Neurotypical Control Participants Research Articles

Anomia in people with rapidly evolving severe relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis: both word retrieval inaccuracy and delay are common symptoms

ABSTRACTBackground: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a neurodegenerative disease that produces plaques throughout the central nervous system. MS can present in four different clinical courses. Of these, Relapsing-Remitting MS (RRMS) is the main clinical course, especially at early stages of the disease. Rapidly evolving severe (RES) RRMS is a form of RRMS in which an individual has two or more disabling relapses in one year and evidence of increasing lesions on two consecutive MRI scans. MS affects the cortical and subcortical pathways of the brain leading to impairment in both physical and cognitive skills. Speech, language and communication deficits more broadly, have been acknowledged in the MS literature, but relatively little research has focused on these symptoms.Aims: To examine communication deficits in people with (RES) RRMS, with specific focus on anomic symptoms – difficulties in word retrieval, examining measures of both accuracy and latency (time intervals for accurate word retrieval).Methods & Procedures: A communication screening assessment was conducted with 100 participants with (RES) RRMS. This screening assessment consisted of the ACE-R cognitive screen, a bespoke picture naming task, reading words aloud from the National Adult Reading Test (NART) and the Pyramids and Palm Trees Test. The picture naming task obtained timed naming responses for sixty pictures of objects from the International Picture Naming Project (IPNP). Results for participants with MS (PWMS) were compared to matched neurotypical control participants (n = 40) and normative test data.Outcomes & Results: The group mean performance for PWMS was below the lower end of the neuro-typical control range for the cognitive screen and picture naming tasks. The reading aloud and semantic association mean scores were within the neuro-typical range but towards the lower end of this range. Anomic symptoms for PWMS presented as both lapses in word retrieval and reduced speed of word retrieval. Word retrieval latency was on average 26% slower for PWMS. Within the anomic symptoms, there were instances of inaccuracy (42% of participants) as well as slow naming latency (31% of participants) in retrieving words. There was evidence of mild dysarthria for 33% of participants. Regression analyses suggested the anomic symptoms were most strongly associated with semantic processing deficits.Conclusions: Anomic symptoms are common in (RES) RRMS, and present as inaccuracy as well as slow word retrieval latency. The prevalence and cognitive nature of anomic symptoms require further research across the range of presentations of MS.

Silent shapes and shapeless sounds: the robustness of the diminished crossmodal correspondences effect in autism spectrum conditions

We performed a registered replication of the Oberman and Ramachandran (Soc Neurosci 3(3–4):348–355, 2008) study on the ‘kiki/bouba’ effect in autism spectrum conditions (ASC). The aim of the study was to test the robustness of the diminished crossmodal correspondences effect in autism, but also to verify whether this effect is not an artifact of differences in intelligence. We tested a Polish-speaking sample of 21 participants with ADOS-confirmed autism spectrum conditions (mean age 15.90) and 21 age- (mean age 15.86), sex- and IQ-matched neurotypical control participants. Procedure closely followed the replicated study. Participants’ task was to match five pairs of unfamiliar words and shapes. Matching words and shapes had similar supramodal characteristics that allowed the match. We report partial replication of the diminished ‘kiki/bouba’ effect in individuals with ASC compared to the neurotypical control group. However, we found that nonverbal intelligence also significantly contributed to task performance, but only in participants with autism, suggesting a compensatory role of intelligence. Finally, the effect of autism severity (measured by ADOS classification) was significant—crossmodal correspondences were weaker in individuals with autism, compared to those with autism spectrum diagnosis.

Are ‘neurotypical controls’ really neurotypical? Individual differences in mental health traits in ‘control’ populations

Are ‘neurotypical controls’ really neurotypical? Individual differences in mental health traits in ‘control’ populations

Short-term memory span in aphasia: Insights from speech-timing measures.

Auditory-verbal short-term memory impairments are part and parcel of aphasia and interfere with linguistic processing. To date, the science about short-term memory impairments in aphasia has been generated and dominated by studying measures of accuracy, that is, span length. Because accuracy is expressed through speech, examining the speech-timing characteristics of persons with aphasia as they engage in spoken recall could reveal insights about the manner in which accuracy is achieved. Six speech-timing measures (e.g., response durations, pause durations) were elicited from the speech waveform of word span tasks from twelve people with aphasia. Speech-timing measures were compared to neuro-typical control participants. Speech-timing performance between erroneous and correct responses in the aphasia group was also examined. Across all measures, people with aphasia produced considerably longer speech-timing patterns in comparison to control participants. Memory load affected some measures in people with aphasia and control participants. Speech-timing in correct response trials was shorter than responses in erroneous trials. Memory span correlated only with one measure, namely, speech time (defined as the sum of each individual word duration in a response). Speech time also correlated with the following measures: Aphasia severity (Aphasia Quotient of the Western Aphasia Battery), spontaneous speech, and language comprehension (also measured by the Western Aphasia Battery). Some protracted speech-timing patterns in the aphasia group may be explained by a deregulation of activation-decay patterns. However, in the absence of further evidence from people with aphasia, possible issues around the sensitivity of some speech-timing measures limit firmer conclusions. Speech-timing measures are response-time measures, which have not been systematically studied in studies of short-term or working memory in aphasia and as such, can push the current boundaries of knowledge of short-term and working memory impairments in aphasia, not only in stroke related aphasia but also other neurological conditions.

How young adults with autism spectrum disorder watch and interpret pragmatically complex scenes.

The aim of the current study was to investigate subtle characteristics of social perception and interpretation in high-functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), and to study the relation between watching and interpreting. As a novelty, we used an approach that combined moment-by-moment eye tracking and verbal assessment. Sixteen young adults with ASD and 16 neurotypical control participants watched a video depicting a complex communication situation while their eye movements were tracked. The participants also completed a verbal task with questions related to the pragmatic content of the video. We compared verbal task scores and eye movements between groups, and assessed correlations between task performance and eye movements. Individuals with ASD had more difficulty than the controls in interpreting the video, and during two short moments there were significant group differences in eye movements. Additionally, we found significant correlations between verbal task scores and moment-level eye movement in the ASD group, but not among the controls. We concluded that participants with ASD had slight difficulties in understanding the pragmatic content of the video stimulus and attending to social cues, and that the connection between pragmatic understanding and eye movements was more pronounced for participants with ASD than for neurotypical participants.

Social cognition and communication skills in Asperger syndrome young adults

Abstract: The aim of this study is to compare patients with Asperger syndrome (AS) and control participants on social cognition tasks and communication skills. Twenty young adults were assessed in three social cognition domains; recognition of basic emotions, recognition of complex emotions and Theory of Mind (ToM). In addition participants completed a self-report questionnaire as a measure of social communication skills. The results indicate that adults with AS perform below neurotypical control participants in emotion processing, ToM and communication skills. There were no significant correlations between the variables of social cognition and communication skills in the group of AS. Taken together, results suggest that people with a diagnosis of AS present a deficit in ToM and emotional processing as well as in communication skills. However, it was not possible to identify a significant association between the variables of social cognition and communication skills. Cognición social y habilidades de comunicación en adultos jóvenes con síndrome de Asperger Resumen: El objetivo de este trabajo es estudiar la ejecución de personas con síndrome de Asperger (AS) en tareas de cognición social y de habilidades comunicacionales. Para ello se evaluaron veinte adultos jóvenes en tres áreas de la cognición social, reconocimiento de emociones básicas, reconocimiento de emociones complejas y Teoría de la Mente (ToM). Además los participantes completaron un autoinforme sobre habilidades de comunicación social. Los resultados indican que los adultos con SA obtienen una peor ejecución en las tareas de procesamiento de las emociones (tanto básicas como complejas), en tareas de ToM y en habilidades de comunicación. No se han obtenido correlaciones significativas entre las variables de cognición social y las habilidades de comunicación. En conjunto, los resultados sugieren que las personas con un diagnóstico de SA presentan un déficit en el procesamiento emocional y de ToM, así como en las habilidades de comunicación. Sin embargo, no fue posible identificar una asociación significativa entre las diferentes variables de cognición social evaluadas y las habilidades de comunicación.

Proverb comprehension in individuals with agenesis of the corpus callosum

Comprehension of non-literal language involves multiple neural systems likely involving callosal connections. We describe proverb comprehension impairments in individuals with isolated agenesis of the corpus callosum (AgCC) and normal-range general intelligence. Experiment 1 compared Gorham Proverb Test (Gorham, 1956) performance in 19 adults with AgCC and 33 neurotypical control participants of similar age, sex, and intelligence. Experiment 2 used the Proverbs subtest of the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS, 2001) to compare 19 adults with AgCC and 17 control participants with similar age, sex, and intelligence. Gorham Proverbs performance was impaired in the AgCC group for both the free-response and multiple-choice tasks. On the D-KEFS proverbs test, the AgCC group performed significantly worse on the free-response task (and all derivative scores) despite normal levels of performance on the multiple-choice task. Covarying verbal intelligence did not alter these outcomes. However, covarying a measure of non-literal language comprehension considerably reduced group differences in proverb comprehension on the Gorham test, but had little effect on the D-KEFS group differences. The difference between groups seemed to be greatest when participants had to generate their own interpretation (free response), or in the multiple choice format when the test included many proverbs that were likely to be less familiar. Taken together, the results of this study clearly show that proverb comprehension is diminished in individuals with AgCC compared to their peers.

Structural Prediction in Aphasia: Evidence from either.

Young neurotypical adults engage in prediction during language comprehension (e.g., Altmann & Kamide, 1999; Staub & Clifton, 2006; Yoshida, Dickey & Sturt, 2013). The role of prediction in aphasic comprehension is less clear. Some evidence suggests that lexical prediction may be spared in aphasia (Dickey et al., 2014; Love & Webb, 1977; cf. Mack et al, 2013), and there is even indication that structural prediction may be spared in some people with aphasia (PWA; e.g. Hanne, Burchert, De Bleser, & Vashishth, 2015). The current self-paced reading experiment manipulated the presence of either to examine structural prediction among PWA and a set of similar-aged neurotypical control participants. Consistent with intact structural prediction for both groups of participants, when either preceded a disjunction, reading times were faster on the or and second disjunct (cf. Staub & Clifton, 2006). For neurotypical controls, this effect of the presence vs. absence of either shrank reliably as more experimental items were encountered, whereas for PWA there was a non-significant trend for it to grow as more experimental items were encountered. These findings indicate that PWA and older neurotypical individuals can use a lexical cue to predict the structural form of upcoming material during comprehension, but that on-line adaptation to patterns in the local context may be different for the two groups.

Diminished neural adaptation during implicit learning in autism

Neuroimaging studies have shown evidence of disrupted neural adaptation during learning in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in several types of tasks, potentially stemming from frontal-posterior cortical underconnectivity (Schipul et al., 2012). The aim of the current study was to examine neural adaptations in an implicit learning task that entails participation of frontal and posterior regions. Sixteen high-functioning adults with ASD and sixteen neurotypical control participants were trained on and performed an implicit dot pattern prototype learning task in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session. During the preliminary exposure to the type of implicit prototype learning task later to be used in the scanner, the ASD participants took longer than the neurotypical group to learn the task, demonstrating altered implicit learning in ASD. After equating task structure learning, the two groups' brain activation differed during their learning of a new prototype in the subsequent scanning session. The main findings indicated that neural adaptations in a distributed task network were reduced in the ASD group, relative to the neurotypical group, and were related to ASD symptom severity. Functional connectivity was reduced and did not change as much during learning for the ASD group, and was related to ASD symptom severity. These findings suggest that individuals with ASD show altered neural adaptations during learning, as seen in both activation and functional connectivity measures. This finding suggests why many real-world implicit learning situations may pose special challenges for ASD.

Neurobiology of Sensory Overresponsivity in Youth With Autism Spectrum Disorders.

More than half of youth with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have sensory overresponsivity (SOR), an extreme negative reaction to sensory stimuli. However, little is known about the neurobiological basis of SOR, and there are few effective treatments. Understanding whether SOR is due to an initial heightened sensory response or to deficits in regulating emotional reactions to stimuli has important implications for intervention. To determine differences in brain responses, habituation, and connectivity during exposure to mildly aversive sensory stimuli in youth with ASDs and SOR compared with youth with ASDs without SOR and compared with typically developing control subjects. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine brain responses and habituation to mildly aversive auditory and tactile stimuli in 19 high-functioning youths with ASDs and 19 age- and IQ-matched, typically developing youths (age range, 9-17 years). Brain activity was related to parents' ratings of children's SOR symptoms. Functional connectivity between the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex was compared between ASDs subgroups with and without SOR and typically developing controls without SOR. The study dates were March 2012 through February 2014. Relative increases in blood oxygen level-dependent signal response across the whole brain and within the amygdala during exposure to sensory stimuli compared with fixation, as well as correlation between blood oxygen level-dependent signal change in the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex. The mean age in both groups was 14 years and the majority in both groups (16 of 19 each) were male. Compared with neurotypical control participants, participants with ASDs displayed stronger activation in primary sensory cortices and the amygdala (P < .05, corrected). This activity was positively correlated with SOR symptoms after controlling for anxiety. The ASDs with SOR subgroup had decreased neural habituation to stimuli in sensory cortices and the amygdala compared with groups without SOR. Youth with ASDs without SOR showed a pattern of amygdala downregulation, with negative connectivity between the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex (thresholded at z > 1.70, P < .05). Results demonstrate that youth with ASDs and SOR show sensorilimbic hyperresponsivity to mildly aversive tactile and auditory stimuli, particularly to multiple modalities presented simultaneously, and show that this hyperresponsivity is due to failure to habituate. In addition, findings suggest that a subset of youth with ASDs can regulate their responses through prefrontal downregulation of amygdala activity. Implications for intervention include minimizing exposure to multiple sensory modalities and building coping strategies for regulating emotional response to stimuli.

Impaired Comprehension of Alternating Syntactic Constructions in Autism

Individuals on the higher-functioning end of the autism spectrum have significant impairments in communication. Language delay can occur, particularly in syntactic or structural linguistic knowledge. However, classically observed semantic deficits generally overshadow these structural deficits. This research examined the potential effects on comprehension of dative expressions that exhibited syntactic alternation versus those that were restricted, whether in syntactic construction or through marked semantic differences in construction. Children with autism and matched neurotypical control participants were presented with a sentence battery of dative statements representing these variations in construction and were asked to display basic comprehension of the sentence meaning by identifying the recipient, or indirect object, of the dative verb. Construction, restriction, and semantic differentiation variables were analyzed for potential effects on the rate of accurate comprehension. Both groups performed with greater accuracy when dative expressions used a prepositional phrase than when the dative action was expressed in the syntax. The autism group performed more poorly when the dative expression could syntactically alternate than when it was restricted. These effects improve our knowledge of how children with autism understand alternating grammatical constructions. Autism Res 2014, 7: 314–321. © 2013 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Effects of Intranasal Oxytocin on the Neural Basis of Face Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with altered face processing and decreased activity in brain regions involved in face processing. The neuropeptide oxytocin has been shown to promote face processing and modulate brain activity in healthy adults. The present study examined the effects of oxytocin on the neural basis of face processing in adults with Asperger syndrome (AS). A group of 14 individuals with AS and a group of 14 neurotypical control participants performed a face-matching and a house-matching task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. The effects of a single dose of 24 IU intranasally administered oxytocin were tested in a randomized, placebo-controlled, within-subject, cross-over design. Under placebo, the AS group showed decreased activity in the right amygdala, fusiform gyrus, and inferior occipital gyrus compared with the control group during face processing. After oxytocin treatment, right amygdala activity to facial stimuli increased in the AS group. These findings indicate that oxytocin increases the saliency of social stimuli and in ASD and suggest that oxytocin might promote face processing and eye contact in individuals with ASD as prerequisites for neurotypical social interaction.

Distinctive Neural Processes during Learning in Autism

This functional magnetic resonance imaging study compared the neural activation patterns of 18 high-functioning individuals with autism and 18 IQ-matched neurotypical control participants as they learned to perform a social judgment task. Participants learned to identify liars among pairs of computer-animated avatars uttering the same sentence but with different facial and vocal expressions, namely those that have previously been associated with lying versus truth-telling. Despite showing a behavioral learning effect similar to the control group, the autism group did not show the same pattern of decreased activation in cortical association areas as they learned the task. Furthermore, the autism group showed a significantly smaller increase in interregion synchronization of activation (functional connectivity) with learning than did the control group. Finally, the autism group had decreased structural connectivity as measured by corpus callosum size, and this measure was reliably related to functional connectivity measures. The findings suggest that cortical underconnectivity in autism may constrain the ability of the brain to rapidly adapt during learning.

Writing, Asperger Syndrome and Theory of Mind

This research compared the written compositions of 16 adults with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders and 16 neurotypical control participants, and examined the influence of theory of mind on their writing. Participants ranging in age from 17years to 42years, matched on Vocabulary subtest scores from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (1997), completed the Social Attribution Task and wrote an expository and a narrative text. Texts were assessed on 18 variables representing quality, mechanics, and length. It was found that adults with HFASD wrote lower quality narrative and expository texts, and narratives of shorter length. Theory of mind was positively associated with writing quality and text length across both genres.

Absence of Embodied Empathy During Pain Observation in Asperger Syndrome

Asperger syndrome (AS) is a neurodevelopmental condition within the autism spectrum conditions (ASC) characterized by specific difficulties in communication, social interaction, and empathy that is essential for sharing and understanding others' feelings and emotions. Although reduced empathy is considered a core feature of ASC, neurophysiological evidence of empathic deficits before and below mentalizing and perspective taking is lacking. We explored whether people with AS differ from neurotypical control participants in their empathic corticospinal response to the observation of others' pain and the modulatory role played by phenomenal experience of observed pain and personality traits. Sixteen right-handed men with AS (aged 28.0+/-7.2 years) and 20 neurotypical controls (aged 25.3+/-6.7 years) age, sex, and IQ matched, underwent single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation during observation of painful and nonpainful stimuli affecting another individual. When observing other's pain, participants with AS, in contrast to neurotypical control participants, did not show any amplitude reduction of motor-evoked potentials recorded from the muscle vicariously affected by pain, nor did their neurophysiological response correlate with imagined pain sensory qualities. Participants with AS represented others' pain in relation to the self-oriented arousal experienced while watching pain videos. Finding no embodiment of others' pain provides neurophysiological evidence for reduced empathic resonance in people with AS and indicates that their empathic difficulties involve not only cognitive dimensions but also sensorimotor resonance with others. We suggest that absence of embodied empathy may be linked to changes at very basic levels of neural processing.

The Neural Circuitry Mediating Shifts in Behavioral Response and Cognitive Set in Autism

Recent studies have suggested that the social and cognitive impairments in autism are associated with neural processing deficits in specific brain regions. However, these studies have primarily focused on neural systems responsible for face processing and social behaviors. Although repetitive, stereotyped behaviors are a hallmark of autism, little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying these behaviors in the disorder. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural correlates of shifts in behavioral response and cognitive set in 18 individuals with high-functioning autism and 15 neurotypical control participants. Participants performed a target detection task specifically designed to distinguish shifts in response from shifts in cognitive set. Individuals with autism showed lower accuracy on response shifting trials, independent of whether those trials also required a shift in cognitive set. Compared with control subjects, participants with autism showed reduced activation in frontal, striatal, and parietal regions during these trials. In addition, within the autism group, the severity of restricted, repetitive behaviors was negatively correlated with activation in anterior cingulate and posterior parietal regions. These results suggest that executive deficits and, by extension, repetitive behaviors associated with autism might reflect a core dysfunction within the brain's executive circuitry.