Sensory Patterns Research Articles

Upper Limb Nerve Variations May Alter Clinical Diagnosis: A Scoping Review

Upper limb nerve variations may be related to the absence of a nerve, an interconnection between two nerves or a variant course. The purpose of this review is to screen the existing literature on upper limb nerve variations that may alter the neurologic diagnostic process. A scoping review was performed following PRISMA for Scoping Reviews guidelines. Initially, 1331 articles were identified by searching Pubmed and Web of Science until the 22nd of October 2022. After screening, reading, and additional searching 50 articles were included in this review. Variations were divided into two categories: 1) variations causing a different innervation pattern involving sensory, motor, or both types of fibers, and 2) variations causing or related to compression syndromes. Two-thirds of the included articles were cadaver studies. Nine articles were diagnostic studies on symptomatic or healthy individuals involving medical imaging and/or surgery. Nerve variations that may cause a different innervation pattern concern most frequently their interconnection. The connection between the median and musculocutaneous nerve in the upper limb and the connection between the median and ulnar nerve in the forearm (Martin-Gruber) or hand (Riche-Cannieu) may be present in half of the population. Injury to these connections may cause compound peripheral neuropathies a result of variant sensory and motor branching patterns. Muscular, vascular, or combined anomalies in the forearm were reported as causes of entrapment neuropathies. These nerve variations may mimic classical entrapment syndromes such as carpal tunnel syndrome or compression at ulnar canal (Guyon's canal). Knowledge of frequent nerve variations in the arm may be important during the diagnostic process and examination. Variant innervation patterns may explain non-classical clinical signs and/or symptoms during provocative tests. Classical nerve compression syndromes in the arm may warrant for differential diagnosis, especially in the case of persistent or recurrent symptoms.

Motor Milestones: Sensory Motor Trends of Young Children with Classic Galactosemia

ABSTRACT Speech problems affect about 66% of children with classic galactosemia (CG), but limited evidence is reported on early motor and sensory motor development in this at-risk population. Research has been focused on speech and language development, leaving a paucity of data on motor and sensory differences. This paper describes preliminary data regarding sensory motor and motor development patterns in young children with CG. Babble Boot Camp© (BBC) is an NIH-funded randomized control trial (RCT) implementing proactive interventions designed to support the speech language development of infants with CG. Cases were randomly assigned to a motor-first group (Motor Milestones), receiving virtual occupational therapy through 14 months, or a speech-first group, receiving virtual speech therapy through 14 months. All cases received speech and language therapy from 15 to 24 months. Controls, typically developing infants, did not receive occupational therapy or speech therapy. Participants were recruited through social media, advertisements, metabolic clinics, and the Galactosemia Foundation. Infants in the motor milestones group were assessed with the Developmental Assessment of Young Children and Sensory Profile-2 pre-enrollment (<6 months of age) and post-treatment follow-up at 2.5, 3.5, and 4.5 years of age. Results show that 17.5% of participants with CG had delays in gross motor, 22.5% in fine motor, and 45% in sensory processing. Data from the Motor Milestones portion of BBC are important emerging evidence for occupational therapy in early intervention, preschool, and outpatient settings. This research supports the need for occupational therapy services during early intervention to minimize or prevent long-term motor and sensorimotor delays in infants with CG. Understanding patterns and addressing literature gaps helps support the need for occupational therapists to address motor delays, improve activities of daily living, play, promote functional independence, and provide caregiver education to best support the occupational performance of children with CG.

Associations Among Clinical Factors and Occupational Therapy Service Utilization in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Limited research has elucidated factors predicting occupational therapy-specific service utilization by children with autism. Such research is needed to inform reasons for receipt of services. To examine factors associated with occupational therapy service utilization by children with autism. We hypothesized that elevated sensory hyperresponsiveness; greater sensory interests, repetitions, and seeking; and lower adaptive behavior would predict more service utilization. Analysis of extant data from a prospective, longitudinal survey study about autism symptom severity, adaptive behavior, sensory features, and demographic and service utilization information of children with autism ages 3 to 13 yr. Online parent survey regarding child behaviors during daily activities and contexts. 892 parents of children with autism from 50 U.S. states. We used scores on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale-Second Edition, the Social Responsiveness Scale, and the Sensory Experiences Questionnaire Version 3.0 and responses to a demographic questionnaire. We formulated hypotheses after data collection but before analysis. Predictors of higher occupational therapy service utilization were lower enhanced perception; lower adaptive behavior; elevated sensory interests, repetitions, and seeking behaviors; younger child age; and higher household income. Results partially support our hypotheses. Sensory interests, repetitions, and seeking behavior predicted occupational therapy service utilization, whereas other sensory response patterns did not, suggesting a possible referral bias for certain sensory response patterns. Occupational therapy practitioners can educate parents and teachers about the scope of practice, which includes addressing sensory features beyond sensory interests, repetitions, and seeking behaviors. What This Article Adds: Children with autism who have impairments in adaptive functioning and high levels of sensory interests, repetitions, and seeking behaviors receive more occupational therapy services. Occupational therapy practitioners should be well trained to address such concerns and advocate for the profession's role in mitigating the impact of sensory features on daily life.

The Relationship Between Physical Factors and Architecture of Rehabilitation Educational Care Centers With the Quality of Rehabilitation Services in Children With Autism From the Perspective of Their Occupational Therapists and Parents

Background and Aims Autism is a common disorder among children. Physical and architectural factors of rehabilitation centers may affect the quality of rehabilitation. This study aims to investigate the effect of physical and architectural elements of educational and therapeutic spaces on autism rehabilitation. Methods The present analytical-observational research was cross-sectional. This study used the standard Minnesota Questionnaire (MSQ) to assess employees’ job satisfaction. The standard sensory profile questionnaire 2 (short form) was employed to determine the sensory function pattern of autistic children aged 3 to 14 years. Finally, a researcher-made questionnaire of architecture quality assessment was used to evaluate the quality of physical space architecture, interior architecture, and standard facilities of educational and therapeutic spaces. In this cross-sectional study, 32 occupational therapists from university and hospital treatment centers, welfare centers, and private clinics, and 50 parents of children with autism participated as the available sample group. The Pearson correlation coefficient was used to examine the relationship between variables. Results Findings from the study population showed significant relationships between the variables studied in the groups of sensation seeking, sensation avoiding, sensation sensitive, and sensation register (from the analysis of sensory profile) and improving the quality of rehabilitation of children with autism (P&lt;0.05). Conclusion According to the study findings, job satisfaction, physical factors, sensory processing, and assessing the quality of architecture in the design of educational and therapeutic spaces of rehabilitation centers for children with autism are of particular significance. Utilizing the factors studied in this study will not only positively affect the treatment process of these patients, but it will also increase the job satisfaction of occupational therapists working in rehabilitation centers for autism.

Sensory modality as a linguistic sign of the ‘divided self’ in John Banville’s novels

As one of the master stylists of our time, John Banville has honed his own unique style of writing. The typical Banville novel is a first-person confessional narrative of an aging male character troubled by his painful memories of failure and loss. In a struggle to cope with their traumatic life experiences, Banville’s protagonists attempt to find answers to haunting existential questions and rediscover their identities in the face of emotional fragmentation. This sense of dislocation and displacement thus emerges as a major theme of Banville’s fiction and his works generally revolve around the internal conflicts of a ‘divided self’. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the language of the novels reflects the inner split of the characters and what linguistic mechanisms Banville exploits to create the ‘divided self’ effect. This article examines a particular linguistic structure used as a pervasive narrative feature: sensory modality. I will more specifically explore sensory modality patterns with co-referential subject and object pronouns (referred here as ‘special effects’) analyzing them in the light of Systemic Functional Grammar as mental transitivity processes and will demonstrate how they constitute a powerful stylistic tool for constructing the image of the divided personality and for conveying self-disunity in retrospective novels.

Face pareidolia is enhanced by 40 Hz transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) of the face perception network

Pareidolia refers to the perception of ambiguous sensory patterns as carrying a specific meaning. In its most common form, pareidolia involves human-like facial features, where random objects or patterns are illusionary recognized as faces. The current study investigated the neurophysiological correlates of face pareidolia via transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS). tACS was delivered at gamma (40 Hz) frequency over critical nodes of the “face perception” network (i.e., right lateral occipito-temporal and left prefrontal cortex) of 75 healthy participants while completing four face perception tasks (‘Mooney test’ for faces, ‘Toast test’, ‘Noise pareidolia test’, ‘Pareidolia task’) and an object perception task (‘Mooney test’ for objects). In this single-blind, sham-controlled between-subjects study, participants received 35 min of either Sham, Online, (40Hz-tACS_ON), or Offline (40Hz-tACS_PRE) stimulation. Results showed that face pareidolia was causally enhanced by 40Hz-tACS_PRE in the Mooney test for faces in which, as compared to sham, participants more often misperceived scrambled stimuli as faces. In addition, as compared to sham, participants receiving 40Hz-tACS_PRE showed similar reaction times (RTs) when perceiving illusory faces and correctly recognizing noise stimuli in the Toast test, thus not exhibiting hesitancy in identifying faces where there were none. Also, 40Hz-tACS_ON induced slower rejections of face pareidolia responses in the Noise pareidolia test. The current study indicates that 40 Hz tACS can enhance pareidolic illusions in healthy individuals and, thus, that high frequency (i.e., gamma band) oscillations are critical in forming coherent and meaningful visual perception.

Pattern and Form

This article explores the role of evolved pattern recognition in the development and divergence of mental frameworks underlying creative and metaphysical thought in Hominid species. It examines the emergence of figurative artistic expression through the lenses of Darwinian evolutionary theory and Gaboran honing theory, testing the limits and overlap of these methodologies when applied to humanity’s archaic relatives. This is contrasted with complex philosophical and artistic traditions of a relatively recent human society, Early Modern Persia. There is something of a taboo around the application of evolutionary psychology in some sociological circles due to its frequent misuse in pop science to dismiss societal change: an appeal to antiquity rebranded as biological determinism. This article will expand the use of evolutionary psychological methodologies in moderation as an additional tool in the study of archaic humanity and its relatives. It finds there is an evolutionary substratum to the development of creative thought, but that its recognisable features for a modern human were unlikely to have initially been selected traits themselves: this evolutionary substratum is a basis of sensory and conceptual pattern recognition traits, generating a mental atmosphere conducive to the development of collective strata of conceptual association, and is traceable to prehistory.

Multi-Sensor Data Fusion for Accurate Human Activity Recognition with Deep Learning

In the era of pervasive computing and wearable technology, the accurate recognition of human activities has gained paramount importance across a spectrum of applications, from healthcare monitoring to smart environments. This paper introduces a novel methodology that leverages the fusion of multi-sensor data with deep learning techniques to enhance the precision and robustness of human activity recognition. Our approach commences with the transformation of accelerometer and gyroscope time-series data into recurrence plots, facilitating the distillation of temporal patterns and dependencies. Subsequently, a dual-path convolutional network framework is employed to extract intricate sensory patterns independently, followed by an attention module that fuses these features, capturing their nuanced interactions. Rigorous experimental evaluations, including comparative analyses against traditional machine learning baselines, validate the superior performance of our methodology. The results demonstrate remarkable classification performance, underscoring the efficacy of our approach in recognizing a diverse range of human activities. Our research not only advances the state-of-the-art in activity recognition but also highlights the potential of deep learning and multi-sensor data fusion in enabling context-aware systems for the benefit of society.

Kick-starting concept formation with intrinsically motivated learning: the grounding by competence acquisition hypothesis.

Although the spontaneous origins of concepts from interaction is often given for granted, how the process can start without a fully developed sensorimotor representation system has not been sufficiently explored. Here, we offer a new hypothesis for a mechanism supporting concept formation while learning to perceive and act intentionally. We specify an architecture in which multi-modal sensory patterns are mapped in the same lower-dimensional representation space. The motor repertoire is also represented in the same space via topological mapping. We posit that the acquisition of these mappings can be mutually constrained by maximizing the convergence between sensory and motor representations during online interaction. This learning signal reflects an intrinsic motivation of competence acquisition. We propose that topological alignment via competence acquisition eventually results in a sensorimotor representation system. To assess the consistency of this hypothesis, we develop a computational model and test it in an object manipulation task. Results show that such an intrinsically motivated learning process can create a cross-modal categorization system with semantic content, which supports perception and intentional action selection, which has the resources to re-enact its own multi-modal experiences, and, on this basis, to kick-start the formation of concepts grounded in the external environment. This article is part of the theme issue 'Concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences'.

Somatosensory and Gustatory Profiling in the Orofacial Region.

Quantitative sensory testing (QST) is a standard procedure in medicine to describe sensory patterns in various pathologies. The aim of this prospective clinical study was to define reference values of the trigeminal nerve (V3), including taste qualities, to create a compatibility for sensory loss or gain in pathologies. Fifty-one patients were included, and a standardized testing battery with 11 QST parameters according to the German Research Network on Neuropathic Pain (DFNS) was applied complemented by quantitative gustatory assessments. Significant somatosensory differences were found between the test sites (MDT at the chin, WDT at the lower lip) but no effect was detected for gender, age, and between body types. Taste sensitivity was dependent on concentration, gender (females being more sensitive) and increasing age (for bitter and sour taste). We provide reference values for somatosensory and gustatory testing of the facial area. Our data facilitate the detection of neurosensory abnormalities in the orofacial region. This might also serve as a control setting for COVID-19.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Mental Health and Lifestyle in Thai Occupational Therapy Students: A Mixed Method Study.

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have led to global reports of hazards to mental health. However, reports regarding lifestyle changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic are lacking. Using a convergent mixed methods design, we conducted individual interviews with twelve occupational therapy students and interpreted the results by content analysis. We completed a survey of Thai Sensory Patterns Assessment (TSPA) concerning perspectives from occupational therapy students (n = 99). They identified two major themes: (i) adaptive responses were consistent with areas of occupation during the COVID-19 pandemic; (ii) multidimensional challenges were related to sensory patterns of purposeful and meaningful activities. The participants reported both positive and negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on their lives. It had both positive and negative effects on the lifestyle of students affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The positive effect was that most students learned better ways to protect and care for themselves. During the COVID-19 pandemic, occupational therapy students were most concerned about their online learning activities, economic problems, isolation from society, and lifestyle. The negative effects of this include stress, anxiety, loneliness, frustration, boredom, and exhaustion for occupational therapy students. As an impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, occupational therapy students adapted to new lifestyles and experienced mental health issues related to their studies, families, friends, economics, social climate, and future job opportunities. Educators may use the findings of this study to prevent negative impacts on mental health and promote academic achievement in the future, as well as general well-being, efficacy, and empowerment of students in the new normal post-COVID-19 pandemic era.

Potential Predictors for Cognitive Decline in Vascular Dementia: A Machine Learning Analysis

Vascular dementia (VD) is a cognitive impairment typical of advanced age with vascular etiology. It results from several vascular micro-accidents involving brain vessels carrying less oxygen and nutrients than it needs. This being a degenerative disease, the diagnosis often arrives too late, when the brain tissue is already damaged. Thus, prevention is the best solution to avoid irreversible cognitive impairment in patients with specific risk factors. Using the machine learning (ML) approach, our group evaluated Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) changes in patients affected by Alzheimer’s disease by considering different clinical parameters. We decided to apply a similar ML scheme to VD due to the consistent data obtained from the first work, including the assessment of various ML models (LASSO, RIDGE, Elastic Net, CART, Random Forest) for the outcome prediction (i.e., the MMSE modification throughout time). MMSE at recruitment, folate, MCV, PTH, creatinine, vitamin B12, TSH, and hemoglobinwere the best predictive parameters individuated by the best ML model: Random Forest. ML results can be useful inidentify predictive biomarkers for cognitive worsening in VD early and also for focusing on necessary examinations at the first visits to draw the most predictive features, saving time and money and reducethe burden on the patients themselves. Such results should be integrated with brain imaging, physiological signal measurements, and sensory patterns, particularly forthose senses already demonstrated to have a significant link with neurodegeneration. Adjusting compound deficit by administering nutraceuticals could support treatment effectiveness and lead to a better quality of life for patients, families, and caregivers, with a consistent impact on the national health systems load.

Frailty, multimorbidity patterns and mortality in institutionalized older adults in Italy.

BackgroundLittle is known on how frailty influences clinical outcomes in persons with specific multimorbidity patterns.AimsTo investigate the interplay between multimorbidity and frailty in the association with mortality in older individuals living in nursing homes (NH).MethodsWe considered 4,131 NH residents aged 60 years and over, assessed through the interRAI LTCF instrument between 2014 and 2018. Follow-up was until 2019. Considering four multimorbidity patterns identified via principal component analysis, subjects were stratified in tertiles (T) with respect to their loading values. Frailty Index (FI) considered 23 variables and a cut-off of 0.24 distinguished between high and low frailty levels. For each pattern, all possible combinations of tertiles and FI were evaluated. Their association (Hazard Ratio [HR] and 95% confidence interval) with mortality was tested in Cox regression models.ResultsIn the heart diseases and dementia and sensory impairments patterns, the hazard of death increases progressively with patterns expression and frailty severity (being HR T3 vs. T1 = 2.36 [2.01–2.78]; HR T3 vs. T1 = 2.12 [1.83–2.47], respectively). In heart, respiratory and psychiatric diseases and diabetes, musculoskeletal and vascular diseases patterns, frailty seems to have a stronger impact on mortality than patterns’ expression.DiscussionFrailty increases mortality risk in all the patterns and provides additional prognostic information in NH residents with different multimorbidity patterns.ConclusionsThese findings support the need to routinely assess frailty. Older people affected by specific groups of chronic diseases need a specific care approach and have high risk of negative health outcomes.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40520-022-02269-8.

Development of Thai Sensory Patterns Assessment Tool for Children Aged 3–12 Years: Caregiver-Version

Most existing tools for measuring sensory patterns of children have been developed in Western countries. These tools are complex and may not be culturally appropriate for other contexts that require specific knowledge in the clinical perspective. The aim of this study was to develop a simplified tool called the Thai Sensory Patterns Assessment (TSPA) tool for children. It is designed for children ages 3–12 years old to be completed by their caregiver. The process of creating the tool consisted of drafting a questionnaire and interpreting the result. Partial psychometrics were completed during item development, content validity of items was assessed by five expert ratings. Construct validity and internal consistency were assessed using data from 414 caregivers and intra-rater reliability was assessed with 40 caregivers. The two parts of the TSPA tool for children results, sensory preference, and sensory arousal, were designed to be presented as a sensory pattern in a radar chart/plot. The data analysis showed that both parts of the TSPA tool for children had acceptable psychometric properties with the retained 65 items. Only proprioceptive sensory arousal had a low Cronbach’s α coefficient, suggesting more information sharing between caregivers and professionals is needed. This research is an initial study and must be continuously developed. Future development of this tool in technology platforms is recommended to support use within healthcare services.

The relationship between sensory experiences and social functioning in children with autism spectrum disorder

Objective: This study was undertaken to substantiate the connection between sensory experiences and social functioning among 142 children ages 4–10 years with autism spectrum disorder. Methods: Using an online cross-sectional survey, mothers’ perceptions of sensory and social characteristics of their children on parent-reported measures of sensory experiences and social functioning were collected. Findings: Using SPSS software to follow the related descriptive statistics and correlational analysis, the results indicated that children had different levels of challenging sensory experiences and social interaction difficulties. It was revealed that higher intensities of sensory issues were associated with lower levels of functioning and greater social interaction difficulties. Further analysis revealed that less awkward, unpleasant experiences in the auditory and tactile sensory functioning correlated with less social difficulties. Conclusions: Given that no causal relationship could be drawn in this study, the findings complemented those of earlier studies, which suggest engagement in social interactions may be correlated with sensory response patterns.

Patterns of sensory processing in young children with autism: Differences in autism characteristics, adaptive skills, and attentional problems.

Research has found differences in responding to various sensory stimuli among autistic individuals, which are associated with social and adaptive skills. However, our understanding of sensory profiles in autism has been complicated due to the variable presentation of sensory symptoms. One way to better understand variability in sensory symptoms is to use advanced statistical approaches, such as latent profile analysis, that allow for the identification of more similar sensory classes in otherwise variable groups. We used the Short Sensory Profile to identify homogeneous classes of sensory reactivity in autistic children based on both severity and modality and examined whether sensory classes differed in terms of autism characteristics, adaptive skills, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms. Based on the pattern of both severity and modality, four sensory classes emerged and were named Moderate/Mixed (35.5%; probable-to-definite differences in all modalities except in movement sensitivity and low energy/weakness), Severe/Mixed (8.5%; definite sensory differences in all modalities except in low energy/weakness), Moderate/Broad (14.6%; probable-to-definite differences in all modalities), and Low/Mixed (41.1%; typical scores in most modalities with probable differences in taste/smell sensitivity, under-responsive/seeks sensation, and auditory filtering). The Severe/Mixed class exhibited greater problems in a variety of areas such as social, adaptive, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms, whereas the Low/Mixed class showed overall fewer problems. This may provide insight for clinicians and researchers aiming to understand whether autistic children who exhibit distinct sensory patterns are more or less likely to also experience social, adaptive, and/or attention/behavior-related difficulties.

Multimorbidity Patterns and 5-Year Mortality in Institutionalized Older Adults.

The aim was to characterize multimorbidity patterns in a large sample of older individuals living in nursing homes (NHs) and to investigate their association with mortality, also considering the effect of functional status. Observational and retrospective study. We analyzed data on 4131 NH residents in Italy, aged 60years and older, assessed through the interRAI long-term care facility instrument. Entry date was between 2014 and 2018, and participants were followed until2019. Multimorbidity patterns were identified through principal component analysis; for the identified components, subjects were stratified in quintiles (Q) with respect to their loading values, with the higher quantiles indicating greater expression of the component's pattern. Their association [hazard ratio (HR) and 95% CI] with mortality was tested in Cox regression models. Analyses were stratified by disability status. Four patterns of multimorbidity were identified: (1) heart diseases; (2) dementia and sensory impairments; (3) heart, respiratory, and psychiatric diseases; and (4) diabetes, musculoskeletal, and vascular diseases. For the heart diseases pattern [HR Q5 vs Q1= 1.83 (1.53-2.20)] and the dementia and sensory impairments pattern [HR Q5 vs Q1= 1.23 (1.06-1.42)], as the specific multimorbidity expression increases, the risk of mortality increases. On stratifying by disability status, the association between the multimorbidity patterns and mortality was not always present. Different multimorbidity patterns are differentially associated with mortality in older residents of NHs, confirming that multimorbidity's prognosis is strictly dependent on the underlying disease combinations. This knowledge may be useful to implement personalized preventive and therapeutic care pathways for institutionalized older adults, which respond to individuals' health needs.

Stroboscopic lighting with intensity synchronized to rotation velocity alleviates motion sickness gastrointestinal symptoms and motor disorders in rats.

Motion sickness (MS) is caused by mismatch between conflicted motion perception produced by motion challenges and expected “internal model” of integrated motion sensory pattern formed under normal condition in the brain. Stroboscopic light could reduce MS nausea symptom via increasing fixation ability for gaze stabilization to reduce visuo-vestibular confliction triggered by distorted vision during locomotion. This study tried to clarify whether MS induced by passive motion could be alleviated by stroboscopic light with emitting rate and intensity synchronized to acceleration–deceleration phase of motion. We observed synchronized and unsynchronized stroboscopic light (SSL: 6 cycle/min; uSSL: 2, 4, and 8 cycle/min) on MS-related gastrointestinal symptoms (conditioned gaping and defecation responses), motor disorders (hypoactivity and balance disturbance), and central Fos protein expression in rats receiving Ferris wheel-like rotation (6 cycle/min). The effects of color temperature and peak light intensity were also examined. We found that SSL (6 cycle/min) significantly reduced rotation-induced conditioned gaping and defecation responses and alleviated rotation-induced decline in spontaneous locomotion activity and disruption in balance beam performance. The efficacy of SSL against MS behavioral responses was affected by peak light intensity but not color temperature. The uSSL (4 and 8 cycle/min) only released defecation but less efficiently than SSL, while uSSL (2 cycle/min) showed no beneficial effect in MS animals. SSL but not uSSL inhibited Fos protein expression in the caudal vestibular nucleus, the nucleus of solitary tract, the parabrachial nucleus, the central nucleus of amygdala, and the paraventricular nucleus of hypothalamus, while uSSL (4 and 8 cycle/min) only decreased Fos expression in the paraventricular nucleus of hypothalamus. These results suggested that stroboscopic light synchronized to motion pattern might alleviate MS gastrointestinal symptoms and motor disorders and inhibit vestibular-autonomic pathways. Our study supports the utilization of motion-synchronous stroboscopic light as a potential countermeasure against MS under abnormal motion condition in future.

Comparing Sensory Processing and Perceived Motor Competence Between Three Groups of Students with Special Learning Disabilities

Introduction: Identifying the contributing factors to a specific learning disorder and comparing these factors in different types of this disorder will lead to using more proper interventions in the future. Therefore, this study aimed to compare sensory processing skills and perceived motor competence between three groups of students with specific learning disabilities (reading and writing disorders, math disorders, and combination disorders).&#x0D; Materials and Methods: The present study was a cross-sectional descriptive-analytical study. The participants were 48 children (16 in each group, aged 8-12 years). They were selected from Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province, Iran, by the simple convenience sampling method. The participants’ sensory processing was measured with sensory profile 2 and their perceived motor competency with Marsh perceived motor competence questionnaire.&#x0D; Results: The results showed a significant difference between the three groups in the sensory sensitivity, low registration sensory patterns and processing of tactile, and body position senses (P &lt;0.05). However, no significant differences were observed between groups in other components of sensory processing and perceived motor competence (P&gt; 0.05).&#x0D; Conclusion: The results indicate that therapeutic interventions in the group with reading and writing disorders should focus on increasing sensory registration and processing of tactile and body position senses and reducing sensory sensitivity in the mathematical group.

Caregiver Strategies to Sensory Features for Children With Autism and Developmental Disabilities.

BackgroundCaregivers of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and developmental disabilities (DD) implement myriad strategies to support their children during daily activities and routines, which are laden with sensory stimuli. Children’s sensory features are often characterized by three patterns of response (i.e., hyperresponsiveness, hyporesponsiveness, sensory seeking), and little is known about how caregivers’ strategies differ among these patterns. Therefore, we used a mixed methods analysis to examine the complex interplay between children’s sensory response patterns, child characteristics (diagnosis, chronological age, mental age), and caregiver strategies. Specifically, we examined how children’s sensory response pattern scores were associated with caregiver strategies within sensory response pattern and at the item level. Lastly, we described the differential strategies implemented by caregivers of children with ASD and DD by sensory response pattern.Materials and MethodsParticipants included children with ASD (n = 77) and DD (n = 40) aged 2–10 years. Caregivers completed the Sensory Experiences Questionnaire-2.1. A convergent parallel mixed methods approach was used to analyze data.ResultsChildren’s sensory response pattern scores were significantly, positively associated with caregiver strategies within each sensory pattern (hyperresponsiveness, hyporesponsiveness, seeking); however, child mental age, and chronological age were not significantly related to the rate of caregiver strategies across patterns. While caregivers of children with ASD reported using more strategies, child diagnosis did not moderate the association between child sensory response pattern scores and the rate of caregiver strategies used. Item analysis demonstrated specific child behaviors in response to sensory stimuli that elicited high rates of strategies among caregivers. Qualitative analysis revealed distinct themes characterized caregiver strategies within each sensory pattern for children with ASD and DD.ConclusionOur findings demonstrated specificity of caregiver strategies to children’s sensory response patterns in the context of families’ everyday lives, which were not contingent on child diagnosis, mental age, or chronological age, thereby highlighting universal qualities of caregiving for young children who experience varying levels of sensory challenges. Targeted intervention approaches may differentially incorporate types of strategies based on sensory response patterns to more optimally facilitate children’s activity participation.