Showing posts with label Research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Research. Show all posts

Time Magazine Article

 https://time.com/6299599/autism-research-limited-essay/


My article in Time Magazine
" autism research has ... essentially oversampled the same, narrow band of what are considered the easily “researchable autistics,” and expected those findings (as well as the applications and interventions that resulted from them) to apply to everyone."
" If we are left out of research, we are left out of the solutions as well. "



Perna et al - Autism and Vision, A Meta Analysis

    Association between Autism and vision problems. A systematic review and meta-analysis

  • Visual impairments, including refractive errors and reduced convergence, are more prevalent in autism compared to the general population.
  • Sensory abnormalities, such as altered visual perception and global motion perception deficits, are commonly observed in autistics
  • There is a need for further research to understand the relationship between visual impairments and autism, as well as the impact of these in Autistics.

Perna, J., Bellato, A., Ganapathy, P.S. et al. Association between Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and vision problems. A systematic review and meta-analysis. Mol Psychiatry (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-023-02143-7

Simultaneity Window

[Concepts in Sensorimotor Research]

Simultaneity Window (SW) refers to a temporal window within which the brain perceives stimuli from different sensory modalities as occurring simultaneously. It represents the temporal range over which the brain integrates sensory inputs from different modalities into a coherent percept.

If stimuli from different modalities fall within the SW, they are likely to be perceptually integrated, whereas if they fall outside the SW, they may be perceived as separate events.

Commonly used research tasks to measure SW
  • Temporal Order Judgment (TOJ): participants are presented with 2 stimuli, one in each sensory modality (e.g., a flash of light and a beep), and they have to determine the order in which the stimuli occurred.
  • Simultaneity Judgment (SJ): Participants are presented with 2 stimuli, from different modalities, and they have to judge whether the stimuli were perceived as simultaneous or not.
  • Temporal Alignment Task: Participants are presented with a stimulus in one modality and have to adjust the timing of a stimulus in the other modality until it is perceived as synchronous with the first stimulus. This helps in determining the temporal window of integration.
  • Temporal Recalibration Task: Participants are exposed to a consistent asynchrony between stimuli from different modalities over a period of time. Following this exposure, their perception of simultaneity is tested to see if it has been recalibrated.
The perception of simultaneity can vary across individuals and is influenced by various factors such as attention, age, disability, the specific sensory modalities involved, and distance of stimuli (as determined by, say the PPS).

Psychophysics and Autism

The field of psychophysics explores how humans perceive and interpret sensory information, including vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. It investigates how changes in physical stimuli result in changes in perception, allowing researchers to measure and quantify the relationships between physical stimuli and perceptual experiences.

Psychophysical experiments often involve participants making judgments or providing responses to stimuli under controlled conditions. These experiments use psychophysical techniques to measure and analyze perceptual thresholds, discrimination abilities, response biases, and other aspects of sensory perception.

Some common psychophysical methods and measures include:
  • Threshold determination: Identifying the minimum or maximum level of a stimulus that can be detected or discriminated.
  • Scaling: Estimating subjective perceptions using rating scales or magnitude estimation.
  • Difference thresholds: Assessing the smallest detectable difference between two stimuli.
  • Response time measures: Examining the speed of processing or decision-making in response to stimuli.

Psychophysics has contributed to our understanding of sensory perception, including concepts such as Weber's Law, Stevens' Power Law, and Fechner's Law. It has applications in various fields, such as vision science, auditory perception, psychopharmacology, and the study of human factors in design and technology.

Use of Psychophysics in  Autism Research
  • Sensory processing differences at various levels, such as visual, auditory, and tactile domains. Researchers have utilized psychophysical methods to measure thresholds, discrimination abilities, and response biases related to sensory perception. This helps in identifying specific sensory sensitivities, hypo- or hyper responsiveness, and atypical processing patterns in individuals with autism
  • Perceptual integration and binding of perceptual features, such as color, motion, or shape, in autistics. By examining how autistics perceive and integrate different sensory information, researchers gain insights into potential difficulties in integrating and perceiving coherent perceptual representations.
  • Face and emotion perception studies investigate perceptual thresholds, discrimination abilities, and biases related to facial features, expressions, and emotional cues. They can provide insights into the specific challenges  in perceiving and interpreting social cues.
  • Multisensory processing: Psychophysics has been utilized to explore how autistics integrate information from multiple sensory modalities. By measuring sensory integration and cross-modal processing abilities, researchers gain a better understanding of how individuals combine information from different sensory channels, which can contribute to their overall perceptual experiences.










Review v Meta Analysis

I continue to learn....as I navigate grad school

Review vs Meta-Analysis
A review paper /literature review, provides a comprehensive overview and evaluation of existing research on a particular topic. It involves gathering information from multiple sources, such as research articles, books, and other relevant publications, and synthesizing the findings to summarize the current state of knowledge on the topic. Review papers typically do not involve statistical analysis or original data collection.

A meta-analysis is a specific type of research synthesis that involves combining and analyzing quantitative data from multiple studies to generate more robust conclusions. Researchers identify relevant studies, extract relevant data from each study, and statistically analyze the combined data to derive overall effect sizes or estimates of the relationship between variables. Meta-analyses often include a systematic review of the literature as a first step to identify relevant studies for inclusion.


Suicide Mortality in Autistics

 


No surprise, a Taiwan study found higher rates of suicide in autistics vs non-autistics. #MentalHealth

"autistic individuals had increased risks of all-cause mortality, natural-cause mortality, and suicide mortality compared with non-autistic individuals. Furthermore, autistic males were more likely to die by suicide, and autistic females were more likely to die of accident compared with the non-autistic individuals."



Trait Anxiety vs State Anxiety

Trait anxiety represents a person's general predisposition to experience anxiety, while state anxiety refers to the temporary and situational experience of anxiety in response to specific events or circumstances.

MBNCA Connectome Dataset

 




Researchers at the University of Melbourne have created a dataset that maps connectivity in 40,000 brains. The dataset, called the Melbourne Brain Network Connectivity Atlas (MBNCA) includes data on the structure and function of the brain, as well as information on the participants' demographics and health. The data in the MBNCA dataset comes from a variety of sources, including brain scans, genetic data, and behavioral data.

The MBNCA includes data from over 1,000 autistic individuals; making it one of the largest datasets of its kind. The MBNCA is freely available to researchers and may be a good resource to to study autistic brains to identify potential biomarkers and gain other insights.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.10.532036v1



Schwartzman 2023: suicidal behaviors in autistic adolescents

No surprise that suicide ideation and NSSI is higher in autistics!


Key Takeaways

  • Early adolescent autistics (total sample 239, 138 autistic) at higher risk for suicidal ideation and NSSI (non suicidal self-injurious behaviors) compared to non-autistics.
    • 20% autistics reported suicide ideation on self-report questionnaires but not to a study psychiatrist (via the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale)
  • No sex based differences seen. 

Questions that arise after reading. 
  • What are the underlying factors that contribute to the higher risk of suicidal thoughts / behaviors and NSSI in autistic early adolescents? 
  • How can clinicians improve their ability to detect these behaviors given the discrepancies between self-report and clinician-rated measures? 
  • What interventions or treatments are effective in reducing the risk of these behaviors in autistic youth? 
  • How can parents, caregivers, and educators better support autistic youth who may be at risk ? 
  • What are the long-term outcomes for autistic youth with suicidal thoughts/behaviors and NSSI?
References
Schwartzman JM, Muscatello R, Corbett BA. Assessing Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors and Nonsuicidal Self-Injury in Autistic and Non-Autistic Early Adolescents Using the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 53.2 (2023): 559-570. doi:10.1177/136236132311621. PMID 30938385

Media Mention

Media Mention On twitter. 
Thank you for the kind words. 
I hope I do indeed get to "redefine" autism research

 

McGlade et al 2023: Effectiveness of Early Intervention Therapies

My take: If early childhood therapy was so "effective", then the thousands of kids who have had massive amounts of therapy all through childhood (starting with early intervention) would have "RECOVERED" may times over. Why are my challenges still significant - ie: all that therapy did not make a dent. Currently there is no such thing as gold-standard childhood therapy. Most autism therapy is hit-or-miss, at any age. Its just $$$$ spent on trial and error. Lots of careers and promotions. 

Recently there was a twitter post pointing out that since were were no readily available "statistics" (referring to it as a "cool autism fact")  showing numbers of the more significantly impacted adult autistics meant that numbers of this group must be overstated. Others in the thread  questioned if adult autistics who did not not speak, even existed, since that autistic posting had learned to speak at age 3. This an irresponsible statement and an erasure of the huge number of non-speaking or minimal verbal adults who need to be part of the autism solutions. 

Onto the paper. 

=======



Key Takeaways from paper. 
  • Limited evidence  to recommend very early interventions for infants and toddlers with autism.
    • Limited impact of early intervention for at-risk infants/toddlers (by age 3. 
    • No significant treatment effects for autism symptoms, cognitive outcomes, receptive/expressive language. Even neurocognitive outcomes (EEG and eye tracking) were inconsistent. 
  • Gold-standard early intervention is yet to be developed.  Future treatment will need to include novel and individualized intervention targets alongside the targeting of parental responsiveness.

Questions that arise. 
  • What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and policy related to early intervention for autism?
  • What are the long-term outcomes of very early interventions for infants and toddlers with autism beyond age 3 years?
  • What are the ethical considerations related to intervening in infants and toddlers at increased likelihood of autism dx, and how can these be addressed in future research and practice?

McGlade, A., Whittingham, K., Barfoot, J., Taylor, L., & Boyd, R. N. (2023). Efficacy of very early interventions on neurodevelopmental outcomes for infants and toddlers at increased likelihood of or diagnosed with autism: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Autism Research, 16(4), 698-710. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2924

Neurexins and Autism

Neurexins had come up in my Cell Neuroscience course this semester. Connection to Autism. But of course!!


Neurexins are a family of proteins that play important roles in synaptic function. They are involved in the formation, maintenance, and plasticity of synapses, which are the junctions between neurons that allow them to communicate with each other. Mutations in neurexin genes have been linked to a number of neurodevelopmental disabilities, including autism.

A few reasons why neurexin genes might be associated with autism.
  • disrupt in function of synapses (& communication between neurons), which could contribute to the autistic social and communication challenges
  • disruption in brain development as neurexin genes expressed early in brain development, and play important roles in the formation of neural circuits.
  • impact on function of other genes as they interact with a number of other proteins.
More research is needed to understand the exact mechanisms by which mutations in neurexin genes mutations contribute to autism.

A Highly Sensitive Person

A Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) 

"Sensitivity is a heightened 'ability to .... to one’s environment'"
"I often complain about sounds, smells, or tastes that don’t seem to bother those around me..

Does that sound like Deja vu for the sensory overstimulated autistic?  
Read more in this Greater Good Science Center article.

One big vagary


Vagaries ubiquitous in autism.
Nothing standard, fractured light in a prism.
Can we conclude then, so far…..
… no evidence in any evidence really
….no clues. What’s going on in this gallery.
inexplicable me. I continue to be one big vagary.