Pubmed du 03/09/23
1. Biosca-Brull J, Basaure P, Guardia-Escote L, Cabré M, Blanco J, Morales-Navas M, Sánchez-Santed F, Colomina MT. Environmental exposure to chlorpyrifos during gestation, APOE polymorphism and the risk on autistic-like behaviors. Environmental research. 2023; 237(Pt 2): 116969.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) encompasses several neurodevelopmental conditions characterized by communication and social impairment, as well as repetitive patterns of behavior. However, it can co-occur with other mental conditions such as anxiety. The massive use of chlorpyrifos (CPF) has been linked to the increased prevalence of developmental disorders. Likewise, ASD has also been closely linked to a wide variety of genetic factors. The aims of the present investigation are to study how gestational CPF exposure and APOE polymorphism affects communication skills, early development and mid-term anxiety-like behaviors, as well as, changes in gene expression related to the cholinergic system. C57BL/6J and humanized apoE3 and apoE4 homozygous mice were exposed to 0 or 1 mg/kg/day of CPF through the diet, from gestational day (GD) 12-18. In addition, a group of C57BL/6J females were injected subcutaneously with 300 mg/kg/day of valproic acid (VPA) on GD 12 and 13. This group was used as a positive control for studying some core and associated autism-like behaviors. Communication skills by means of ultrasonic vocalizations and physical/motor development were assessed during the preweaning period, whereas locomotor activity, anxiety-like behaviors and the gene expression of cholinergic elements were evaluated during adolescence. Our results showed that C57BL/6J mice prenatally exposed to CPF or VPA showed a decrease in body weight and a delay in eye opening. Communication and anxiety behavior were affected differently depending on treatment, while gene expression was altered by sex and treatment. In addition, none of the parameters evaluated in apoE transgenic mice exposed to CPF were affected, but there were differences between genotypes. Therefore, we suggest that prenatal CPF exposure and VPA produce divergent effects on communication and anxiety.
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2. Cheng Y, Liu L, Gu X, Lu Z, Xia Y, Chen J, Tang L. Graph fusion prediction of autism based on attentional mechanisms. Journal of biomedical informatics. 2023; 146: 104484.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a pervasive developmental disorder, and the earlier detection and timely intervention for treatment positively affect the prognosis of patients. Deep learning algorithms based on graph structure have achieved good results in autism prediction in recent years. However, there are problems with standardized operations in extracting features and combining neighborhood node features with the structure of the graph dependent, which limits the generalization ability of the trained model to other graph structures. In this paper, we propose a graph fusion autism prediction model based on attentional mechanisms(AGF) to address the above problems. The AGF model represents the overall population (patients or healthy controls) as a sparse graph, where nodes are subjects, and non-imaging features are integrated as edge weights. Different weights can be defined for different nodes in the neighborhood through the attention mechanism without relying on prior knowledge of the graph structure. The model is also able to dynamically fuse multiple sparse graphs obtained from different non-imaging features by way of training weight assignment. Its performance is also compared with several other models (e.g., S-AGF, GCN, etc.), and the results show that it has superior prediction accuracy compared to the baseline model. The results show that this improvement of graph fusion works better on the ABIDE databases, and the classification accuracy can reach 73.9%. The datasets and source code are freely available at https://github.com/chengyu-github1012/Graph-Fusion.git. Strengths and limitations of this study: graph fusion; disease prediction; noise.
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3. Emborg C. Enduring the silence: High silence tolerance and other tools for promoting topic initiations of a man with autism. Clinical linguistics & phonetics. 2023: 1-23.
Persistent deficits in the ability to initiate social interaction is a core criterion for a diagnosis of autism, and quantitative research shows that children with autism initiate fewer bids for interaction than neurotypical children. This conversation-analytic examination of two interactions between a man with autism, Harry, and two familiar carers will provide insights into the scope of his competences in topic initiation. Analyses of the participants’ online management of turn-taking and sequence organisation demonstrate that Harry’s topic initiations can be facilitated by a high silence tolerance of the interlocutor in initiation-relevant sequential environments. Specifically, Harry initiates more topics, when his conversational partner endures the long silences after possible sequence closure. The analyses underline that Harry does not lack neither competences nor motivation to successfully execute initiations. Instead, it is proposed that Harry’s deficits in initiation should be reconceptualised as a difficulty of initiating interaction on neurotypical terms, where the standard maximum silence between turns is approximately one second. Hereby, the study emphasises that communicative competences of individuals with autism are interactionally managed, emerging in interaction with conversational partners.
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4. Jenabi E, Farashi S, Salehi AM, Parsapoor H. The association between post-term births and autism spectrum disorders: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis. European journal of medical research. 2023; 28(1): 316.
BACKGROUND: This study aimed to conduct a meta-analysis to determine whether post-term birth has an increased risk of ASD. MATERIALS AND METHODS: To retrieve eligible studies regarding the effect of post-term and ASD in children, major databases including PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched. A random effect model was used for meta-analysis. For assessing the quality of included studies, the GRADE checklist was used. RESULTS: In total, 18 records were included with 1,412,667 sample populations from 12 countries. The pooled estimates of RR and OR showed a significant association between post-term birth and ASD among children, respectively (RR = 1.34, 95% CI 1.10 to 1.58) and (OR = 1.47, 95% CI 1.03 to 1.91). There was no heterogeneity among the studies that reported the risk of ASD among children based on RR (I(2) = 6.6%, P = 0.301). There was high heterogeneity in the studies reported risk of ASD based on OR (I(2) = 94.1%, P = 0.000). CONCLUSION: Post-term births still occur relatively frequently (up to 5-10%) even in developed countries. Our results showed that post-term birth is an increased risk of ASD, although high heterogeneity was found among the studies reported based on adjusted and crude forms, however, after subgroup analysis by gender, this heterogeneity disappeared among males.
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5. Seker A, Qirko-Gurakuqi A, Tabaku M, Javate KRP, Rathwell I. Maternal atopic conditions and autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review. European child & adolescent psychiatry. 2023.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a disabling neurodevelopmental condition with complex etiology. Emerging evidence has pointed to maternal atopy as a possible risk factor. It is hypothesized that maternal atopic disease during pregnancy can lead to increased levels of inflammatory cytokines in fetal circulation via placental transfer or increased production. These cytokines can then pass through the immature blood-brain barrier, causing aberrant neurodevelopment via mechanisms including premature microglial activation. The objective of this study is to systematically review observational studies that investigate whether a maternal history of atopic disease (asthma, allergy, or eczema/atopic dermatitis) is associated with a diagnosis of ASD in offspring. A search was conducted in Ovid MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Embase databases for relevant articles up to November 2021; this was later updated in January 2022. Observational studies published in peer-reviewed journals were included. Data were synthesized and qualitatively analyzed according to the specific atopic condition. Quality assessment was done using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Nine articles were identified, with all including asthma as an exposure, alongside four each for allergy and eczema. Findings were inconsistent regarding the association between a maternal diagnosis of either asthma, allergy, or eczema, and ASD in offspring, with variations in methodology contributing to the inconclusiveness. More consistent associations were demonstrated regarding maternal asthma that was treated or diagnosed during pregnancy. Evidence suggests that symptomatic maternal asthma during pregnancy could be associated with ASD in offspring, underscoring the importance of effective management of atopic conditions during pregnancy. Further research is needed, particularly longitudinal studies that use gold-standard assessment tools and correlate clinical outcomes with laboratory and treatment data.PROSPERO Registration Number and Date: CRD42018116656, 26.11.2018.
