1. Abdallah MW, Larsen N, Grove J, Norgaard-Pedersen B, Thorsen P, Mortensen EL, Hougaard DM. {{Amniotic fluid inflammatory cytokines: Potential markers of immunologic dysfunction in autism spectrum disorders}}. {World J Biol Psychiatry};2011 (Dec 19)
Objectives. The aim of the study was to analyze cytokine profiles in amniotic fluid (AF) samples of children developing autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and controls, adjusting for maternal autoimmune disorders and maternal infections during pregnancy. Methods. AF samples of 331 ASD cases and 698 controls were analyzed for inflammatory cytokines using Luminex xMAP technology utilizing a historic birth cohort. Clinical data were retrieved from nationwide registers, and case-control differences in AF cytokine levels were assessed using chi-square tests, logistic and tobit regression models. Results. Overall, individuals with ASD had significantly elevated AF levels of TNF-alpha and TNF-beta compared to controls. Analyzing individuals diagnosed only with ICD-10 codes yielded significantly elevated levels of IL-4, IL-10, TNF-alpha and TNF-beta in ASD patients. Restricting analysis to infantile autism cases showed significantly elevated levels of IL-4, TNF-alpha and TNF-beta compared to controls with no psychiatric comorbidities. Elevated levels of IL-6 and IL-5 were found in individuals with other childhood psychiatric disorders (OCPD) when compared to controls with no psychiatric comorbidities. Conclusions. AF samples of individuals with ASD or OCPD showed differential cytokine profiles compared to frequency-matched controls. Further studies to examine the specificity of the reported cytokine profiles in ASD and OCPD are required.
Lien vers le texte intégral (Open Access ou abonnement)
2. Eigsti IM, Schuh J, Mencl E, Schultz RT, Paul R. {{The neural underpinnings of prosody in autism}}. {Child Neuropsychol};2011 (Dec 19)
This study examines the processing of prosodic cues to linguistic structure and to affect, drawing on fMRI and behavioral data from 16 high-functioning adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and 11 typically developing controls. Stimuli were carefully matched on pitch, intensity, and duration, while varying systematically in conditions of affective prosody (angry versus neutral speech) and grammatical prosody (questions versus statement). To avoid conscious attention to prosody, which normalizes responses in young people with ASD, the implicit comprehension task directed attention to semantic aspects of the stimuli. Results showed that when perceiving prosodic cues, both affective and grammatical, activation of neural regions was more generalized in ASD than in typical development, and areas recruited reflect heightened reliance on cognitive control, reading of intentions, attentional management, and visualization. This broader recruitment of executive and « mind-reading » brain areas for a relative simple language-processing task may be interpreted to suggest that speakers with high-functioning autism (HFA) have developed less automaticity in language processing and may also suggest that « mind-reading » or theory of mind deficits are intricately bound up in language processing. Data provide support for both a right-lateralized as well as a bilateral model of prosodic processing in typical individuals, depending upon the function of the prosodic information.
