Wrong Planet » Behaviors

Behavioral traits in kids can predict autism

Alex Plank — Tue, 03 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

A recent study by Canadian researchers has revealed that certain behavioral traits in infants, some as young as 12 months can predict whether a child will develop autism in later life.

The study, which appears in the International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience, states that certain traits like not smiling in response to the smiles of others or not responding when one’s name is called are some of the indications that can tell whether a child will develop autism later in life.
Behavioral traits in kids can predict autism
Washington | April 30, 2005 3:21:25 PM IST

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Eye contact triggers threat response in autistics

Alex Plank — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 22:13:34 +0000

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin have discovered that in autistics, direct eye contact leads to increased activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain associated with ‘fight or flight’ responses.

Read the original article from Scientific American here.

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Just can’t face it: Why kids with autism may avoid eye contact

Alex Plank — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 17:06:04 +0000

Brain tests at the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggest that children with autism shy from eye contact because they perceive even the most familiar face as an uncomfortable threat. The work deepens understanding of an autistic brain’s function and may one day inform new treatment approaches and augment how teachers interact with their autistic students.
Tracking the correlation between eye movements and brain activity, the researchers found that in autistic subjects, the amygdala — an emotion center in the brain associated with negative feelings — lights up to an abnormal extent during a direct gaze upon a non-threatening face. Writing in the March 6 issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, the scientists also report that because autistic children avert eye contact, the brain’s fusiform region, which is critical for face perception, is less active than it would be during a normally developing child’s stare.

“This is the very first published study that assesses how individuals with autism look at faces while simultaneously monitoring which of their brain areas are active,” says lead author Kim Dalton, an assistant scientist at UW-Madison’s Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior. Dalton measured eye movements in conjunction with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a sophisticated technology that allows researchers to “see” a brain in action.

Notably, the UW-Madison study overturns the existing notion that autistic children struggle to process faces because of a malfunction in the fusiform area. Rather, in autistic children the fusiform “is fundamentally normal” and shows only stunted activity because over-aroused amygdalas make autistic children want to look away, says senior author Richard Davidson, a UW-Madison psychiatry and psychology professor who has earned international recognition for his work on the neural underpinnings of emotion.

“Imagine walking through the world and interpreting every face that looks at you as a threat, even the face of your own mother,” Davidson adds. Scientists have in the past speculated that the amygdala — which has been implicated in certain anxiety and mood disorders — plays a role in autism, but the study directly supports that idea for the first time.

An increasingly publicized developmental disability, autism greatly weakens the capacity to socialize and communicate normally. The tendency to avoid eye contact is one of the most pervasive traits among autistic children, says Dalton. The characteristic is a problem because eyes, in particular, are a crucial source of “subtle cues that are critical for normal social and emotional development,” Dalton says.

Dalton’s work comprised two studies. In the first, researchers placed autistic children inside an MRI scanner and showed them pictures of faces with both emotional and neutral expressions. The children had to press one of two buttons to indicate whether a face showed a blank or expressive face. Throughout the process, the researchers used precise eye-tracking technology to measure exactly which parts of the face study participants were looking at and for how long. Normally developing children far outpaced the autistic study participants in identifying expressions correctly.

During the second study, the researchers again placed subjects in MRI machines and showed them photographs of both familiar and unfamiliar faces. They monitored eye movements and brain activity, and once again, autistic subjects performed considerably more poorly than normally developing participants. In the future, the findings could help scientists “train autistic children to look at a person’s eye region in a more strategic way, like when the person may not be looking directly at them,” says Davidson. Researchers eventually could assess whether such approaches improve the ability to make eye contact and whether they might even induce positive developmental changes in the brain.

Because autism is more inheritable than any other psychiatric condition, researchers also could start to explore the genetic mechanisms underlying hyperactive amygdalas — “a completely uncharted research territory,” says Davidson. And if the autistic amygdala is found to be overactive from infancy, the knowledge could help doctors implement intervention approaches right from an early age.

Article here. This study report was provided by the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the original article.

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Mother: Autistic son mistreated in Barnegat school

Alex Plank — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 07:30:34 +0000

The Asbury Park Press reports:

A Barnegat mother, who has said school officials in June used a chair to restrain her autistic son in a room, has filed complaints with the state Department of Education to investigate whether the district broke any laws while educating her two sons.

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D-Cycloserine May Improve Autism Symptoms

Alex Plank — Tue, 23 Nov 2004 20:56:52 +0000

Yahoo News Reports:

D-cycloserine, a drug that has shown to reduce symptoms in schizophrenics, appears to significantly improve social and communication skills in children with autism, according to the results of a small pilot study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

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Misdiagnosing Narcissism – Asperger’s Disorder

Alex Plank — Mon, 26 Jul 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Zongoo.com writes: Asperger’s Disorder is often misdiagnosed as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), though evident as early as age 3 (while pathological narcissism cannot be safely diagnosed prior to early adolescence).

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Crying for mummy may shed light on autism

Alex Plank — Sat, 26 Jun 2004 02:00:00 +0000

The Weekend Australian reports:

The discovery of a gene that controls the bonding process between infants and their mothers promises new insights into autism and other behavioural disorders.

An experiment in Italy has shown that knocking out a single gene transforms the way in which newborn mice relate to their mothers.

When mouse pups are separated from their mothers, they normally handle the experience badly, becoming distressed and screaming in high-pitched wails that are the equivalent of a human baby’s crying.

However, infant mice that lack a particular gene, an opioid receptor, behave very differently. When separated from their mothers they do not seem to care at all. While their normal cousins scream to high heaven, the mutant pups sit quietly and go to sleep. The mutants also showed no preference for their mother’s smell over other mice.

Apart from their cold attitude towards their mothers, the mutant mice were normal in every way.

The findings, by a team led by Anna Moles, of the Italian National Council for Research in Rome, indicate that the receptor plays a critical role in bonding between infants and their mothers. This receptor is the same one that responds to opioid chemicals such as morphine and heroin, and is involved in the brain’s reward system.

“A pup needs opiate activity in the brain in order to find its mother rewarding,” said Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist at Bowling Green University in Ohio who has studied the research. “Opiate activity is a very important player in social feelings.”

When the receptor is absent, the mouse pups’ brains cannot respond to the natural opioids that cement the bonds between infants and their mothers, the results suggest. Dr Moles said: “We hypothesise that the deficits in our knockout mice annihilate the natural association between reward and maternal stimuli, making these animals less sensitive to maternal separation.”

The study, details of which are published today in the journal Science, may have important implications for social attachment disorders, particularly autism. Children with autism fail to form normal social bonds with their parents and the findings suggest that a problem in their opioid receptors may play a part in their condition.

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