1. Ardalan A, Assadi AH, Surgent OJ, Travers BG. {{Whole-Body Movement during Videogame Play Distinguishes Youth with Autism from Youth with Typical Development}}. {Sci Rep};2019 (Dec 27);9(1):20094.
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder struggle with motor difficulties throughout the life span, and these motor difficulties may affect independent living skills and quality of life. Yet, we know little about how whole-body movement may distinguish individuals with autism spectrum disorder from individuals with typical development. In this study, kinematic and postural sway data were collected during multiple sessions of videogame play in 39 youth with autism spectrum disorder and 23 age-matched youth with typical development (ages 7-17 years). The youth on the autism spectrum exhibited more variability and more entropy in their movements. Machine learning analysis of the youths’ motor patterns distinguished between the autism spectrum and typically developing groups with high aggregate accuracy (up to 89%), with no single region of the body seeming to drive group differences. Moreover, the machine learning results corresponded to individual differences in performance on standardized motor tasks and measures of autism symptom severity. The machine learning algorithm was also sensitive to age, suggesting that motor challenges in autism may be best characterized as a developmental motor delay rather than an autism-distinct motor profile. Overall, these results reveal that whole-body movement is a distinguishing feature in autism spectrum disorder and that movement atypicalities in autism are present across the body.
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2. Dailey JC, Brooks JK. {{Autism Spectrum Disorder: Techniques for dental radiographic examinations}}. {J Dent Hyg};2019 (Dec);93(6):35-41.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with maldevelopment of the brain that leads to impaired communication and social interaction skills, possible cognitive decline, and an inability to cope with environmental stimuli. Affected individuals may also exhibit a myriad of stereotypic and maladaptive behaviors. With the increasing prevalence of ASD in the United States, oral healthcare professionals (OHCP) will encounter greater opportunities for patient interactions. There is limited information in the literature regarding ASD and dental radiography. The task of taking diagnostically acceptable radiographs on ASD-affected patients may be hindered by a lack of cooperative behavior, communication difficulties, and an incapacity to understand instructions. This report will review various ASD-related characteristics, comorbidities, and an assortment of general behavior guidance techniques (Picture Exchange Communication System, visual scheduling, social stories, first-then board, voice control, tell-show-do, electronic media devices, nonverbal communication, and desensitization). Guidelines for applying basic and advanced techniques for dental radiographic examinations will be discussed with the goal of improved patient interactions and positive outcomes.
3. Hepach R, Hedley D, Nuske HJ. {{Prosocial attention in children with and without autism spectrum disorder: Dissociation between anticipatory gaze and internal arousal}}. {J Abnorm Child Psychol};2019 (Dec 28)
From an early age children help others yet the underlying mechanisms of children’s prosocial attention remain understudied. Comparing the attentional and physiological mechanisms of prosocial attention of typically developing and atypically developing children contributes to our understanding of the ontogeny of prosocial development. We presented typically developing (TD) children and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), who often have difficulty developing prosocial behaviour, with scenarios in which an adult needed a dropped object to finish a task but was subsequently not helped by a second adult. In a perceptually matched non-social control scenario, children saw self-propelled objects move and drop without any adult present in the scene. Results showed a dissociation between arousal (pupil dilation) and the anticipation of the individual’s need (gaze patterns), such that only TD children looked longer at the correct solution to the adult’s need prior to the resolution of the situation. In contrast, following the resolution of the scene, both groups showed greater arousal when the adult was not helped compared to when the non-social situation remained unresolved. For the ASD group, this effect was greatest for children with higher developmental quotients. These results suggest that, despite similarities in prosocial attention between TD and ASD children, previously documented reduced prosocial behaviour in children with ASD may be in part due to a specific impairment in anticipating prosocial behaviour.
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4. Pei YP, Wang YY, Liu D, Lei HY, Yang ZH, Zhang ZW, Han M, Cheng K, Chen YS, Li JQ, Cheng GR, Xu L, Wu QM, McClintock SM, Yang Y, Zhang Y, Zeng Y. {{ICAM5 as a novel target for treating cognitive impairment in Fragile X Syndrome}}. {J Neurosci};2019 (Dec 20)
Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is the most common inherited form of intellectual disability, resulted from the silencing of the Fmr1 gene and the subsequent loss of FMRP. Spine dysgenesis and cognitive impairment have been extensively characterized in FXS, however, the underlying mechanism remains poorly understood. As an important regulator of spine maturation, intercellular adhesion molecule 5 (ICAM5) mRNA may be one of the targets of FMRP and involved in cognitive impairment in FXS. Here we show that in Fmr1 KO male mice, ICAM5 was excessively expressed during the late developmental stage, and its expression was negatively correlated with the expression of FMRP and positively related with the morphological abnormalities of dendritic spines. While in vitro reduction of ICAM5 normalized dendritic spine abnormalities in Fmr1 KO neurons, and in vivo knock-down of ICAM5 in the dentate gyrus rescued the impaired spatial and fear memory and anxiety-like behaviors in Fmr1 KO mice, through both granule cell and mossy cell with a relative rate of 1.32 +/- 0.15. Furthermore, biochemical analyses showed direct binding of FMRP with ICAM5 mRNA, to the coding sequence of ICAM5 mRNA. Taken together, our study suggests that ICAM5 is one of the targets of FMRP and implicates in the molecular pathogenesis of FXS. ICAM5 could be a therapeutic target for treating cognitive impairment in FXS.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTFragile X syndrome (FXS) is characterized by dendritic spine dysgenesis and cognitive dysfunctions, while one of the FMRP latent targets, ICAM5, is well established for contributing both spine maturation and learning performance. In this study, we examined the potential link between ICAM5 mRNA and FMRP in FXS, and further investigated the molecular details and pathological consequences of ICAM5 overexpression. Our results indicate a critical role of ICAM5 in spine maturation and cognitive impairment in FXS and suggest ICAM5 is a potential molecular target for the development of medication against FXS.
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5. Simner J, Hughes JEA, Sagiv N. {{Objectum sexuality: A sexual orientation linked with autism and synaesthesia}}. {Sci Rep};2019 (Dec 27);9(1):19874.
Objectum-sexuality (OS) is a sexual orientation which has received little attention in the academic literature. Individuals who identify as OS experience emotional, romantic and/or sexual feelings towards inanimate objects (e.g. a bridge, a statue). We tested 34 OS individuals and 88 controls, and provide the first empirical evidence that OS is linked to two separate neurodevelopmental traits – autism and synaesthesia. We show that OS individuals possess significantly higher rates of diagnosed autism and significantly stronger autistic traits compared to controls, as well as a significantly higher prevalence of synaesthesia, and significant synaesthetic traits inherent in the nature of their attractions. Our results suggest that OS may encapsulate autism and synaesthesia within its phenomenology. Our data speak to debates concerning the biological underpinnings of sexuality, to models of autism and synaesthesia, and to psychological and philosophical models of romantic love.
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6. Sun H, You Z, Jia L, Wang F. {{Autism spectrum disorder is associated with gut microbiota disorder in children}}. {BMC Pediatr};2019 (Dec 27);19(1):516.
BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to evaluate the occurrence and clinical characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) associated to the stable state of the gut microbiota. METHODS: A total of 9 children with ASD and 6 healthy children used as control were selected and feces samples were collected from all of them. The 16S gene ribosomal RNA sequencing was used to analyze the difference in gut microbiota between healthy control children and ASD patients. RESULTS: The results of 16S sequencing based on operational taxonomic units (OTUs) analysis showed that the ASD group and the healthy control (HC) group had a large difference in the abundance of microbiota at the level of family, genus and species. The abundance of Bacteroidales and Selenomonadales was significantly lower in the ASD group than in the HC group (p = 0.0110 and p = 0.0076, respectively). The abundance of Ruminococcaceae in the ASD group was higher than that in the HC group (p = 0.0285), while the amount of Prevotellaceae was significantly lower in the ASD group than in the HC group (p = 0.0111). The Tax4Fun analysis based on Kyoto Encyclopaedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) data indicated differentially expressed functional pathway between the ASD group and healthy control group associated to the nervous system, environmental information processing and cellular processing. CONCLUSIONS: The abundance of gut microbiota in the ASD group is different from that in the healthy control children. These differences affect the biological function of the host. These results suggest that a disorder in the gut microbiota may be associated, at least in part, with ASD in children.
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7. Wise EA. {{Aging in Autism Spectrum Disorder}}. {Am J Geriatr Psychiatry};2019 (Dec 6)
Most research on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has focused on younger individuals, but there is increasing awareness that more must be known about the clinical needs and outcomes of older adults with ASD. This article reviews what is known about barriers to recognition in the elderly, the prevalence of ASD over the lifespan, outcomes in adulthood in comparison to the general population, co-occurring psychiatric diagnoses, and healthcare needs in this population.
