A behavioral comparison of male and female adults with high functioning autism spectrum conditions

Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) affect more males than females in the general population. However, within ASC it is unclear if there are phenotypic sex differences. Testing for similarities and differences between the sexes is important not only for clinical assessment but also has implications for theories of typical sex differences and of autism. Using cognitive and behavioral measures, we investigated similarities and differences between the sexes in age- and IQ-matched adults with ASC (high-functioning autism or Asperger syndrome). Of the 83 (45 males and 38 females) participants, 62 (33 males and 29 females) met Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) cut-off criteria for autism in childhood and were included in all subsequent analyses. The severity of childhood core autism symptoms did not differ between the sexes. Males and females also did not differ in self-reported empathy, systemizing, anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive traits/symptoms or mentalizing performance. However, adult females with ASC showed more lifetime sensory symptoms (p = 0.036), fewer current socio-communication difficulties (p = 0.001), and more self-reported autistic traits (p = 0.012) than males. In addition, females with ASC who also had developmental language delay had lower current performance IQ than those without developmental language delay (p<0.001), a pattern not seen in males. The absence of typical sex differences in empathizing-systemizing profiles within the autism spectrum confirms a prediction from the extreme male brain theory. Behavioral sex differences within ASC may also reflect different developmental mechanisms between males and females with ASC. We discuss the importance of the superficially better socio-communication ability in adult females with ASC in terms of why females with ASC may more often go under-recognized, and receive their diagnosis later, than males.

Age-related changes in the functional neuroanatomy of overt speech production

Alterations of existing neural networks during healthy aging, resulting in behavioral deficits and changes in brain activity, have been described for cognitive, motor, and sensory functions. To investigate age-related changes in the neural circuitry underlying overt non-lexical speech production, functional MRI was performed in 14 healthy younger (21–32 years) and 14 healthy older individuals (62–84 years). The experimental task involved the acoustically cued overt production of the vowel /a/ and the polysyllabic utterance /pataka/. In younger and older individuals, overt speech production was associated with the activation of a widespread articulo-phonological network, including the primary motor cortex, the supplementary motor area, the cingulate motor areas, and the posterior superior temporal cortex, similar in the /a/ and /pataka/ condition. An analysis of variance with the factors age and condition revealed a significant main effect of age. Irrespective of the experimental condition, significantly greater activation was found in the bilateral posterior superior temporal cortex, the posterior temporal plane, and the transverse temporal gyri in younger compared to older individuals. Significantly greater activation was found in the bilateral middle temporal gyri, medial frontal gyri, middle frontal gyri, and inferior frontal gyri in older vs. younger individuals. The analysis of variance did not reveal a significant main effect of condition and no significant interaction of age and condition. These results suggest a complex reorganization of neural networks dedicated to the production of speech during healthy aging.

Assessment of cognitive symptoms in prodromal and early Huntington disease

The Functional Rating Scale Taskforce for pre-Huntington Disease (FuRST-pHD) is a multinational, multidisciplinary initiative with the goal of developing a data-driven, comprehensive, psychometrically sound, rating scale for assessing symptoms and functional ability in prodromal and early Huntington disease (HD) gene expansion carriers. The process involves input from numerous sources to identify relevant symptom domains, including HD individuals, caregivers, and experts from a variety of fields, as well as knowledge gained from the analysis of data from ongoing large-scale studies in HD using existing clinical scales. This is an iterative process in which an ongoing series of field tests in prodromal (prHD) and early HD individuals provides the team with data on which to make decisions regarding which questions should undergo further development or testing and which should be excluded. We report here the development and assessment of the first iteration of interview questions aimed to assess cognitive symptoms in prHD and early HD individuals.

Cognitive process modelling of controllers in en route air traffic control

In recent years, various efforts have been made in air traffic control (ATC) to maintain traffic safety and efficiency in the face of increasing air traffic demands. ATC is a complex process that depends to a large degree on human capabilities, and so understanding how controllers carry out their tasks is an important issue in the design and development of ATC systems. In particular, the human factor is considered to be a serious problem in ATC safety and has been identified as a causal factor in both major and minor incidents. There is, therefore, a need to analyse the mechanisms by which errors occur due to complex factors and to develop systems that can deal with these errors. From the cognitive process perspective, it is essential that system developers have an understanding of the more complex working processes that involve the cooperative work of multiple controllers. Distributed cognition is a methodological framework for analysing cognitive processes that span multiple actors mediated by technology. In this research, we attempt to analyse and model interactions that take place in en route ATC systems based on distributed cognition. We examine the functional problems in an ATC system from a human factors perspective, and conclude by identifying certain measures by which to address these problems. This research focuses on the analysis of air traffic controllers' tasks for en route ATC and modelling controllers' cognitive processes.

Does tool use extend peripersonal space? A review and re-analysis

The fascinating idea that tools become extensions of our body appears in artistic, literary, philosophical, and scientific works alike. In the last fifteen years, this idea has been re-framed into several related hypotheses, one of which states that tool use extends the neural representation of the multisensory space immediately surrounding the hands (variously termed peripersonal space, peri-hand space, peri-cutaneous space, action space, or near space). This and related hypotheses have been tested extensively in the cognitive neurosciences, with evidence from molecular, neurophysiological, neuroimaging, neuropsychological, and behavioural fields. Here, I briefly review the evidence for and against the hypothesis that tool use extends a neural representation of the space surrounding the hand, concentrating on neurophysiological, neuropsychological, and behavioural evidence. I then provide a re-analysis of data from six published and one unpublished experiments using the crossmodal congruency task to test this hypothesis. While the re-analysis broadly confirms the previously-reported finding that tool use does not literally extend peripersonal space, the overall effect-sizes are small and statistical power is low. I conclude by questioning whether the crossmodal congruency task can indeed be used to test the hypothesis that tool use modifies peripersonal space.

Neural correlates of true and false memory in mild cognitive impairment

The goal of this research was to investigate the changes in neural processing in mild cognitive impairment. We measured phase synchrony, amplitudes, and event-related potentials in veridical and false memory to determine whether these differed in participants with mild cognitive impairment compared with typical, age-matched controls. Empirical mode decomposition phase locking analysis was used to assess synchrony, which is the first time this analysis technique has been applied in a complex cognitive task such as memory processing. The technique allowed assessment of changes in frontal and parietal cortex connectivity over time during a memory task, without a priori selection of frequency ranges, which has been shown previously to influence synchrony detection. Phase synchrony differed significantly in its timing and degree between participant groups in the theta and alpha frequency ranges. Timing differences suggested greater dependence on gist memory in the presence of mild cognitive impairment. The group with mild cognitive impairment had significantly more frontal theta phase locking than the controls in the absence of a significant behavioural difference in the task, providing new evidence for compensatory processing in the former group. Both groups showed greater frontal phase locking during false than true memory, suggesting increased searching when no actual memory trace was found. Significant inter-group differences in frontal alpha phase locking provided support for a role for lower and upper alpha oscillations in memory processing. Finally, fronto-parietal interaction was significantly reduced in the group with mild cognitive impairment, supporting the notion that mild cognitive impairment could represent an early stage in Alzheimer’s disease, which has been described as a ‘disconnection syndrome’.

Use of nutritional complete supplements in older adults with dementia: systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical outcomes

Background & Aims: Malnutrition is prevalent in people diagnosed with dementia however ensuring adequate oral intake within this group is often problematic. It is important to determine whether providing nutritionally complete oral nutritional supplements (ONS) drinks is an effective way of improving clinical outcomes for older people with dementia. This paper systematically reviewed clinical, wellbeing and nutritional outcomes in people with long-term cognitive impairment. Methods: The CINAHL, Medline and EMBASE databases were searched from their inception until January 2012. Reference lists of the included papers, foreign language papers and review articles obtained were manually searched. Results: Twelve articles were included in the review containing 1076 people in the supplement groups (intervention) and 748 people in the control groups. Meta-analysis shows there was a significant improvement in weight (p=<0.0001), Body Mass Index (BMI) (p=<0.0001) and cognition at 6.5+/-3.9 month follow up (p=0.002) when supplements were given compared to the control group. Conclusions: Providing ONS drinks has a positive effect on weight gain and cognition at follow up in older people with dementia. Additional research is required in both comparing nutritional supplements to vitamin/mineral tablets and high protein/calorie shots and clinical outcomes relevant to hospitalised people with dementia.

Experimental analysis of the Reynolds flocking model

The classic Reynolds flocking model is formally analysed, with results presented and discussed. Flocking behaviour was investigated through the development of two measurements of flocking, flock area and polarisation, with a view to applying the findings to robotic applications. Experiments varying the flocking simulation parameters individually and simultaneously provide new insight into the control of flock behaviour.

Combined neurostimulation and neuroimaging in cognitive neuroscience: past, present, and future

Modern neurostimulation approaches in humans provide controlled inputs into the operations of cortical regions, with highly specific behavioral consequences. This enables causal structure–function inferences, and in combination with neuroimaging, has provided novel insights into the basic mechanisms of action of neurostimulation on dis- tributed networks. For example,more recent work has established the capacity of transcranialmagnetic stimulation (TMS) to probe causal interregional influences, and their interaction with cognitive state changes. Combinations of neurostimulation and neuroimaging now face the challenge of integrating the known physiological effects of neu- rostimulationwith theoretical and biologicalmodels of cognition, for example,when theoretical stalemates between opposing cognitive theories need to be resolved. This will be driven by novel developments, including biologically informedcomputational network analyses for predicting the impactofneurostimulationonbrainnetworks, as well as novel neuroimaging and neurostimulation techniques. Such future developments may offer an expanded set of tools withwhich to investigate structure–function relationships, and to formulate and reconceptualize testable hypotheses about complex neural network interactions and their causal roles in cognition

Magnetic resonance imaging of a randomized controlled trial investigating predictors of recovery following psychological treatment in adolescents with moderate to severe unipolar depression: study protocol for Magnetic Resonance - Improving Mood with Psychoanalytic and Cognitive Therapies (MR-IMPACT)

Background Major depressive disorders (MDD) are a debilitating and pervasive group of mental illnesses afflicting many millions of people resulting in the loss of 110 million working days and more than 2,500 suicides per annum. Adolescent MDD patients attending NHS clinics show high rates of recurrence into adult life. A meta-analysis of recent research shows that psychological treatments are not as efficacious as previously thought. Modest treatment outcomes of approximately 65% of cases responding suggest that aetiological and clinical heterogeneity may hamper the better use of existing therapies and discovery of more effective treatments. Information with respect to optimal treatment choice for individuals is lacking, with no validated biomarkers to aid therapeutic decision-making. Methods/Design Magnetic resonance-Improving Mood with Psychoanalytic and Cognitive Therapies, the MR-IMPACT study, plans to identify brain regions implicated in the pathophysiology of depressions and examine whether there are specific behavioural or neural markers predicting remission and/or subsequent relapse in a subsample of depressed adolescents recruited to the IMPACT randomised controlled trial (Registration # ISRCTN83033550). Discussion MR-IMPACT is an investigative biomarker component of the IMPACT pragmatic effectiveness trial. The aim of this investigation is to identify neural markers and regional indicators of the pathophysiology of and treatment response for MDD in adolescents. We anticipate that these data may enable more targeted treatment delivery by identifying those patients who may be optimal candidates for therapeutic response.

Separation of performance-approach and performance-avoidance achievement goals: A broader analysis

In the literature on achievement goals, performance-approach goals (striving to do better than others) and performance-avoidance goals (striving to avoid doing worse than others) tend to exhibit a moderate to high correlation, raising questions about whether the 2 goals represent distinct constructs. In the current article, we sought to examine the separability of these 2 goals using a broad factor-analytic approach that attended to issues that have been overlooked or underexamined in prior research. Five studies provided strong evidence for the separation of these 2 goal constructs: Separation was observed not only with exploratory factor analysis across different age groups and countries (Studies 1a and 1b) but also with change analysis (Study 2), ipsative factor analysis (Study 3), within-person analysis (Study 4), and behavioral genetics analysis (Study 5). We conclude by discussing the implications of the present research for the achievement goal literature, as well as the psychological literature in general.

Analysis of functional networks involved in motor execution and motor imagery using combined hierarchical clustering analysis and independent component analysis

Cognitive experiments involving motor execution (ME) and motor imagery (MI) have been intensively studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). However, the functional networks of a multitask paradigm which include ME and MI were not widely explored. In this article, we aimed to investigate the functional networks involved in MI and ME using a method combining the hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) and the independent component analysis (ICA). Ten right-handed subjects were recruited to participate a multitask experiment with conditions such as visual cue, MI, ME and rest. The results showed that four activation clusters were found including parts of the visual network, ME network, the MI network and parts of the resting state network. Furthermore, the integration among these functional networks was also revealed. The findings further demonstrated that the combined HCA with ICA approach was an effective method to analyze the fMRI data of multitasks.

Hidden Markov analysis describes dive patterns in semiaquatic animals

Existing methods of dive analysis, developed for fully aquatic animals, tend to focus on frequency of behaviors rather than transitions between them. They, therefore, do not account for the variability of behavior of semiaquatic animals, and the switching between terrestrial and aquatic environments. This is the first study to use hidden Markov models (HMM) to divide dives of a semiaquatic animal into clusters and thus identify the environmental predictors of transition between behavioral modes. We used 18 existing data sets of the dives of 14 American mink (Neovison vison) fitted with time-depth recorders in lowland England. Using HMM, we identified 3 behavioral states (1, temporal cluster of dives; 2, more loosely aggregated diving within aquatic activity; and 3, terminal dive of a cluster or a single, isolated dive). Based on the higher than expected proportion of dives in State 1, we conclude that mink tend to dive in clusters. We found no relationship between temperature and the proportion of dives in each state or between temperature and the rate of transition between states, meaning that in our study area, mink are apparently not adopting different diving strategies at different temperatures. Transition analysis between states has shown that there is no correlation between ambient temperature and the likelihood of mink switching from one state to another, that is, changing foraging modes. The variables provided good discrimination and grouped into consistent states well, indicating promise for further application of HMM and other state transition analyses in studies of semiaquatic animals.

Analysis and manipulation of the structure of odor plumes from a piezo-electric release system and measurements of upwind flight of male Almond Moths, Cadra cautella, to pheromone plumes

We investigated the plume structure of a piezo-electric sprayer system, set up to release ethanol in a wind tunnel, using a fast response mini-photoionizaton detector. We recorded the plume structure of four different piezo-sprayer configurations: the sprayer alone; with a 1.6-mm steel mesh shield; with a 3.2-mm steel mesh shield; and with a 5 cm circular upwind baffle. We measured a 12 × 12-mm core at the center of the plume, and both a horizontal and vertical cross-section of the plume, all at 100-, 200-, and 400-mm downwind of the odor source. Significant differences in plume structure were found among all configurations in terms of conditional relative mean concentration, intermittency, ratio of peak concentration to conditional mean concentration, and cross-sectional area of the plume. We then measured the flight responses of the almond moth, Cadra cautella, to odor plumes generated with the sprayer alone, and with the upwind baffle piezo-sprayer configuration, releasing a 13:1 ratio of (9Z,12E)-tetradecadienyl acetate and (Z)-9-tetradecenyl acetate diluted in ethanol at release rates of 1, 10, 100, and 1,000 pg/min. For each configuration, differences in pheromone release rate resulted in significant differences in the proportions of moths performing oriented flight and landing behaviors. Additionally, there were apparent differences in the moths’ behaviors between the two sprayer configurations, although this requires confirmation with further experiments. This study provides evidence that both pheromone concentration and plume structure affect moth orientation behavior and demonstrates that care is needed when setting up experiments that use a piezo-electric release system to ensure the optimal conditions for behavioral observations.