a non-verbal FER task, consisting of matching basic emotions at different levels of expression intensity with full emotional expressions. Accuracy, response time and visual scanning behavior were measured. Results: There were no differences between recAN-ASD and COMP in FER accuracy and visual scanning behavior during FER, including eye viewing and hyperscanning. In an exploratory analysis, recAN+ASD were more accurate than recAN-ASD in identifying expressions at low intensity, but not at medium or high expression intensity. Accuracy was not associated with the extent of attention to the eye region. Discussion: Our data indicate that women long-term recovered from adolescent-onset AN do not have deficits in basic FER ability and visual scanning behavior during FER. However, the presence of comorbid ASD might affect face processing in recovered AN. Future studies investigating basic FER in acute and recovered AN and other conditions need to ensure that the stimuli used are sensitive enough to detect potential deficits.
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16. |
- Fernell, Elisabeth, 1948, et al.
(författare)
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Screening, Intervention and Outcome in Autism and Other Developmental Disorders: The Role of Randomized Controlled Trials.
- 2014
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Ingår i: Journal of autism and developmental disorders. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1573-3432 .- 0162-3257. ; 44:8, s. 2074-2076
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We draw attention to a number of important considerations in the arguments about screening and outcome of intervention in children with autism and other developmental disorders. Autism screening in itself never provides a final clinical diagnosis, but may well identify developmental deviations indicative of autism-or of other developmental disorders-that should lead to referral for further clinical assessment. Decisions regarding population or clinic screening cannot be allowed to be based on the fact that prospective longitudinal RCT designs over decades could never be performed in complex developmental disorders. We propose an alternative approach. Early screening for autism and other developmental disorders is likely to be of high societal importance and should be promoted and rigorously evaluated.
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17. |
- Fischi-Gomez, E., et al.
(författare)
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Ultrahigh field in vivo characterization of microstructural abnormalities in the orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala in autism
- 2021
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Ingår i: European Journal of Neuroscience. - : Wiley. - 0953-816X .- 1460-9568. ; 54:6, s. 6229-6236
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There are currently no biomarkers for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This neurodevelopmental condition has previously been associated with histopathological findings, including increased neuronal packing density in the amygdala, abnormal laminar cytoarchitecture and increased average neuronal density in the prefrontal cortex. The present study examined whether new brain imaging technologies could reveal in vivo, in adults with ASD, the manifestation of previously described histopathological changes. Using quantitative mapping at ultrahigh field (7 Tesla), we show that we can observe microstructural alterations in the right lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the bilateral amygdala in adult individuals with ASD in vivo. These imaging alterations point to an abnormal laminar cytoarchitecture and to an increased neuronal density, similar to what has been previously described in post-mortem data in ASD. Our data demonstrate that it is possible to visualize, in vivo and at the individual level, alterations of cortical and subcortical microstructure in ASD. Future studies will be needed to extend these findings to a larger group of individuals and evaluate their association with symptomatology as well as their specificity among the different neurodevelopmental disorders.
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18. |
- Frost, Morgan, et al.
(författare)
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Social scene perception in autism spectrum disorder: An eye-tracking and pupillometric study
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1380-3395 .- 1744-411X. ; 41:10, s. 1024-1032
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Typically, developing humans innately place subjective value on social information and orient attention to it. This can be shown through tracking of gaze patterns and pupil size, the latter of which taps into an individual's cognitive engagement and affective arousal. People with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) present with atypical social, communicative and behavioral patterns, but underlying substrates of these behavioral differences remain unclear. Moreover, due to high comorbidity with other neurodevelopmental disorders, it is often difficult to distinguish which differences are distinctive to ASD. In this study, a group of 35 adolescents and young adults with neurodevelopmental disorders were tested to investigate the processing of social and non-social scenes in individuals who meet the diagnostic criteria for autism and those who do not. Eye tracking and pupillometry measures were collected while participants observed images of tightly controlled natural scenes with or without a human being. Contrary to individuals without autism diagnosis, participants with autism did not show greater pupillary response to images with a human. Participants with autism were slower to fixate on social elements in the social scenes, and this latency metric correlated with clinical measures of poor social functioning. The results confirm the clinical relevance of eye-tracking and pupillometric indices in the field of ASD. We discuss the clinical implications of the results and propose that analysis of changes in visual attention and physiological level to social stimuli might be an integral part of a neurodevelopmental assessment.
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19. |
- Galazka, Martyna A, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Facial speech processing in children with and without dyslexia
- 2021
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Ingår i: Annals of Dyslexia. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0736-9387 .- 1934-7243. ; 71, s. 501-524
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- What role does the presence of facial speech play for children with dyslexia? Current literature proposes two distinctive claims. One claim states that children with dyslexia make less use of visual information from the mouth during speech processing due to a deficit in recruitment of audiovisual areas. An opposing claim suggests that children with dyslexia are in fact reliant on such information in order to compensate for auditory/phonological impairments. The current paper aims at directly testing these contrasting hypotheses (here referred to as "mouth insensitivity" versus "mouth reliance") in school-age children with and without dyslexia, matched on age and listening comprehension. Using eye tracking, in Study 1, we examined how children look at the mouth across conditions varying in speech processing demands. The results did not indicate significant group differences in looking at the mouth. However, correlation analyses suggest potentially important distinctions within the dyslexia group: those children with dyslexia who are better readers attended more to the mouth while presented with a person's face in a phonologically demanding condition. In Study 2, we examined whether the presence of facial speech cues is functionally beneficial when a child is encoding written words. The results indicated lack of overall group differences on the task, although those with less severe reading problems in the dyslexia group were more accurate when reading words that were presented with articulatory facial speech cues. Collectively, our results suggest that children with dyslexia differ in their "mouth reliance" versus "mouth insensitivity," a profile that seems to be related to the severity of their reading problems.
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20. |
- Galazka, Martyna A, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Pupil contagion variation with gaze, arousal, and autistic traits
- 2024
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - 2045-2322. ; 14
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Pupillary contagion occurs when one’s pupil size unconsciously adapts to the pupil size of an observed individual and is presumed to reflect the transfer of arousal. Importantly, when estimating pupil contagion, low level stimuli properties need to be controlled for, to ensure that observations of pupillary changes are due to internal change in arousal rather than the external differences between stimuli. Here, naturalistic images of children’s faces depicting either small or large pupils were presented to a group of children and adolescents with a wide range of autistic traits, a third of whom had been diagnosed with autism. We examined the extent to which pupillary contagion reflects autonomic nervous system reaction through pupil size change, heart rate and skin conductance response. Our second aim was to determine the association between arousal reaction to stimuli and degree of autistic traits. Results show that pupil contagion and concomitant heart rate change, but not skin conductance change, was evident when gaze was restricted to the eye region of face stimuli. A positive association was also observed between pupillary contagion and autistic traits when participants’ gaze was constrained to the eye region. Findings add to a broader understanding of the mechanisms underlying pupillary contagion and its association with autism.
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21. |
- Galazka, Martyna A, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Pupillary Contagion in Autism.
- 2019
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Ingår i: Psychological science. - : SAGE Publications. - 1467-9280 .- 0956-7976. ; 30:2, s. 309-315
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Pupillary contagion is an involuntary change in the observer's pupil size in response to the pupil size of another person. This effect, presumed to be an important adaption for individuals living in groups, has been documented in both typical infants and adults. Here, for the first time, we report pupillary contagion in individuals with autism, a disorder of social communication. We found that, compared with a typical group ( n = 63), individuals with autism ( n = 54) exhibited comparable pupillary contagion when observing pictures of emotional faces, despite less spontaneous attention toward the eye region. Furthermore, the magnitude of the pupillary response in the autism group was negatively correlated with time spent fixating the eye region. The results suggest that even with less looking toward the eyes, individuals with autism respond to the affective and arousal levels transmitted from other individuals. These results are discussed in the context of an overarousal account of socioaffective-processing differences in autism.
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22. |
- Galazka, Martyna A, et al.
(författare)
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Self-reported eye contact sensitivity and face processing in chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology. - 1380-3395 .- 1744-411X. ; 45:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22qDS) has been associated with varying levels of social impairments, and with atypical visual scanning of faces. The present study explored whether self-reported sensitivity to eye contact might be related to these phenomena. Method: Individuals with confirmed 22qDS were interviewed about their experience and possible discomfort with eye contact. In cases where individuals expresesed discomfort, they were subsequently asked about coping mechanisms used to deal with this discomfort. In addition to self-reported eye contact discomfort, gaze to emotional faces was examined using eye tracking. Results: In the subgroup of individuals who reported discomfort during eye contact, eye tracking results revealed a lower amount of gaze in the eyes of neutral faces, as well as the absence of the typical left visual field (LVF) bias, indicative of alterations in hemispheric lateralization. This subgroup also scored lower on a measure of everyday functioning. Conclusions: Our results show that, by simply asking individuals with this social and communicative disorder about eye gaze discomfort, we may better understand the specific challenges that they experience. Moreover, information gained from such first-person reports together with eye-tracking measures further informs about the integrity of their face processing system, as well as about the nature and degree of impairment in this population.
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23. |
- Garcia, R. G., et al.
(författare)
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Modulation of brainstem activity and connectivity by respiratory-gated auricular vagal afferent nerve stimulation in migraine patients
- 2017
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Ingår i: Pain. - : Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health). - 0304-3959 .- 1872-6623. ; 158:8, s. 1461-1472
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Migraine pathophysiology includes altered brainstem excitability, and recent neuromodulatory approaches aimed at controlling migraine episodes have targeted key brainstem relay and modulatory nuclei. In this study, we evaluated the impact of respiratory-gated auricular vagal afferent nerve stimulation (RAVANS), a novel neuromodulatory intervention based on an existing transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation approach, in the modulation of brainstem activity and connectivity in migraine patients. We applied 3T-functional magnetic resonance imaging with improved in-plane spatial resolution (2.62x2.62 mm) in episodic migraine (interictal) and age- and sex-matched healthy controls to evaluate brain response to RAVANS (gated to either inhalation or exhalation) and sham stimulation. We further investigated RAVANS modulation of tactile trigeminal sensory afference response in the brainstem using air-puff stimulation directed to the forehead during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Compared with sham and inhalatory-gated RAVANS (iRAVANS), exhalatorygated RAVANS(eRAVANS) activated an ipsilateral pontomedullary region consistent with nucleus tractus solitarii (NTS). During eRAVANS, NTS connectivity was increased to anterior insula and anterior midcingulate cortex, compared with both sham and iRAVANS, in migraine patients. Increased connectivity was inversely correlated with relative time to the next migraine attack, suggesting clinical relevance to this change in connectivity. Poststimulation effects were also noted immediately after eRAVANS, as we found increased activation in putative pontine serotonergic (ie, nucleus raphe centralis) and noradrenergic (ie, locus coeruleus) nuclei in response to trigeminal sensory afference. Regulation of activity and connectivity of brainstem and cortical regions involved in serotonergic and noradrenergic regulation and pain modulation may constitute an underlying mechanism supporting beneficial clinical outcomes for eRAVANS applied for episodic migraine.
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24. |
- Gillberg, Christopher, 1950, et al.
(författare)
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The Neurobiology of Autism
- 2019
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Ingår i: Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders, 3rd Ed. Fred R. Volkmar (red.). - Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. - 9781108297769 ; , s. 129-157
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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25. |
- Guillon, Q., et al.
(författare)
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Both dog and human faces are explored abnormally by young children with autism spectrum disorders
- 2014
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Ingår i: Neuroreport. - : Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health). - 0959-4965. ; 25:15, s. 1237-1241
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- When looking at faces, typical individuals tend to have a right hemispheric bias manifested by a tendency to look first toward the left visual hemifield. Here, we tested for the presence of this bias in young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) for both human and dog faces. We show that children with ASD do not show a left visual hemifield (right hemispheric) bias for human faces. In addition, we show that this effect extends to faces of dogs, suggesting that the absence of bias is not specific to human faces, but applies to all faces with the first-order configuration, pointing to an anomaly at an early stage of visual analysis of faces. The lack of right hemispheric dominance for face processing may reflect a more general disorder of cerebral specialization of social functions in ASD.
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26. |
- Guillon, Q., et al.
(författare)
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Intact perception but abnormal orientation towards face-like objects in young children with ASD
- 2016
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is ample behavioral evidence of diminished orientation towards faces as well as the presence of face perception impairments in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but the underlying mechanisms of these deficits are still unclear. We used face-like object stimuli that have been shown to evoke pareidolia in typically developing (TD) individuals to test the effect of a global face-like configuration on orientation and perceptual processes in young children with ASD and age-matched TD controls. We show that TD children were more likely to look first towards upright face-like objects than children with ASD, showing that a global face-like configuration elicit a stronger orientation bias in TD children as compared to children with ASD. However, once they were looking at the stimuli, both groups spent more time exploring the upright face-like object, suggesting that they both perceived it as a face. Our results are in agreement with abnormal social orienting in ASD, possibly due to an abnormal tuning of the subcortical pathway, leading to poor orienting and attention towards faces. Our results also indicate that young children with ASD can perceive a generic face holistically, such as face-like objects, further demonstrating holistic processing of faces in ASD.
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27. |
- Guillon, Q., et al.
(författare)
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The importance of networking in Autism gaze analysis
- 2015
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Ingår i: PLoS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 10:10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Visual scanning of faces in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has been intensively studied using eye-tracking technology. However, most of studies have relied on the same analytic approach based on the quantification of fixation time, which may have failed to reveal some important features of the scanning strategies employed by individuals with ASD. In the present study, we examined the scanning of faces in a group of 20 preschoolers with ASD and their typically developing (TD) peers, using both classical fixation time approach and a new developed approach based on transition matrices and network analysis. We found between group differences in the eye region in terms of fixation time, with increased right eye fixation time for the ASD group and increased left eye fixation time for the TD group. Our complementary network approach revealed that the left eye might play the role of an anchor in the scanning strategies of TD children but not in that of children with ASD. In ASD, fixation time on the different facial parts was almost exclusively dependent on exploratory activity. Our study highlights the importance of developing innovative measures that bear the potential of revealing new properties of the scanning strategies employed by individuals with ASD. © 2015 Guillon et al.
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28. |
- Guillon, Q., et al.
(författare)
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Visual social attention in autism spectrum disorder: Insights from eye tracking studies
- 2014
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Ingår i: Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. - : Elsevier BV. - 0149-7634. ; 42, s. 279-297
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- We review different aspects of visual social attention in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) from infancy to adulthood in light of the eye-tracking literature. We first assess the assumption that individuals with ASD demonstrate a deficit in social orienting together with decreased attention to socially relevant stimuli such as faces compared to TD individuals. Results show that social orienting is actually not qualitatively impaired and that decreased attention to faces does not generalized across contexts. We also assess the assumption that individuals with ASD demonstrate excess mouth and diminished eye gaze compared to TD individuals. We find that this assumption receives little support across ages and discuss some factors that might have initially lead to this conjecture. We report that the assessment of the ability to follow the direction of another person's gaze needs to be further examined and that eye-tracking studies add to the evidence that individuals with ASD demonstrate difficulties in interpreting gaze cues. Finally, we highlight innovative data acquisition and analyses that are increasingly shedding light on the more subtle nature of the profound social difficulties experienced by individuals with ASD. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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29. |
- Hadjikhani, Nouchine, 1966, et al.
(författare)
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Bumetanide for autism: More eye contact, less amygdala activation
- 2018
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 8:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We recently showed that constraining eye contact leads to exaggerated increase of amygdala activation in autism. Here, in a proof of concept pilot study, we demonstrate that administration of bumetanide (a NKCC1 chloride importer antagonist that restores GABAergic inhibition) normalizes the level of amygdala activation during constrained eye contact with dynamic emotional face stimuli in autism. In addition, eye-tracking data reveal that bumetanide administration increases the time spent in spontaneous eye gaze during in a free-viewing mode of the same face stimuli. In keeping with clinical trials, our data support the Excitatory/Inhibitory dysfunction hypothesis in autism, and indicate that bumetanide may improve specific aspects of social processing in autism. Future double-blind placebo controlled studies with larger cohorts of participants will help clarify the mechanisms of bumetanide action in autism. © 2018 The Author(s).
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30. |
- Hadjikhani, Nouchine, 1966, et al.
(författare)
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Can you have a migraine aura without knowing it?
- 2021
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Ingår i: Current Opinion in Neurology. - : Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health). - 1350-7540 .- 1473-6551. ; 34:3, s. 350-355
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose of review This review covers several aspects our understanding of episodic manifestations and unusual symptoms that may be associated with migraine aura. Recent findings The episodic manifestation of migraine aura is typically visual in nature, although five other types are currently recognized: sensory, speech and/or language, motor, brainstem, and retinal. Other transitory perceptions or experiences such as emotional, olfactory, or auditory have been reported as possible migraine auras. As underlined by the much higher reported prevalence of aura manifestation in individuals with professional knowledge of its possible manifestations, it appears that a number of migraine auras may remain unnoticed, unreported, or misdiagnosed. Aura manifestations may be more common, complex, symptom-rich and variable than previously thought. Clinicians should proactively ask questions beyond those addressing visual symptoms when examining individuals with a potential diagnosis of migraine with aura.
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31. |
- Hadjikhani, Nouchine, 1966, et al.
(författare)
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Discrepancy between high non-verbal intelligence and low accuracy at reading emotional expressions in the eyes reflects the magnitude of social-emotional difficulties in autism
- 2023
-
Ingår i: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0940-1334 .- 1433-8491. ; 273:3, s. 755-759
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many so-called "high functioning" autistic individuals struggle with daily living skills, and have poorer than expected adult outcomes in employment, relationships, and quality of life. Significant discrepancies between non-verbal intelligence and emotional processing can be observed in autism, but the role of the magnitude of this gap in achieving potential psychosocial outcome is not known. Here, we show in a large group of participants (n = 107), that only among those with an autism diagnosis (n = 33), the gap between non-verbal intelligence (as measured by Raven's matrices) and the ability to perform the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test significantly predicts self-perceived emotional/social difficulties as assessed by the Empathy Quotient. Our results suggest that it is specifically the magnitude of the gap between (high) levels of abstract reasoning skills and poor proficiency in reading emotions expressed by the eyes that predicts self-perceived difficulties in emotional and social interactions among adults with autism. A better understanding of the underlying causes of the discrepancy between potential and actual psychosocial outcomes is the first step toward developing the most appropriate support for this vulnerable population, and our study offers some potentially important insights in this regard.
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32. |
- Hadjikhani, Nouchine, 1966, et al.
(författare)
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Emotional contagion for pain is intact in autism spectrum disorders.
- 2014
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Ingår i: Translational psychiatry. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2158-3188. ; 4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Perceiving others in pain generally leads to empathic concern, consisting of both emotional and cognitive processes. Empathy deficits have been considered as an element contributing to social difficulties in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and short video clips of facial expressions of people experiencing pain to examine the neural substrates underlying the spontaneous empathic response to pain in autism. Thirty-eight adolescents and adults of normal intelligence diagnosed with ASD and 35 matched controls participated in the study. In contrast to general assumptions, we found no significant differences in brain activation between ASD individuals and controls during the perception of pain experienced by others. Both groups showed similar levels of activation in areas associated with pain sharing, evidencing the presence of emotional empathy and emotional contagion in participants with autism as well as in controls. Differences between groups could be observed at a more liberal statistical threshold, and revealed increased activations in areas involved in cognitive reappraisal in ASD participants compared with controls. Scores of emotional empathy were positively correlated with brain activation in areas involved in embodiment of pain in ASD group only. Our findings show that simulation mechanisms involved in emotional empathy are preserved in high-functioning individuals with autism, and suggest that increased reappraisal may have a role in their apparent lack of caring behavior.
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33. |
- Hadjikhani, Nouchine, 1966, et al.
(författare)
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Look me in the eyes: constraining gaze in the eye-region provokes abnormally high subcortical activation in autism
- 2017
-
Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 7
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) seem to have difficulties looking others in the eyes, but the substrate for this behavior is not well understood. The subcortical pathway, which consists of superior colliculus, pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus, and amygdala, enables rapid and automatic face processing. A specific component of this pathway - i.e., the amygdala - has been shown to be abnormally activated in paradigms where individuals had to specifically attend to the eye-region; however, a direct examination of the effect of manipulating the gaze to the eye-regions on all the components of the subcortical system altogether has never been performed. The subcortical system is particularly important as it shapes the functional specialization of the face-processing cortex during development. Using functional MRI, we investigated the effect of constraining gaze in the eye-region during dynamic emotional face perception in groups of participants with ASD and typical controls. We computed differences in activation in the subcortical face processing system (superior colliculus, pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus and amygdala) for the same stimuli seen freely or with the gaze constrained in the eye-region. Our results show that when constrained to look in the eyes, individuals with ASD show abnormally high activation in the subcortical system, which may be at the basis of their eye avoidance in daily life.
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34. |
- Hadjikhani, Nouchine, 1966, et al.
(författare)
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Neuroimaging clues of migraine aura
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Headache and Pain. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1129-2369 .- 1129-2377. ; 20
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- While migraine headaches can be provoked, or predicted by the presence of an aura or premonitory symptoms, the prediction or elicitation of the aura itself is more problematic. Therefore, imaging studies directly examining the aura phenomenon are sparse. There are however interictal imaging studies that can shed light on the pathophysiology of the migraine with aura (MWA) cascade. Here, we review findings pointing to the involvement of cortical spreading depression (CSD) and neuroinflammation in MWA. Whether asymptomatic CSD also happens in some migraine without aura is still under debate. In addition, new evidence points to glial activation in MWA, indicating the involvement of astrocytes in the neuroinflammatory cascade that follows CSD, as well as dural macrophages, supporting the involvement of the trigeminovascular system in migraine pain.
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35. |
- Hadjikhani, Nouchine, 1966, et al.
(författare)
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Overwhelmed by the man in the moon? Pareidolic objects provoke increased amygdala activation in autism
- 2023
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Ingår i: Cortex. - 0010-9452. ; 164, s. 144-151
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- An interesting feature of the primate face detection system results in the perception of illusory faces in objects, or pareidolia. These illusory faces do not per se contain social information, such as eye-gaze or specific identities, yet they activate the cortical brain face -processing network, possibly via the subcortical route, including the amygdala. In autism spectrum disorder (ASD), aversion to eye-contact is commonly reported, and so are alter-ations in face processing more generally, yet the underlying reasons are not clear. Here we show that in autistic participants (N=37), but not in non-autistic controls (N=34), pareidolic objects increase amygdala activation bilaterally (right amygdala peak: X = 26, Y =-6, Z =-16; left amygdala peak X =-24, Y =-6, Z =-20). In addition, illusory faces engage the face-processing cortical network significantly more in ASD than in controls. An early imbalance in the excitatory and inhibitory systems in autism, affecting typical brain maturation, may be at the basis of an overresponsive reaction to face configuration and to eye contact. Our data add to the evidence of an oversensitive subcortical face processing system in ASD.
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36. |
- Hadjikhani, Nouchine, 1966, et al.
(författare)
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The effect of constraining eye-contact during dynamic emotional face perception-an fMRI study
- 2017
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Ingår i: Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1749-5016 .- 1749-5024. ; 12:7, s. 1197-1207
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Eye-contact modifies how we perceive emotions and modulates activity in the social brain network. Here, using fMRI, we demonstrate that adding a fixation cross in the eye region of dynamic facial emotional stimuli significantly increases activation in the social brain of healthy, neurotypical participants when compared with activation for the exact same stimuli observed in a free-viewing mode. In addition, using PPI analysis, we show that the degree of amygdala connectivity with the rest of the brain is enhanced for the constrained view for all emotions tested except for fear, and that anxiety and alexithymia modulate the strength of amygdala connectivity for each emotion differently. Finally, we show that autistic traits have opposite effects on amygdala connectivity for fearful and angry emotional expressions, suggesting that these emotions should be treated separately in studies investigating facial emotion processing.
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37. |
- Hadjikhani, Nouchine, 1966, et al.
(författare)
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Visual perception in migraine: A narrative review
- 2021
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Ingår i: Vision (Switzerland). - : MDPI AG. - 2411-5150. ; 5:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Migraine, the most frequent neurological ailment, affects visual processing during and between attacks. Most visual disturbances associated with migraine can be explained by increased neural hyperexcitability, as suggested by clinical, physiological and neuroimaging evidence. Here, we review how simple (e.g., patterns, color) visual functions can be affected in patients with migraine, describe the different complex manifestations of the so-called Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, and discuss how visual stimuli can trigger migraine attacks. We also reinforce the importance of a thorough, proactive examination of visual function in people with migraine. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
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38. |
- Kerem, L., et al.
(författare)
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Oxytocin reduces the functional connectivity between brain regions involved in eating behavior in men with overweight and obesity
- 2020
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Ingår i: International Journal of Obesity. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0307-0565 .- 1476-5497. ; 44, s. 980-989
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Oxytocin (OXT), shown to decrease food intake in animal models and men, is a promising novel treatment for obesity. We have shown that in men with overweight and obesity, intranasal (IN) OXT reduced the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) blood oxygenation level-dependent signal in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), the origin of the mesolimbic dopaminergic reward system, in response to high-calorie food vs. nonfood images. Here, we employed functional connectivity fMRI analysis, which measures the synchrony in activation between neural systems in a context-dependent manner. We hypothesized that OXT would attenuate the functional connectivity of the VTA with key food motivation brain areas only when participants viewed high-calorie food stimuli. Methods: This randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled crossover study of 24 IU IN OXT included ten men with overweight or obesity (mean ± SEM BMI: 28.9 ± 0.8 kg/m2). Following drug administration, subjects completed an fMRI food motivation paradigm including images of high and low-calorie foods, nonfood objects, and fixation stimuli. A psychophysiological interaction analysis was performed with the VTA as seed region. Results: Following OXT administration, compared with placebo, participants exhibited significantly attenuated functional connectivity between the VTA and the insula, oral somatosensory cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, operculum, and middle temporal gyrus in response to viewing high-calorie foods (Z ≥ 3.1, cluster-corrected, p < 0.05). There was no difference in functional connectivity between VTA and these brain areas when comparing OXT and placebo for low-calorie food, nonfood, and fixation images. Conclusion: In men with overweight and obesity, OXT attenuates the functional connectivity between the VTA and food motivation brain regions in response to high-calorie visual food images. These findings could partially explain the observed anorexigenic effect of OXT, providing insight into the mechanism through which OXT ameliorates food cue-induced reward anticipation in patients with obesity. Additional studies are ongoing to further delineate the anorexigenic effect of OXT in obesity. © 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
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39. |
- Lassalle, A., et al.
(författare)
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Effect of visual stimuli of pain on empathy brain network in people with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder
- 2018
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Ingår i: European Journal of Neuroscience. - : Wiley. - 0953-816X .- 1460-9568. ; 48:6, s. 2333-2342
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The extent to which affective empathy is impaired in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) remains unclear, as some-but not all-previous neuroimaging studies investigating empathy for pain in ASD have shown similar activation levels to those of neurotypicals individuals. These inconsistent results could be due to the use of different empathy-eliciting stimuli. While some studies used pictures of faces exhibiting a painful expression, others used pictures of limbs in painful situations. In this study, we used fMRI to compare activation in areas associated with empathy processing (empathy network) for these two types of stimuli in 31 participants (16 with ASD, 15 controls). We found a group difference in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the thalamus when participants viewed stimuli of limbs in painful situations, but not when they viewed face stimuli with a painful expression. Both groups of participants activated their empathy network more when viewing pictures of limbs in painful situations than when viewing pictures of faces with a painful expression; this increased activation for limbs versus faces was significantly enhanced in controls relative to ASD participants, especially in the secondary somatosensory cortex (SII). Our findings suggest that empathy defect of people with ASD is contingent upon the type of stimuli used, and may be related to the level of Mirror Neuron System involvement, as brain regions showing group differences (IFG, SII) underlie embodiment. We discuss the potential clinical implications of our findings in terms of developing interventions boosting the empathetic abilities of people with ASD.
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40. |
- Lassalle, Amandine, et al.
(författare)
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Hypersensitivity to low intensity fearful faces in autism when fixation is constrained to the eyes.
- 2017
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Ingår i: Human brain mapping. - : Wiley. - 1097-0193 .- 1065-9471. ; 38:2, s. 5943-57
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Previous studies that showed decreased brain activation in people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) viewing expressive faces did not control that participants looked in the eyes. This is problematic because ASD is characterized by abnormal attention to the eyes. Here, we collected fMRI data from 48 participants (27 ASD) viewing pictures of neutral faces and faces expressing anger, happiness, and fear at low and high intensity, with a fixation cross between the eyes. Group differences in whole brain activity were examined for expressive faces at high and low intensity versus neutral faces. Group differences in neural activity were also investigated in regions of interest within the social brain, including the amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). In response to low intensity fearful faces, ASD participants showed increased activation in the social brain regions, and decreased functional coupling between the amygdala and the vmPFC. This oversensitivity to low intensity fear coupled with a lack of emotional regulation capacity could indicate an excitatory/inhibitory imbalance in their socio-affective processing system. This may result in social disengagement and avoidance of eye-contact to handle feelings of strong emotional reaction. Our results also demonstrate the importance of careful control of gaze when investigating emotional processing in ASD. Hum Brain Mapp, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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41. |
- Lassalle, Amandine, et al.
(författare)
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Influence of anxiety and alexithymia on brain activations associated with the perception of others' pain in autism.
- 2019
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Ingår i: Social neuroscience. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1747-0927 .- 1747-0919. ; 14:3, s. 359-377
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The circumstances under which empathy is altered in ASD remain unclear, as previous studies did not systematically find differences in brain activation between ASD and controls in empathy-eliciting paradigms, and did not always monitor whether differences were primarily due to ASD "per se", or to conditions overlapping with ASD, such as alexithymia and anxiety. Here, we collected fMRI data from 47 participants (22 ASD) viewing pictures depicting hands and feet of unknown others in painful, disgusting, or neutral situations. We computed brain activity for painful and disgusting stimuli (vs. neutral) in whole brain and in regions of interest among the brain areas typically activated during the perception of nociceptive stimuli. Group differences in brain activation disappeared when either alexithymia or anxiety - both elevated in the ASD group - were controlled for. Regression analyses indicated that the influence of symptoms was mainly shared between autistic symptomatology, alexithymia and anxiety or driven by unique contributions from alexithymia or anxiety. Our results suggest that affective empathy may be affected in ASD, but that this association is complex. The respective contribution of alexithymia and anxiety to decreased affective empathy of people with ASD may be due to the association of those psychiatric conditions with reduced motor resonance/Theory of Mind.
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42. |
- Maillard, A M, et al.
(författare)
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The 16p11.2 locus modulates brain structures common to autism, schizophrenia and obesity.
- 2015
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Ingår i: Molecular psychiatry. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1476-5578 .- 1359-4184. ; 20:1, s. 140-7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Anatomical structures and mechanisms linking genes to neuropsychiatric disorders are not deciphered. Reciprocal copy number variants at the 16p11.2 BP4-BP5 locus offer a unique opportunity to study the intermediate phenotypes in carriers at high risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or schizophrenia (SZ). We investigated the variation in brain anatomy in 16p11.2 deletion and duplication carriers. Beyond gene dosage effects on global brain metrics, we show that the number of genomic copies negatively correlated to the gray matter volume and white matter tissue properties in cortico-subcortical regions implicated in reward, language and social cognition. Despite the near absence of ASD or SZ diagnoses in our 16p11.2 cohort, the pattern of brain anatomy changes in carriers spatially overlaps with the well-established structural abnormalities in ASD and SZ. Using measures of peripheral mRNA levels, we confirm our genomic copy number findings. This combined molecular, neuroimaging and clinical approach, applied to larger datasets, will help interpret the relative contributions of genes to neuropsychiatric conditions by measuring their effect on local brain anatomy.
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43. |
- Martin-Brevet, S., et al.
(författare)
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Quantifying the Effects of 16p11.2 Copy Number Variants on Brain Structure: A Multisite Genetic-First Study
- 2018
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Ingår i: Biological Psychiatry. - : Elsevier BV. - 0006-3223. ; 84:4, s. 253-264
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: 16p11.2 breakpoint 4 to 5 copy number variants (CNVs) increase the risk for developing autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, and language and cognitive impairment. In this multisite study, we aimed to quantify the effect of 16p11.2 CNVs on brain structure. METHODS: Using voxel- and surface-based brain morphometric methods, we analyzed structural magnetic resonance imaging collected at seven sites from 78 individuals with a deletion, 71 individuals with a duplication, and 212 individuals without a CNV. RESULTS: Beyond the 16p11.2-related mirror effect on global brain morphometry, we observe regional mirror differences in the insula (deletion. control. duplication). Other regions are preferentially affected by either the deletion or the duplication: the calcarine cortex and transverse temporal gyrus (deletion > control > Cohen's d > -1), the superior and middle temporal gyri (deletion > control > Cohen's d, 21), and the caudate and hippocampus (control > duplication > -0.5 > Cohen's d > -1). Measures of cognition, language, and social responsiveness and the presence of psychiatric diagnoses do not influence these results. CONCLUSIONS: The global and regional effects on brain morphometry due to 16p11.2 CNVs generalize across site, computational method, age, and sex. Effect sizes on neuroimaging and cognitive traits are comparable. Findings partially overlap with results of meta-analyses performed across psychiatric disorders. However, the lack of correlation between morphometric and clinical measures suggests that CNV-associated brain changes contribute to clinical manifestations but require additional factors for the development of the disorder. These findings highlight the power of genetic risk factors as a complement to studying groups defined by behavioral criteria.
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44. |
- Masulli, P., et al.
(författare)
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Data-driven analysis of gaze patterns in face perception: Methodological and clinical contributions
- 2022
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Ingår i: Cortex. - : Elsevier BV. - 0010-9452. ; 147, s. 9-23
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Gaze patterns during face perception have been shown to relate to psychiatric symptoms. Standard analysis of gaze behavior includes calculating fixations within arbitrarily predetermined areas of interest. In contrast to this approach, we present an objective, data-driven method for the analysis of gaze patterns and their relation to diagnostic test scores. This method was applied to data acquired in an adult sample (N = 111) of psychiatry outpatients while they freely looked at images of human faces. Dimensional symptom scores of autism, attention deficit, and depression were collected. A linear regression model based on Principal Component Analysis coefficients computed for each participant was used to model symptom scores. We found that specific components of gaze patterns predicted autistic traits as well as depression symptoms. Gaze patterns shifted away from the eyes with increasing autism traits, a well-known effect. Additionally, the model revealed a lateralization component, with a reduction of the left visual field bias increasing with both autistic traits and depression symptoms independently. Taken together, our model provides a data-driven alternative for gaze data analysis, which can be applied to dimensionally-, rather than categorically-defined clinical subgroups within a variety of contexts. Methodological and clinical contribution of this approach are discussed. © 2021 The Author(s)
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45. |
- Meeren, H. K. M., et al.
(författare)
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Early Preferential Responses to Fear Stimuli in Human Right Dorsal Visual Stream - A Meg Study
- 2016
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Emotional expressions of others are salient biological stimuli that automatically capture attention and prepare us for action. We investigated the early cortical dynamics of automatic visual discrimination of fearful body expressions by monitoring cortical activity using magnetoencephalography. We show that right parietal cortex distinguishes between fearful and neutral bodies as early as 80-ms after stimulus onset, providing the first evidence for a fast emotion-attention-action link through human dorsal visual stream.
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46. |
- Muller, J., et al.
(författare)
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Choroid Plexus Volume in Multiple Sclerosis vs Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorder A Retrospective, Cross-sectional Analysis
- 2022
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Ingår i: Neurology-Neuroimmunology & Neuroinflammation. - : Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health). - 2332-7812. ; 9:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background and Objectives The choroid plexus has been shown to play a crucial role in CNS inflammation. Previous studies found larger choroid plexus in multiple sclerosis (MS) compared with healthy controls. However, it is not clear whether the choroid plexus is similarly involved in MS and in neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD). Thus, the aim of this study was to compare the choroid plexus volume in MS and NMOSD. Methods In this retrospective, cross-sectional study, patients were included by convenience sampling from 4 international MS centers. The choroid plexus of the lateral ventricles was segmented fully automatically on T1-weighted MRI sequences using a deep learning algorithm (Multi-Dimensional Gated Recurrent Units). Uni- and multivariable linear models were applied to investigate associations between the choroid plexus volume, clinically meaningful disease characteristics, and MRI parameters. Results We studied 180 patients with MS and 98 patients with NMOSD. In total, 94 healthy individuals and 47 patients with migraine served as controls. The choroid plexus volume was larger in MS (median 1,690 mu L, interquartile range [IQR] 648 mu L) than in NMOSD (median 1,403 mu L, IQR 510 mu L), healthy individuals (median 1,533 mu L, IQR 570 mu L), and patients with migraine (median 1,404 mu L, IQR 524 mu L; all p < 0.001), whereas there was no difference between NMOSD, migraine, and healthy controls. This was also true when adjusted for age, sex, and the intracranial volume. In contrast to NMOSD, the choroid plexus volume in MS was associated with the number of T2-weighted lesions in a linear model adjusted for age, sex, total intracranial volume, disease duration, relapses in the year before MRI, disease course, Expanded Disability Status Scale score, disease-modifying treatment, and treatment duration (beta 4.4; 95% CI 0.78-8.1; p = 0.018). Discussion This study supports an involvement of the choroid plexus in MS in contrast to NMOSD and provides clues to better understand the respective pathogenesis.
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47. |
- Orekhova, Elena V, 1967, et al.
(författare)
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Input-dependent modulation of MEG gamma oscillations reflects gain control in the visual cortex
- 2018
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Gamma-band oscillations arise from the interplay between neural excitation (E) and inhibition (I) and may provide a non-invasive window into the state of cortical circuitry. A bell-shaped modulation of gamma response power by increasing the intensity of sensory input was observed in animals and is thought to reflect neural gain control. Here we sought to find a similar input-output relationship in humans with MEG via modulating the intensity of a visual stimulation by changing the velocity/temporal-frequency of visual motion. In the first experiment, adult participants observed static and moving gratings. The frequency of the MEG gamma response monotonically increased with motion velocity whereas power followed a bell-shape. In the second experiment, on a large group of children and adults, we found that despite drastic developmental changes in frequency and power of gamma oscillations, the relative suppression at high motion velocities was scaled to the same range of values across the life-span. In light of animal and modeling studies, the modulation of gamma power and frequency at high stimulation intensities characterizes the capacity of inhibitory neurons to counterbalance increasing excitation in visual networks. Gamma suppression may thus provide a non-invasive measure of inhibitory-based gain control in the healthy and diseased brain.
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48. |
- Orekhova, Elena V, 1967, et al.
(författare)
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Neural gain control measured through cortical gamma oscillations is associated with sensory sensitivity
- 2019
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Ingår i: Human Brain Mapping. - : Wiley. - 1097-0193 .- 1065-9471. ; 40:5, s. 1583-1593
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Gamma oscillations facilitate information processing by shaping the excitatory input/output of neuronal populations. Recent studies in humans and nonhuman primates have shown that strong excitatory drive to the visual cortex leads to suppression of induced gamma oscillations, which may reflect inhibitory-based gain control of network excitation. The efficiency of the gain control measured through gamma oscillations may in turn affect sensory sensitivity in everyday life. To test this prediction, we assessed the link between self-reported sensitivity and changes in magneto-encephalographic gamma oscillations as a function of motion velocity of high-contrast visual gratings. The induced gamma oscillations increased in frequency and decreased in power with increasing stimulation intensity. As expected, weaker suppression of the gamma response correlated with sensory hypersensitivity. Robustness of this result was confirmed by its replication in the two samples: neurotypical subjects and people with autism, who had generally elevated sensory sensitivity. We conclude that intensity-related suppression of gamma response is a promising biomarker of homeostatic control of the excitation-inhibition balance in the visual cortex.
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49. |
- Sarovic, Darko, et al.
(författare)
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Autism classified by magnetic resonance imaging: A pilot study of a potential diagnostic tool
- 2020
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Ingår i: International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research. - : Wiley. - 1049-8931 .- 1557-0657. ; 29:4, s. 1-18
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objectives Individual anatomical biomarkers have limited power for the classification of autism. The present study introduces a multivariate classification approach using structural magnetic resonance imaging data from individuals with and without autism. Methods The classifier utilizesz-normalization, parameter weighting, and interindividual comparison on brain segmentation data, for estimation of an individual summed total index (TI). The TI indicates whether the gross morphological pattern of each individual's brain is in the direction of cases or controls. Results Morphometric analysis found significant differences within subcortical gray matter structures and limbic areas. There was no significant difference in total brain volume. A case-control pilot-study of TIs in normally intelligent individuals with autism (24) and without (21) yielded a maximal accuracy of 78.9% following cross-validation. It showed a high accuracy compared with machine learning methods when tested on the same dataset. The TI correlated well with the autism quotient (R= 0.51) across groups. Conclusion These results are on par with studies on autism using machine learning. The main contributions are its transparency and simplicity. The possibility of including additional neuroimaging data further increases the potential of the classifier as a diagnostic aid for neuropsychiatric disorders, as well as a research tool for neuroscientific investigations.
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50. |
- Sotoodeh, M. S., et al.
(författare)
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Preserved action recognition in children with autism spectrum disorders: Evidence from an EEG and eye-tracking study
- 2021
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Ingår i: Psychophysiology. - : Wiley. - 0048-5772 .- 1469-8986. ; 58:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have difficulties recognizing and understanding others' actions. The goal of the present study was to determine whether children with and without ASD show differences in the way they process stimuli depicting Biological Motion (BM). Thirty-two children aged 7-16 (16 ASD and 16 typically developing (TD) controls) participated in two experiments. In the first experiment, electroencephalography (EEG) was used to record low (8-10 Hz) and high (10-13 Hz) mu and beta (15-25 Hz) bands during the observation three different Point Light Displays (PLD) of action. In the second experiment, participants answered to action-recognition tests and their accuracy and response time were recorded, together with their eye-movements. There were no group differences in EEG data (first experiment), indicating that children with and without ASD do not differ in their mu suppression (8-13 Hz) and beta activity (15-25 Hz). However, behavioral data from second experiment revealed that children with ASD were less accurate and slower than TD children in their responses to an action recognition task. In addition, eye-tracking data indicated that children with ASD paid less attention to the body compared to the background when watching PLD stimuli. Our results indicate that the more the participants focused on the PLDs, the more they displayed mu suppressions. These results could challenge the results of previous studies that had not controlled for visual attention and found a possible deficit in MNS functions of individuals with ASD. We discuss possible mechanisms and interpretations.
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