Pubmed du 16/09/21
1. Autism: considerations for transitions of care into adulthood: Erratum. Current opinion in pediatrics. 2021; 33(5): 543.
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2. Aguilar Ticona JP, Nery N, Jr., Doss-Gollin S, Gambrah C, Lessa M, Rastely-Júnior V, Matos A, de Paula Freitas B, Borja A, Wunder EA, Jr., Ballalai V, Vieira C, Cruz JS, de Oliveira D, Araujo DB, Oliveira DB, Nascimento Fabris Maeda DL, Mendes EA, Pereira Soares C, Durigon EL, de Souza Ferreira LC, Belfort R, AR PA, Oliveira-Filho J, Reis MG, Ko AI, Costa F. Heterogeneous development of children with Congenital Zika Syndrome-associated microcephaly. PloS one. 2021; 16(9): e0256444.
OBJECTIVE: To describe the neurological and neurodevelopmental outcomes of children with Congenital Zika Syndrome (CZS) associated microcephaly beyond 2 years of age. METHOD: We followed children with CZS-associated microcephaly in an outpatient clinic in Salvador, Brazil. Neurological and neurodevelopmental assessments were performed using the Hammersmith Infant Neurological Examination (HINE) and Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Neurodevelopment (Bayley-III) respectively. RESULTS: Of the 42 children included, 19 were male (45.2%); median (interquartile range) age at neurological evaluation was 28 (25-32) months, and 36 (85.7%) had severe microcephaly. HINE and Bayley-III results were completed for 35/42 (83.3%) and 33/42 (78.5%) children respectively. Bayley-III identified a severe developmental delay in 32/33 (97.0%) children while 1/33 (3.0%) had only a mild delay. In the multivariable analysis, we found that Bayley-III and HINE scores were correlated. Better HINE scores were associated with higher Bayley-III cognitive raw scores (β = 0.29; CI 95% = 0.02-0.57) and motor raw scores (β = 0.43; CI 95% = 0.04-0.82) after adjusting for head circumference, prematurity, and age at neurodevelopmental evaluation. Furthermore, we found that greater head circumference at follow up was associated with higher cognitive (β = 1.27; CI 95% = 0.01-2.53) and motor raw scores (β = 2.03; CI 95% = 0.25-3.81). CONCLUSION: Children with CZS-associated microcephaly demonstrate severe neurodevelopmental delays and slower growth rates than their peers over time. Still, they have remarkably heterogeneous neurodevelopmental profiles according to neurological exam scores which correlate with their long-term outcomes. We found that HINE scores effectively captured the heterogeneity of neurological capabilities among these children and could be predictive of cognitive and motor development progress.
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3. Al-Mamari W, Idris AB, Al-Zadjali AA, Jalees S, Murthi S, Al-Jabri M, Gabr A, Fombonne E. Parental Age and the Risk of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Oman: A case-control study. Sultan Qaboos University medical journal. 2021; 21(3): 465-71.
OBJECTIVES: This study aimed at evaluating advanced parental age as a risk factor for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in an Omani cohort. METHODS: This case-control study compared 278 ASD cases with 722 gender-matched controls, retrieved from the electronic records of the Developmental Paediatric Clinic, Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Muscat, Oman, between January 2015 and June 2016. RESULTS: Most ASD cases were male (76.6%) and mostly diagnosed between 3-4 years of age, with more than 50% of the cases originating from Muscat and Batinah governorates. Compared to controls, mothers from the case group had significantly higher educational levels (post-secondary education versus high school/no formal education: odds ratio [OR] = 1.62, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.197-2.192). In a multivariate logistic regression, the OR of maternal age as a risk for ASD increased dramatically with advancing age category (using age <25 as reference, OR = 3.39, 6.12, 7.86 and 13.13 for age categories 25-29, 30-34, 35-39 and ≥40 years, respectively). The ORs of advancing paternal age as a risk for ASD were also statistically significant (using age <30 as reference, OR = 2.20, 2.36 and 3.12 for age categories 30-34, 35-39 and 40-44 years, respectively); however, there was a drop in the effect with paternal age ≥45 years (OR = 1.42; 95% CI: 0.64-3.15). CONCLUSION: Both maternal and paternal increased age were associated with a higher risk of ASD; however, the association was more pronounced and more consistent with advanced maternal age compared to paternal age.
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4. Al-Mamari W, Idris AB, Gabr A, Jalees S, Al-Jabri M, Abdulrahim R, Al-Mujaini A, Islam MM, Al-Alawi M, Al-Adawi S. Intellectual Profile of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Identification of verbal and nonverbal subscales predicting intelligence quotient. Sultan Qaboos University medical journal. 2021; 21(3): 386-93.
OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to explore the intelligence quotient (IQ) profile among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and identify the most important subscales that predict the IQ. The analysis of an intellectual profile with age and gender differentials and the identification of a battery of subscales of intelligence are important for clinical management of ASD among children and for facilitating placement for remedial and educational services. METHODS: Data were collected through an exploratory study of 100 children aged between three and 13 years, who were referred to the department of child health and development in Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, a tertiary hospital, in Oman between June 2016 and June 2019. RESULTS: Among the 100 participants of this study, 79% were male, resulting in a male-female ratio of 4:1. The mean of full-scale IQ was found to be 68.6 ± 18.1. Furthermore, the mean of nonverbal IQ (73.5 ± 17.5) was significantly higher than that of verbal IQ (65.5 ± 17.6). Finally, more than half (61%) of the children were observed to have had mild to moderate impairment in their IQ levels. CONCLUSIONS: Age and gender showed no significant association with IQ level. The regression analysis identified nonverbal fluid reasoning, nonverbal visual-spatial processing, nonverbal working memory and verbal knowledge as the significant predictors of total IQ. The crucial dimensions of verbal and nonverbal IQ identified in this study can be used to evaluate complicated cases.
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5. Banker SM, Gu X, Schiller D, Foss-Feig JH. Hippocampal contributions to social and cognitive deficits in autism spectrum disorder. Trends in neurosciences. 2021; 44(10): 793-807.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by hallmark impairments in social functioning. Nevertheless, nonsocial cognition, including hippocampus-dependent spatial reasoning and episodic memory, is also commonly impaired in ASD. ASD symptoms typically emerge between 12 and 24 months of age, a time window associated with critical developmental events in the hippocampus. Despite this temporal overlap and evidence of hippocampal structural abnormalities in ASD individuals, relatively few human studies have focused on hippocampal function in ASD. Herein, we review the existing evidence for the involvement of the hippocampus in ASD and highlight the hippocampus as a promising area of interest for future research in ASD.
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6. Beaudoin MJ, Poirier N, Nader-Grosbois N. Relationships Between Mother-Child Conversations About Emotion and Socioemotional Development of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of autism and developmental disorders. 2021.
Mother-child emotion-related conversations, as a practice of parental socialization of emotion, can help children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) develop socio-emotional skills. This study intends to explore relationships between mother-child conversations about emotions and socio-emotional skills of children with ASD by accounting for the moderating role of children personality traits and mothers’ emotional openness. Mothers of children with ASD (n = 49) responded to five questionnaires describing their conversations about emotions, emotional openness as well as their child’s socio-emotional skills and personality. We conducted hierarchical regression and moderation analyses. Our findings indicate that frequent mother-child conversations about emotions significantly predict higher emotional regulation and Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities in children with ASD (p < 0.05). Moreover, children's consciousness and openness to experience, along with mothers' emotional openness significantly moderate the relation between mother-child conversations about emotions and children's ToM skills (p < 0.05). Mother-child conversations about emotions, as a practice of parental socialization of emotion, could be beneficial for children with ASD. Children's personality traits and mothers' openness to emotion may act as a protective factor of ToM skills in children with ASD.
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7. Bonnot O, Adrien V, Venelle V, Bonneau D, Gollier-Briant F, Mouchabac S. Mobile App for Parental Empowerment for Caregivers of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders: Prospective Open Trial. JMIR mental health. 2021; 8(9): e27803.
BACKGROUND: Conflicting data emerge from literature regarding the actual use of smartphone apps in medicine; some considered the introduction of smartphone apps in medicine to be a breakthrough, while others suggested that, in real-life, the use of smartphone apps in medicine is disappointingly low. Yet, digital tools become more present in medicine daily. To empower parents of a child with autism spectrum disorder, we developed the Smartautism smartphone app, which asks questions and provides feedback, using a screen with simple curves. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate usage of the app by caregivers of individuals with autism spectrum disorders. METHODS: We conducted a prospective longitudinal exploratory open study with families that have a child with autism spectrum disorder. Data were recorded over a period of 6 months, and the outcome criteria were (1) overall response rates for a feedback screen and qualitative questionnaires, and (2) response rates by degree of completion and by user interest, based on attrition. RESULTS: Participants (n=65) had a very high intent to use the app during the 6-month period (3698/3900 instances, 94.8%); however, secondary analysis showed that only 46% of participants (30/65) had constant response rates over 50%. Interestingly, these users were characterized by higher use and satisfaction with the feedback screen when compared to low (P<.001) and moderate (P=.007) users. CONCLUSIONS: We found that real or perceived utility is an important incentive for parents who use empowerment smartphone apps. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): RR2-10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012135.
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8. Du Y, Fu Z, Xing Y, Lin D, Pearlson G, Kochunov P, Hong LE, Qi S, Salman M, Abrol A, Calhoun VD. Evidence of shared and distinct functional and structural brain signatures in schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder. Communications biology. 2021; 4(1): 1073.
Schizophrenia (SZ) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) share considerable clinical features and intertwined historical roots. It is greatly needed to explore their similarities and differences in pathophysiologic mechanisms. We assembled a large sample size of neuroimaging data (about 600 SZ patients, 1000 ASD patients, and 1700 healthy controls) to study the shared and unique brain abnormality of the two illnesses. We analyzed multi-scale brain functional connectivity among functional networks and brain regions, intra-network connectivity, and cerebral gray matter density and volume. Both SZ and ASD showed lower functional integration within default mode and sensorimotor domains, but increased interaction between cognitive control and default mode domains. The shared abnormalties in intra-network connectivity involved default mode, sensorimotor, and cognitive control networks. Reduced gray matter volume and density in the occipital gyrus and cerebellum were observed in both illnesses. Interestingly, ASD had overall weaker changes than SZ in the shared abnormalities. Interaction between visual and cognitive regions showed disorder-unique deficits. In summary, we provide strong neuroimaging evidence of the convergent and divergent changes in SZ and ASD that correlated with clinical features.
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9. Gilmore DG, Longo A, Hand BN. The Association Between Obesity and Key Health or Psychosocial Outcomes Among Autistic Adults: A Systematic Review. Journal of autism and developmental disorders. 2021.
Obesity is linked with health and psychosocial outcomes among many populations. However, it is unclear the extent to which obesity is linked with these outcomes among autistic adults. We searched seven research databases for articles examining the association between obesity and autistic adults’ health and psychosocial outcomes. Three studies found that obesity was associated with health outcomes, including: in-hospital mortality, risk of type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and number of co-occurring medical conditions. One study found no significant association between autism diagnosis, mental health conditions, and body mass index. Obesity increases the risk of in-hospital mortality and some chronic conditions among autistic adults, highlighting the need for clinicians trained to promote weight management among autistic adults.
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10. Kushak RI, Sengupta A, Winter HS. Interactions between the intestinal microbiota and epigenome in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Developmental medicine and child neurology. 2022; 64(3): 296-304.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by variable impairment of cognitive function and interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, some individuals with ASD have gastrointestinal disorders that have been correlated with impairments in intestinal microbiota. Gut microbiota are important not only for intestinal health, but also for many other functions including food digestion, energy production, immune system regulation, and, according to current data, behavior. Disruption of the indigenous microbiota, microbial dysbiosis (imbalance between microorganisms present in the gut), overgrowth of potentially pathogenic microorganisms, a less diverse microbiome, or lower levels of beneficial bacteria in children with ASD can affect behavior. Metabolome analysis in children with ASD has identified perturbations in multiple metabolic pathways that might be associated with cognitive functions. Recent studies have shown that the intestinal microbiome provides environmental signals that can modify host response to stimuli by modifying the host epigenome, which affects DNA methylation, histone modification, and non-coding RNAs. The most studied microbiota-produced epigenetic modifiers are short-chain fatty acids, although other products of intestinal microbiota might also cause epigenetic modifications in the host’s DNA. Here we review evidence suggesting that epigenetic alterations caused by modification of gene expression play an important role in understanding ASD.
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11. Macenski CL, Kimball A, Gansner M, Levy M, Megargel E, McDougle CJ, Thom RP. Evaluation and Treatment of New-Onset Psychotic Symptoms in a Patient with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Multiple Autoimmune Disorders. Harvard review of psychiatry. 2021; 29(5): 378-87.
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12. Morgan EJ, Smith DT, Freeth M. Gaze cueing, mental States, and the effect of autistic traits. Attention, perception & psychophysics. 2021.
The ability to interpret and follow the gaze of our social partners is an integral skill in human communication. Recent research has demonstrated that gaze following behaviour is influenced by theory of mind (ToM) processes. However, it has yet to be determined whether the modulation of gaze cueing by ToM is affected by individual differences, such as autistic traits. The aim of this experiment was to establish whether autistic traits in neurotypical populations affect the mediation of gaze cueing by ToM processes. This study used a gaze cueing paradigm within a change detection task. Participants’ perception of a gaze cue was manipulated such that they only believed the cue to be able to ‘see’ in one condition. The results revealed that participants in the Low Autistic Traits group were significantly influenced by the mental state of the gaze cue and were more accurate on valid trials when they believed the cue could ‘see’. By contrast, participants in the High Autistic Traits group were also more accurate on valid trials, but this was not influenced by the mental state of the gaze cue. This study therefore provides evidence that autistic traits influence the extent to which mental state attributions modulate social attention in neurotypical adults.
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13. Polyanskaya I, Eigsti IM, Brauner T, Blackburn P. Second-Order False Beliefs and Linguistic Recursion in Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of autism and developmental disorders. 2021.
This study investigates the role of recursive language and working memory (WM) in second-order false belief skills in Danish-speaking children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n = 62; 8 females) and typical development (n = 41; 15 females), ages 6-16. Second-order false belief skills correlated with receptive grammar, vocabulary, and age; sentential complement production predicted second-order false beliefs, controlling for age, receptive grammar and WM. Regressions showed that second-order false belief was associated with age across groups, but with sentential complements in the ASD group only. Second-order false belief skills improved in children who received training in either recursive phrases (d = 0.21) or WM (d = 0.74), compared to an active control group. Results suggest that false belief skills are entwined with both linguistic and executive functions.
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14. Qutranji L, Alkayyali T, Alkhateeb W, Sapmaz A, Aleter A, Almoustafa A, Aci Z, Hammad A, Nakhala A, Altunc U. Evaluation of the Relationship Between Environmental Factors, Nutrition, and Metabolic Changes in Children Diagnosed With Autism in North Cyprus: A Case-Control Study. Cureus. 2021; 13(8): e17016.
Introduction Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a set of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by deficits in social behaviors and nonverbal interactions. The disorder is believed to be multifactorial regarding etiopathology. This study aimed to investigate the possible risk factors associated with the development of autism in the prenatal and postnatal periods. Methods We conducted an unmatched case-control study composed of 56 autistic cases and 85 control children in North Cyprus. Cases recruited were previously diagnosed by a pediatric psychiatrist as being on the autistic spectrum. Parental questionnaires were distributed, and the collected data were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24 (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY). Binary logistic regression was used to compute the adjusted odds ratios (aOR), adjusted for possible confounders. Results Our results showed increased odds of developing ASD in mothers with mental disorders such as depression and anxiety (aOR 6.99; 95% CI 1.94 – 25.24), mothers with medical conditions such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (aOR 2.68; 95% CI 1.06 – 6.78), mothers using aluminum-containing anti-acids (aOR 2.34; 95% CI 1.012 – 5.39), mothers exposed to loud noises during pregnancy (aOR 2.66; 95% CI 1.005 – 7.034), mothers with ≥ two previous miscarriages (aOR 4.19; 95% CI 1.17 -14.97), neonates with birth weight <2500 grams (aOR 4.19; 95% CI 1.16 - 14.84), male gender neonates (aOR 3.26; 95% CI 1.31 - 8.90), and neonates exposed to MRI or CT scan during the first year of life (aOR 6.94; 95% CI 1.15 - 42.07). Decreased odds of ASD development were observed in mothers using multivitamins during pregnancy (aOR 0.35; 95% CI 0.13 - 0.97), mothers consuming slight amounts of baking powder during pregnancy (aOR 0.235; 95% CI 0.09 - 0.60), mothers with threatened abortion (aOR 0.35; 95% CI 0.12 - 0.98), and neonates taking iron supplementation during the first six months of life (aOR 0.38; 95% 0.16 - 0.91). Conclusion There were various maternal and neonatal factors associated with ASD development in North Cyprus. Although there is some evidence to suggest that exposure to specific factors during prenatal or postnatal periods may increase the risk of ASD, there is insufficient evidence that implicates a specific factor for autism etiology. Future studies are recommended to be performed on larger scales to support further the factors associated with ASD development.
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15. Ratni H. Contribution to the Discovery of a Novel Medicine for a Neuromuscular Disease and of other Promising Molecules for the Treatment of Neurodevelopmental and Neurodegenerative Diseases. Chimia. 2021; 75(7): 614-9.
Nervous system disorders affect millions of people around the world, through a very broad range of diseases. Here we describe our contribution to find a treatment for patients suffering from three of those diseases. The first one, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), affects approximately one in every 59 children in US. The second one, spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a rare disease affecting 1 in 10000 live births worldwide, often leading to death if untreated. The third one, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a very well known devastating disease with an estimated 50 million people living with AD and other dementia, a number expected to triple by 2050. Our strategy to address those diseases was directed towards the discovery of a selective vasopressin 1a (V1a) antagonist for ASD, a splicing modifier of the survival of motor neuron 2 (SMN2) for SMA, and finally a γ-secretase modulator (GSM) for AD. In the frame of our GSM project, we also reported the discovery of a bridge piperidine moiety as a bioisostere for a phenyl moiety with an improved drug-like profile.
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16. Scheerer NE, Boucher TQ, Bahmei B, Iarocci G, Arzanpour S, Birmingham E. Family Experiences of Decreased Sound Tolerance in ASD. Journal of autism and developmental disorders. 2021.
Decreased sound tolerance (DST) is the most common sensory difficulty experienced by autistic individuals. Parents of 88 autistic children and young adults between the ages of 3 and 30 described coping strategies and physical and emotional responses used to deal with distressing sounds, and their impact on daily activities. Loud, sudden, and high-pitched sounds were most commonly endorsed as distressing, most often causing autistic children and young adults to cover their ears or yell, while producing stress, irritation, fear, and anxiety. Parents reported warning their child, providing breaks, or avoiding noisy settings as the most used coping strategies. Overall, findings indicate that DST leads to fewer opportunities for autistic children and young adults to participate at home, at school, and in the community. Further, results suggest hyperacusis, misophonia, and phonophobia, subtypes of DST, are present in autistic children and young adults.
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17. Schuster BA, Fraser DS, van den Bosch JJF, Sowden S, Gordon AS, Huh D, Cook JL. Kinematics and observer-animator kinematic similarity predict mental state attribution from Heider-Simmel style animations. Scientific reports. 2021; 11(1): 18266.
The ability to ascribe mental states, such as beliefs or desires to oneself and other individuals forms an integral part of everyday social interaction. Animations tasks, in which observers watch videos of interacting triangles, have been extensively used to test mental state attribution in a variety of clinical populations. Compared to control participants, individuals with clinical conditions such as autism typically offer less appropriate mental state descriptions of such videos. Recent research suggests that stimulus kinematics and movement similarity (between the video and the observer) may contribute to mental state attribution difficulties. Here we present a novel adaptation of the animations task, suitable to track and compare animation generator and -observer kinematics. Using this task and a population-derived stimulus database, we confirmed the hypotheses that an animation’s jerk and jerk similarity between observer and animator significantly contribute to the correct identification of an animation. By employing random forest analysis to explore other stimulus characteristics, we reveal that other indices of movement similarity, including acceleration- and rotation-based similarity, also predict performance. Our results highlight the importance of movement similarity between observer and animator and raise new questions about reasons why some clinical populations exhibit difficulties with this task.
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18. Vishne G, Jacoby N, Malinovitch T, Epstein T, Frenkel O, Ahissar M. Slow update of internal representations impedes synchronization in autism. Nature communications. 2021; 12(1): 5439.
Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social skills, motor and perceptual atypicalities. These difficulties were explained within the Bayesian framework as either reflecting oversensitivity to prediction errors or – just the opposite – slow updating of such errors. To test these opposing theories, we administer paced finger-tapping, a synchronization task that requires use of recent sensory information for fast error-correction. We use computational modelling to disentangle the contributions of error-correction from that of noise in keeping temporal intervals, and in executing motor responses. To assess the specificity of tapping characteristics to autism, we compare performance to both neurotypical individuals and individuals with dyslexia. Only the autism group shows poor sensorimotor synchronization. Trial-by-trial modelling reveals typical noise levels in interval representations and motor responses. However, rate of error correction is reduced in autism, impeding synchronization ability. These results provide evidence for slow updating of internal representations in autism.
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19. Warrington NM, Hwang LD, Nivard MG, Evans DM. Estimating direct and indirect genetic effects on offspring phenotypes using genome-wide summary results data. Nature communications. 2021; 12(1): 5420.
Estimation of direct and indirect (i.e. parental and/or sibling) genetic effects on phenotypes is becoming increasingly important. We compare several multivariate methods that utilize summary results statistics from genome-wide association studies to determine how well they estimate direct and indirect genetic effects. Using data from the UK Biobank, we contrast point estimates and standard errors at individual loci compared to those obtained using individual level data. We show that Genomic structural equation modelling (SEM) outperforms the other methods in accurately estimating conditional genetic effects and their standard errors. We apply Genomic SEM to fertility data in the UK Biobank and partition the genetic effect into female and male fertility and a sibling specific effect. We identify a novel locus for fertility and genetic correlations between fertility and educational attainment, risk taking behaviour, autism and subjective well-being. We recommend Genomic SEM be used to partition genetic effects into direct and indirect components when using summary results from genome-wide association studies.
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20. Wu N, Wang Y, Jia JY, Pan YH, Yuan XB. Association of CDH11 with Autism Spectrum Disorder Revealed by Matched-gene Co-expression Analysis and Mouse Behavioral Studies. Neuroscience bulletin. 2022; 38(1): 29-46.
A large number of putative risk genes for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been reported. The functions of most of these susceptibility genes in developing brains remain unknown, and causal relationships between their variation and autism traits have not been established. The aim of this study was to predict putative risk genes at the whole-genome level based on the analysis of gene co-expression with a group of high-confidence ASD risk genes (hcASDs). The results showed that three gene features – gene size, mRNA abundance, and guanine-cytosine content – affect the genome-wide co-expression profiles of hcASDs. To circumvent the interference of these features in gene co-expression analysis, we developed a method to determine whether a gene is significantly co-expressed with hcASDs by statistically comparing the co-expression profile of this gene with hcASDs to that of this gene with permuted gene sets of feature-matched genes. This method is referred to as « matched-gene co-expression analysis » (MGCA). With MGCA, we demonstrated the convergence in developmental expression profiles of hcASDs and improved the efficacy of risk gene prediction. The results of analysis of two recently-reported ASD candidate genes, CDH11 and CDH9, suggested the involvement of CDH11, but not CDH9, in ASD. Consistent with this prediction, behavioral studies showed that Cdh11-null mice, but not Cdh9-null mice, have multiple autism-like behavioral alterations. This study highlights the power of MGCA in revealing ASD-associated genes and the potential role of CDH11 in ASD.