Pubmed du 25/06/23
1. Andersson Konke L, Falck-Ytter T, Jones EJH, Goodwin A, Brocki K. Using the Infant Sibling-Design to Explore Associations Between Autism and ADHD Traits in Probands and Temperament in the Younger Siblings. J Autism Dev Disord;2023 (Jun 24)
The purpose of the current study was to use the infant sibling design to explore whether proband traits of autism and ADHD could provide information about their infant sibling’s temperament. This could help us to gain information about the extent to which infant temperament traits are differentially associated with autism and ADHD traits. We used parent-ratings of autistic traits and ADHD traits (CRS-3) in older siblings diagnosed with autism (age range 4 to 19 years), and their infant siblings’ temperament traits (IBQ) at 9 months of age in 216 sibling pairs from two sites (BASIS, UK, and EASE, Sweden) to examine associations across siblings. We found specific, but modest, associations across siblings after controlling for sex, age, developmental level and site. Proband autistic traits were specifically related to low levels of approach in the infant siblings, with infant developmental level explaining part of the variance in infant approach. Proband ADHD traits were specifically related to high levels of infant activity even after controlling for covariates. Our findings suggest that proband traits of autism and ADHD carry information for infant sibling’s temperament, indicating that inherited liability may influence early emerging behaviours in infant siblings. The impact of sex, age, developmental level and site are discussed.
Lien vers le texte intégral (Open Access ou abonnement)
2. Junttila M, Jussila K, Joskitt L, Ebeling H, Kielinen M, Loukusa S, Miettunen J, Mäntymaa M, Mattila ML. Factor analysis of the autism spectrum screening questionnaire in a population-based child sample. Nord J Psychiatry;2023 (Jun 24):1-10.
PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to investigate several possible factor structures of the Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ). MATERIALS AND METHODS: We used the 27-item screening tool for school-aged children in a general population of 8-year-old children (n = 3,538) and compared the occurring solutions to previously published factor models. RESULTS: A one-factor solution and a four-factor solution were identified in Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and confirmed with Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), while two-, three-, five- and six-factor solutions were rejected. In CFA, our four-factor solution showed the best goodness-of-fit indexes when compared with factor models previously presented by Posserud et al. and Ehlers et al. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate a strong underlying connection between all ASSQ items which is elicited by the one-factor solution. Although as a screening tool, ASSQ is functioning with the unifactorial solution, the four factors can help to identify certain clusters of autism spectrum traits.
Lien vers le texte intégral (Open Access ou abonnement)
3. O’Sullivan J, Bogaarts G, Schoenenberger P, Tillmann J, Slater D, Mesgarani N, Eule E, Kilchenmann T, Murtagh L, Hipp J, Lindemann M, Lipsmeier F, Cheng WY, Nobbs D, Chatham C. Automatic speaker diarization for natural conversation analysis in autism clinical trials. Sci Rep;2023 (Jun 24);13(1):10270.
Challenges in social communication is one of the core symptom domains in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Novel therapies are under development to help individuals with these challenges, however the ability to show a benefit is dependent on a sensitive and reliable measure of treatment effect. Currently, measuring these deficits requires the use of time-consuming and subjective techniques. Objective measures extracted from natural conversations could be more ecologically relevant, and administered more frequently-perhaps giving them added sensitivity to change. While several studies have used automated analysis methods to study autistic speech, they require manual transcriptions. In order to bypass this time-consuming process, an automated speaker diarization algorithm must first be applied. In this paper, we are testing whether a speaker diarization algorithm can be applied to natural conversations between autistic individuals and their conversational partner in a natural setting at home over the course of a clinical trial. We calculated the average duration that a participant would speak for within their turn. We found a significant correlation between this feature and the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales (VABS) expressive communication score (r = 0.51, p = 7 × 10(-5)). Our results show that natural conversations can be used to obtain measures of talkativeness, and that this measure can be derived automatically, thus showing the promise of objectively evaluating communication challenges in ASD.
Lien vers le texte intégral (Open Access ou abonnement)
4. Yamashita M, Kagitani-Shimono K, Hirano Y, Hamatani S, Nishitani S, Yao A, Kurata S, Kosaka H, Jung M, Yoshida T, Sasaki T, Matsumoto K, Kato Y, Nakanishi M, Tachibana M, Mohri I, Tsuchiya KJ, Tsujikawa T, Okazawa H, Shimizu E, Taniike M, Tomoda A, Mizuno Y. Child Developmental MRI (CDM) project: protocol for a multi-centre, cross-sectional study on elucidating the pathophysiology of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder through a multi-dimensional approach. BMJ Open;2023 (Jun 23);13(6):e070157.
INTRODUCTION: Neuroimaging studies on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have demonstrated differences in extensive brain structure, activity and network. However, there remains heterogeneity and inconsistency across these findings, presumably because of the diversity of the disorders themselves, small sample sizes, and site and parameter differences in MRI scanners, and their overall pathogenesis remains unclear. To address these gaps in the literature, we will apply the travelling-subject approach to correct site differences in MRI scanners and clarify brain structure and network characteristics of children with ADHD and ASD using large samples collected in a multi-centre collaboration. In addition, we will investigate the relationship between these characteristics and genetic, epigenetic, biochemical markers, and behavioural and psychological measures. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We will collect resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) and T1-weighted and diffusion-weighted MRI data from 15 healthy adults as travelling subjects and 300 children (ADHD, n=100; ASD, n=100; and typical development, n=100) with multi-dimensional assessments. We will also apply data from more than 1000 samples acquired in our previous neuroimaging studies on ADHD and ASD. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study protocol has been approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Fukui Hospital (approval no: 20220601). Our study findings will be submitted to scientific peer-reviewed journals and conferences.
