Abstract
Brain-to-brain synchrony has been proposed as an important mechanism underlying social interaction. While first findings indicate that it may be modulated in children with autism spectrum ...disorder (ASD), no study to date has investigated the influence of different interaction partners and task characteristics. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy hyperscanning, we assessed brain-to-brain synchrony in 41 male typically developing (TD) children (8–18 years; control sample), as well as 18 children with ASD and age-matched TD children (matched sample), while performing cooperative and competitive tasks with their parents and an adult stranger. Dyads were instructed either to respond jointly in response to a target (cooperation) or to respond faster than the other player (competition). Wavelet coherence was calculated for oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin brain signals. In the control sample, a widespread enhanced coherence was observed for parent–child competition, and a more localized coherence for parent–child cooperation in the frontopolar cortex. While behaviorally, children with ASD showed a lower motor synchrony than children in the TD group, no significant group differences were observed on the neural level. In order to identify biomarkers for typical and atypical social interactions in the long run, more research is needed to investigate the neurobiological underpinnings of reduced synchrony in ASD.
Reduced social motivation is a hallmark of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Although the exact neural mechanisms are unclear, oxytocin has been shown to enhance motivation and ...attention to social stimuli, suggesting a potential to augment social reinforcement learning as the central mechanism of behavioral interventions in ASD. We tested how reinforcement learning in social contexts and associated reward prediction error (RPE) signals in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) were modulated by intranasal oxytocin. Male adults with a childhood diagnosis of ASD (n = 15) and healthy controls (n = 24; aged 18-26 years) performed a probabilistic reinforcement learning task during functional magnetic resonance imaging in a single-center (research center in Germany), randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over trial. The interventions were intranasal oxytocin (Syntocinon
, Novartis; 10 puffs = 20 international units (IUs) per treatment) and placebo spray. Using computational modeling of behavioral data, trial-by-trial RPE signals were assessed and related to brain activation in NAcc during reinforcing feedback in social and non-social contexts. The order of oxytocin/placebo was randomized for 60 participants. Twenty-one participants were excluded from analyses, leaving 39 for the final analysis. Behaviorally, individuals with ASD showed enhanced learning under oxytocin when the learning target as well as feedback was social as compared to non-social (social vs. non-social target: 87.09% vs. 71.29%, 95% confidence interval (CI): 7.28-24.33, p = .003; social vs. non-social feedback: 81.00% vs. 71.29%, 95% CI: 2.81-16.61, p = .027). Correspondingly, oxytocin enhanced the correlation of the RPE signal with NAcc activation during social (vs. non-social) feedback in ASD (3.48 vs. -1.12, respectively, 95% CI: 2.98-6.22, p = .000), whereas in controls, this effect was found in the placebo condition (2.90 vs. -1.14, respectively, 95% CI: 1.07-7.01, p = .010). In ASD, a similar pattern emerged when the learning target was social (3.00 vs. -0.64, respectively, 95% CI: -0.13 to 7.41, p = .057), whereas controls showed a reduced correlation for social learning targets under oxytocin (-0.70 vs. 2.72, respectively, 95% CI: -5.86 to 0.98, p = .008). The current data suggest that intranasal oxytocin has the potential to enhance social reinforcement learning in ASD. Future studies are warranted that investigate whether oxytocin can potentiate social learning when combined with behavioral therapies, resulting in greater treatment benefits than traditional behavior-only approaches.
Cognitive flexibility helps us to navigate through our ever-changing environment and has often been examined by reversal learning paradigms. Performance in reversal learning can be modeled using ...computational modeling which allows for the specification of biologically plausible models to infer psychological mechanisms. Although such models are increasingly used in cognitive neuroscience, developmental approaches are still scarce. Additionally, though most reversal learning paradigms have a comparable design regarding timing and feedback contingencies, the type of feedback differs substantially between studies. The present study used hierarchical Gaussian filter modeling to investigate cognitive flexibility in reversal learning in children and adolescents and the effect of various feedback types. The results demonstrate that children make more overall errors and regressive errors (when a previously learned response rule is chosen instead of the new correct response after the initial shift to the new correct target), but less perseverative errors (when a previously learned response set continues to be used despite a reversal) adolescents. Analyses of the extracted model parameters of the winning model revealed that children seem to use new and conflicting information less readily than adolescents to update their stimulus-reward associations. Furthermore, more subclinical rigidity in everyday life (parent-ratings) is related to less explorative choice behavior during the probabilistic reversal learning task. Taken together, this study provides first-time data on the development of the underlying processes of cognitive flexibility using computational modeling.
Neuroimaging studies show structural alterations of various brain regions in children and adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), although nonreplications are frequent. The ...authors sought to identify cortical characteristics related to ADHD using large-scale studies.
Cortical thickness and surface area (based on the Desikan-Killiany atlas) were compared between case subjects with ADHD (N=2,246) and control subjects (N=1,934) for children, adolescents, and adults separately in ENIGMA-ADHD, a consortium of 36 centers. To assess familial effects on cortical measures, case subjects, unaffected siblings, and control subjects in the NeuroIMAGE study (N=506) were compared. Associations of the attention scale from the Child Behavior Checklist with cortical measures were determined in a pediatric population sample (Generation-R, N=2,707).
In the ENIGMA-ADHD sample, lower surface area values were found in children with ADHD, mainly in frontal, cingulate, and temporal regions; the largest significant effect was for total surface area (Cohen's d=-0.21). Fusiform gyrus and temporal pole cortical thickness was also lower in children with ADHD. Neither surface area nor thickness differences were found in the adolescent or adult groups. Familial effects were seen for surface area in several regions. In an overlapping set of regions, surface area, but not thickness, was associated with attention problems in the Generation-R sample.
Subtle differences in cortical surface area are widespread in children but not adolescents and adults with ADHD, confirming involvement of the frontal cortex and highlighting regions deserving further attention. Notably, the alterations behave like endophenotypes in families and are linked to ADHD symptoms in the population, extending evidence that ADHD behaves as a continuous trait in the population. Future longitudinal studies should clarify individual lifespan trajectories that lead to nonsignificant findings in adolescent and adult groups despite the presence of an ADHD diagnosis.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are common neurodevelopmental disorders that frequently co-occur. The authors ...sought to directly compare these disorders using structural brain imaging data from ENIGMA consortium data.
Structural T
-weighted whole-brain MRI data from healthy control subjects (N=5,827) and from patients with ADHD (N=2,271), ASD (N=1,777), and OCD (N=2,323) from 151 cohorts worldwide were analyzed using standardized processing protocols. The authors examined subcortical volume, cortical thickness, and cortical surface area differences within a mega-analytical framework, pooling measures extracted from each cohort. Analyses were performed separately for children, adolescents, and adults, using linear mixed-effects models adjusting for age, sex, and site (and intracranial volume for subcortical and surface area measures).
No shared differences were found among all three disorders, and shared differences between any two disorders did not survive correction for multiple comparisons. Children with ADHD compared with those with OCD had smaller hippocampal volumes, possibly influenced by IQ. Children and adolescents with ADHD also had smaller intracranial volume than control subjects and those with OCD or ASD. Adults with ASD showed thicker frontal cortices compared with adult control subjects and other clinical groups. No OCD-specific differences were observed across different age groups and surface area differences among all disorders in childhood and adulthood.
The study findings suggest robust but subtle differences across different age groups among ADHD, ASD, and OCD. ADHD-specific intracranial volume and hippocampal differences in children and adolescents, and ASD-specific cortical thickness differences in the frontal cortex in adults, support previous work emphasizing structural brain differences in these disorders.
Objective
Some studies have suggested alterations of structural brain asymmetry in attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but findings have been contradictory and based on small samples. ...Here, we performed the largest ever analysis of brain left‐right asymmetry in ADHD, using 39 datasets of the ENIGMA consortium.
Methods
We analyzed asymmetry of subcortical and cerebral cortical structures in up to 1,933 people with ADHD and 1,829 unaffected controls. Asymmetry Indexes (AIs) were calculated per participant for each bilaterally paired measure, and linear mixed effects modeling was applied separately in children, adolescents, adults, and the total sample, to test exhaustively for potential associations of ADHD with structural brain asymmetries.
Results
There was no evidence for altered caudate nucleus asymmetry in ADHD, in contrast to prior literature. In children, there was less rightward asymmetry of the total hemispheric surface area compared to controls (t = 2.1, p = .04). Lower rightward asymmetry of medial orbitofrontal cortex surface area in ADHD (t = 2.7, p = .01) was similar to a recent finding for autism spectrum disorder. There were also some differences in cortical thickness asymmetry across age groups. In adults with ADHD, globus pallidus asymmetry was altered compared to those without ADHD. However, all effects were small (Cohen’s d from −0.18 to 0.18) and would not survive study‐wide correction for multiple testing.
Conclusion
Prior studies of altered structural brain asymmetry in ADHD were likely underpowered to detect the small effects reported here. Altered structural asymmetry is unlikely to provide a useful biomarker for ADHD, but may provide neurobiological insights into the trait.
Brain-to-brain synchrony has been proposed as an important mechanism underlying social interaction. While first findings indicate that it may be modulated in children with autism spectrum disorder ...(ASD), no study to date has investigated the influence of different interaction partners and task characteristics. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy hyperscanning, we assessed brain-to-brain synchrony in 41 male typically developing (TD) children (8-18 years; control sample), as well as 18 children with ASD and age-matched TD children (matched sample), while performing cooperative and competitive tasks with their parents and an adult stranger. Dyads were instructed either to respond jointly in response to a target (cooperation) or to respond faster than the other player (competition). Wavelet coherence was calculated for oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin brain signals. In the control sample, a widespread enhanced coherence was observed for parent-child competition, and a more localized coherence for parent-child cooperation in the frontopolar cortex. While behaviorally, children with ASD showed a lower motor synchrony than children in the TD group, no significant group differences were observed on the neural level. In order to identify biomarkers for typical and atypical social interactions in the long run, more research is needed to investigate the neurobiological underpinnings of reduced synchrony in ASD.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affects 5% of children world-wide. Of these, two-thirds continue to have impairing symptoms of ADHD into adulthood. Although a large literature ...implicates structural brain differences of the disorder, it is not clear if adults with ADHD have similar neuroanatomical differences as those seen in children with recent reports from the large ENIGMA-ADHD consortium finding structural differences for children but not for adults. This paper uses deep learning neural network classification models to determine if there are neuroanatomical changes in the brains of children with ADHD that are also observed for adult ADHD, and vice versa. We found that structural MRI data can significantly separate ADHD from control participants for both children and adults. Consistent with the prior reports from ENIGMA-ADHD, prediction performance and effect sizes were better for the child than the adult samples. The model trained on adult samples significantly predicted ADHD in the child sample, suggesting that our model learned anatomical features that are common to ADHD in childhood and adulthood. These results support the continuity of ADHD's brain differences from childhood to adulthood. In addition, our work demonstrates a novel use of neural network classification models to test hypotheses about developmental continuity.
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