Individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have difficulties navigating dynamic everyday situations that contain multiple sensory inputs that need to either be attended to or ...ignored. As conventional experimental tasks lack this type of everyday complexity, we administered a film-based multi-talker condition with auditory distractors in the background. ADHD-related aberrant brain responses to this naturalistic stimulus were identified using intersubject correlations (ISCs) in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data collected from 51 adults with ADHD and 29 healthy controls. A novel permutation-based approach introducing studentized statistics and subject-wise voxel-level null-distributions revealed that several areas in cerebral attention networks and sensory cortices were desynchronized in participants with ADHD (n = 20) relative to healthy controls (n = 20). Specifically, desynchronization of the posterior parietal cortex occurred when irrelevant speech or music was presented in the background, but not when irrelevant white noise was presented, or when there were no distractors. We also show regionally distinct ISC signatures for inattention and impulsivity. Finally, post-scan recall of the film contents was associated with stronger ISCs in the default-mode network for the ADHD and in the dorsal attention network for healthy controls. The present study shows that ISCs can further our understanding of how a complex environment influences brain states in ADHD.
•We used a naturalistic multi-talker condition to reveal aberrant brain synchronization in ADHD.•Intersubject correlations (ISCs) in attention-related brain areas were decreased in ADHD.•ISCs in the parietal cortex were weaker in ADHD during irrelevant speech or music.•ISCs in different regions were associated with symptoms and with recall of the film content.•We demonstrate the advantages of using naturalistic conditions when studying the neural underpinnings of ADHD.
We examined the emotional and psychophysiological underpinnings of social interaction in the context of autism spectrum disorder, more specifically, involving participants diagnosed with Asperger ...syndrome (AS). We recorded participants' autonomic nervous system (ANS) activation (electrodermal activity, heart rate, and heart rate variability) and facial muscle activation during conversations in two different types of male dyads: (1) ten dyads where one participant has been diagnosed with AS (AS/NT dyads) and (2) nine dyads where both participants are neurotypical (NT/NT dyads). Afterwards, three independent raters assessed continuously each participant's affiliative and dominant behaviors during the first and last 10 minutes of the conversations. The relationship between the assessed data and ANS responses was examined. We found that, in the NT/NT dyads, a high level of affiliation displayed by the conversational partner calms down the participant when they are actively dominating the interaction. In contrast, when the participants themselves expressed affiliation, their psychophysiological responses indicated increase in arousal, which suggests that the giving of affiliation is physiologically "hard work." The affiliation-related ANS responses were similar in those NT participants whose conversational partner had AS, while some differences in facial muscle activation did occur in comparison to NT/NT dyads. In the AS participants, in contrast, a high level of affiliation provided by the conversational partner was associated with increase in arousal, suggesting heightened alertness and stress. As for their own affiliative behavior, the AS participants exhibited similar indicators of alertness and stress as the NT participants, but only when their own level of dominance was low. Our results increase understanding of how individuals with AS experience social interaction at the physiological level, and how this experience differs from that in NT individuals. Moreover, our results confirm and further specify our earlier results, where we proposed that affiliation involves the type of "sharing of the burden" that also reverberates in the participants' bodies.
Asperger’s syndrome (AS), a pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), has nowadays been widely advocated in media. Therefore, psychiatrists treating adolescents frequently meet patients as well as ...their families reporting of symptoms resembling those of Asperger’s syndrome. It is known that symptoms of Asperger’s syndrome have some overlap with those of schizophrenia, but less is known about comorbidity between these two syndromes. We describe a sample of 18 adolescents with early onset schizophrenia. Diagnosis of schizophrenia was based on assessment with Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia. The diagnostic interview for Social and Communication Disorders version 11 was used to assess autism spectrum disorders. Ten adolescents fulfilled symptom criteria of Asperger’s syndrome after the onset of schizophrenia, while only two persons had Asperger’s syndrome before the onset of schizophrenia, a prerequisite for diagnosis. 44 % of the adolescents fulfilled the diagnosis of some PDD in childhood. Most of them were, however, unrecognized before the onset of schizophrenia. On the other hand, all 18 patients had one or more symptoms of PDDS in adolescence. Adolescents with schizophrenia have often symptoms consistent with AS, although only few of them have fulfilled the diagnostic criteria in their childhood, a prerequisite for the diagnosis of AS. There is a risk for misdiagnosis of adolescents with autistic symptoms if detailed longitudinal anamnesis is not obtained.
Two themes have puzzled the research on developmental and learning disorders for decades. First, some of the risk and protective factors behind developmental challenges are suggested to be shared and ...some to be specific for a given condition. Second, language-based learning difficulties like dyslexia are suggested to result from or correlate with also nonlinguistic aspects of information processing. In the current study, we investigated how adults with developmental dyslexia and ADHD as well as healthy controls cluster across various dimensions designed to tap the prominent nonlinguistic theories of dyslexia. Participants were 18–55-year-old adults with dyslexia (n = 36), ADHD (n = 22), and controls (n = 35). Nonlinguistic theories investigated with experimental designs included temporal processing impairment, abnormal cerebellar functioning, procedural learning difficulties as well as visual processing and attention deficits. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to investigate the emerging groups and patterns of results across these experimental designs. LPA suggested three groups: 1) a large group with average performance in the experimental designs, 2) participants predominantly from the clinical groups but with enhanced conditioning learning, and 3) participants predominantly from the dyslexia group with temporal processing as well as visual processing and attention deficits. Despite the presence of these distinct patterns, participants did not cluster very well based on their original status, nor did the LPA groups differ in their dyslexia or ADHD-related neuropsychological profiles. Remarkably, the LPA groups did differ in their intelligence. These results highlight the continuous and overlapping nature of the observed difficulties and support the multiple deficit model of developmental disorders, which suggests shared risk factors for developmental challenges. It also appears that some of the risk factors suggested by the prominent nonlinguistic theories of dyslexia relate to the general level of functioning in tests of intelligence.
•Autism and psychopathy are both disorders of social cognition and share numerous of their features but still differ distinctively in their clinical phenotype.•The lower grey matter volumes in the ...right temporal pole and the left inferior frontal gyrus are the most prominent findings distinguishing violent offenders with high psychopathic from ASD individuals.•Violent offenders with high psychopatic traits and individuals with ASD both present similar l ower grey matter volumes in the right precentral cortex compared to controls.
The goal of this study was to elucidate the anatomical brain basis of social cognition through two disorders with distinctively different phenotypes of social interaction. We compared structural MR images of 20 individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 19 violent offenders with high psychopathic traits, and 19 control participants using voxel-based morphometry (VBM). Our earlier study showed lower grey matter volume (GMV) values in the insula, frontal cortex, and sensorimotor cortex of the offender group compared to controls. In the present study, the images of the ASD group revealed lower GMV in the left precuneus, right cerebellum, and right precentral gyrus in comparison with controls. The comparison between the offender and ASD groups showed lower GMV values for the right temporal pole and left inferior frontal gyrus in the offender group. There was also an overlap of both disorders in the right pre-central cortex, showing lower GMV compared to controls. Our findings suggest structural differences between violent offenders with high psychopathy traits and ASD individuals in the frontotemporal social brain network areas, previously associated with empathy. We also provide evidence of similar abnormal structures in the motor cortex for both of these disorders, possibly related to uniting issues of social cognition.
► Visual attention was investigated in adults with dyslexia, ADHD, and controls. ► Temporal attention: dyslexia group was impaired in the attentional blink task. ► Spatial attention: dyslexia group ...had difficulties in the useful field of view task. ► Attentional capacity: multiple object tracking task did not differentiate the groups. ► Attentional performance predicted variation in phonological processing and reading.
In this study of the project DyAdd, three aspects of visual attention were investigated in adults (18–55years) with dyslexia (n=35) or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, n=22), and in healthy controls (n=35). Temporal characteristics of visual attention were assessed with Attentional Blink (AB), capacity of visual attention with Multiple Object Tracking (MOT), and spatial aspects of visual attention with Useful Field of View (UFOV) task. Results showed that adults with dyslexia had difficulties performing the AB and UFOV tasks, which were explained by an impaired ability to process dual targets, longer AB recovery time, and deficits in processing rapidly changing visual displays. The ADHD group did not have difficulties in any of the tasks. Further, performance in the visual attention tasks predicted variation in measures of phonological processing and reading when all of the participants were considered together. Thus, difficulties in tasks of visual attention were related to dyslexia and variation of visual attention had a role in the reading ability of the general population.
The aim of this study was to investigate potential differences in neural structure in individuals with Asperger syndrome (AS), high-functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The ...main symptoms of AS are severe impairments in social interactions and restricted or repetitive patterns of behaviors, interests or activities.
Diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired for 14 adult males with AS and 19 age, sex and IQ-matched controls. Voxelwise group differences in fractional anisotropy (FA) were studied with tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS). Based on the results of TBSS, a tract-level comparison was performed with constrained spherical deconvolution (CSD)-based tractography, which is able to detect complex (for example, crossing) fiber configurations. In addition, to investigate the relationship between the microstructural changes and the severity of symptoms, we looked for correlations between FA and the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ), Empathy Quotient and Systemizing Quotient.
TBSS revealed widely distributed local increases in FA bilaterally in individuals with AS, most prominent in the temporal part of the superior longitudinal fasciculus, corticospinal tract, splenium of corpus callosum, anterior thalamic radiation, inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFO), posterior thalamic radiation, uncinate fasciculus and inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF). CSD-based tractography also showed increases in the FA in multiple tracts. However, only the difference in the left ILF was significant after a Bonferroni correction. These results were not explained by the complexity of microstructural organization, measured using the planar diffusion coefficient. In addition, we found a correlation between AQ and FA in the right IFO in the whole group.
Our results suggest that there are local and tract-level abnormalities in white matter (WM) microstructure in our homogenous and carefully characterized group of adults with AS, most prominent in the left ILF.
As pyromania is a rare diagnosis with questionable validity, we aimed to describe a forensic psychiatric population of arson recidivists.
The medical records as well as the forensic psychiatric ...examination statements of 90 arson recidivists referred for pretrial psychiatric assessment in Helsinki University Hospital Department of Forensic Psychiatry between 1973 and 1993 were reviewed.
The most important diagnostic categories of arson recidivists were personality disorders, psychosis and mental retardation, often with comorbid alcoholism. In all, 68% of arsonists were under alcohol intoxication during the index crime. Psychotic as well as mentally retarded persons with repeated fire-setting behaviour were mostly "pure arsonists"--persons guilty only of arsons during their criminal careers. Arson recidivists with personality disorder, in contrast, often exhibited various types of criminal behaviour and arson appeared to be only one expression of a wide range of criminal activity. Comorbid alcoholism was apparently a more rarely observed phenomenon among pure arsonists than in "nonpure arsonists". We found only three subjects fulfilling the present diagnostic criteria for pyromania.
Using the criteria of the DSM-IV-TR, pyromania must be regarded as an extremely rare phenomenon. Especially the question of substance intoxication as an exclusion criterion for pyromania should be reconsidered.
Abstract The serotonin transporter (SERT) in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) patients has not been explored by earlier positron emission tomography (PET) studies. We measured SERT ...availability in female ADHD patients ( n =8) and healthy controls ( n =14) with PET and 11 CMADAM as a tracer. No significant group differences in 11 CMADAM binding potential were noted.
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