EEG analytics for early detection of autism spectrum disorder: a data-driven approach

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex and heterogeneous disorder, diagnosed on the basis of behavioral symptoms during the second year of life or later. Finding scalable biomarkers for early detection is challenging because of the variability in presentation of the disorder and the need for simple measurements that could be implemented routinely during well-baby checkups. EEG is a relatively easy-to-use, low cost brain measurement tool that is being increasingly explored as a potential clinical tool for monitoring atypical brain development. EEG measurements were collected from 99 infants with an older sibling diagnosed with ASD, and 89 low risk controls, beginning at 3 months of age and continuing until 36 months of age. Nonlinear features were computed from EEG signals and used as input to statistical learning methods. Prediction of the clinical diagnostic outcome of ASD or not ASD was highly accurate when using EEG measurements from as early as 3 months of age. Specificity, sensitivity and PPV were high, exceeding 95% at some ages. Prediction of ADOS calibrated severity scores for all infants in the study using only EEG data taken as early as 3 months of age was strongly correlated with the actual measured scores. This suggests that useful digital biomarkers might be extracted from EEG measurements.This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grant R21 MH 093753 (to WJB), National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) grant R21 DC08647 (to HTF), NIDCD grant R01 DC 10290 (to HTF and CAN) and a grant from the Simons Foundation (to CAN, HTF, and WJB). We are especially grateful to the staff and students who worked on the study and to the families who participated. (R21 MH 093753 - National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH); R21 DC08647 - National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD); R01 DC 10290 - NIDCD; Simons Foundation)Published versio

The Use of Function in Infant Concept Acquisition

The use of function for concept formation in 5 and 8 month old infants was studied in an experiment employing a conceptual adaptation of the standard habituation paradigm. A total of 64 male and female infants were shown videoptaped presentations which involved changes in form and functional attributes of selected stimuli. The stimuli consisted of striped figures which could vary in form (shmoo-shaped or H-shaped) and function (side-to-side movements or up-down movements). During habituation, all infants were shown multiexemplars of a specific figure performing a single movement pattern; the figures varied only in color. During test trials, the infants were shown (1) a change only in form, (2) a change only in movement, (3) a change in movement contrasted with a change in form, or (4) a change in movement contrasted with a combined movement/form change. Total visual fixation times to the various changes in stimuli presented during test trials were compared. The results provide partial, but not conclusive, support for the hypothesis that function serves as the central core for concept acquisition in infancy at both 5 and 8 months of age. The results do not, however, point to a developmental age trend towards either increased or decreased use of functional attributes for concept acquisition

Olfaction scaffolds the developing human from neonate to adolescent and beyond

The impact of the olfactory sense is regularly apparent across development. The foetus is bathed in amniotic fluid that conveys the mother’s chemical ecology. Transnatal olfactory continuity between the odours of amniotic fluid and milk assists in the transition to nursing. At the same time, odours emanating from the mammary areas provoke appetitive responses in newborns. Odours experienced from the mother’s diet during breastfeeding, and from practices such as pre-mastication, may assist in the dietary transition at weaning. In parallel, infants are attracted to and recognise their mother’s odours; later, children are able to recognise other kin and peers based on their odours. Familiar odours, such as those of the mother, regulate the child’s emotions, and scaffold perception and learning through non-olfactory senses. During adolescence, individuals become more sensitive to some bodily odours, while the timing of adolescence itself has been speculated to draw from the chemical ecology of the family unit. Odours learnt early in life and within the family niche continue to influence preferences as mate choice becomes relevant. Olfaction thus appears significant in turning on, sustaining and, in cases when mother odour is altered, disturbing adaptive reciprocity between offspring and caregiver during the multiple transitions of development between birth and adolescence

Social re-orientation and brain development: An expanded and updated view.

Social development has been the focus of a great deal of neuroscience based research over the past decade. In this review, we focus on providing a framework for understanding how changes in facets of social development may correspond with changes in brain function. We argue that (1) distinct phases of social behavior emerge based on whether the organizing social force is the mother, peer play, peer integration, or romantic intimacy; (2) each phase is marked by a high degree of affect-driven motivation that elicits a distinct response in subcortical structures; (3) activity generated by these structures interacts with circuits in prefrontal cortex that guide executive functions, and occipital and temporal lobe circuits, which generate specific sensory and perceptual social representations. We propose that the direction, magnitude and duration of interaction among these affective, executive, and perceptual systems may relate to distinct sensitive periods across development that contribute to establishing long-term patterns of brain function and behavior

Infant and Child Multisensory Attention Skills: Methods, Measures, and Language Outcomes

Intersensory processing (e.g., matching sights and sounds based on audiovisual synchrony) is thought to be a foundation for more complex developmental outcomes including language. However, the body of research on intersensory processing is characterized by different measures, paradigms, and research questions, making comparisons across studies difficult. Therefore, Manuscript 1 provides a systematic review and synthesis of research on intersensory processing, integrating findings across multiple methods, along with recommendations for future research. This includes a call for a shift in the focus of intersensory processing research from that of assessing average performance of groups of infants, to one assessing individual differences in intersensory processing. Individual difference measures allow researchers to assess developmental trajectories and understand developmental pathways from basic skills to later outcomes. Bahrick and colleagues introduced the first two new individual difference measures of intersensory processing: The Multisensory Attention Assessment Protocol (MAAP) and The Intersensory Processing Efficiency Protocol (IPEP). My prior research using the MAAP has shown that accuracy of intersensory processing at 12 months of age predicted 18- and 24-month child language outcomes. Moreover, it predicted child language to a greater extent than well-established predictors, including parent language input and SES (Edgar et al., under review)! Manuscript 2 extends this research to examine both speed and accuracy of intersensory processing using the IPEP. A longitudinal sample of 103 infants were tested with the IPEP to assess relations between intersensory processing at 6 months of age and language outcomes at 18, 24, and 36 months, while controlling for traditional predictors, parent language input and SES. Results demonstrate that even at 6 months, intersensory processing predicts 18-, 24-, and 36-month child language skills, over and above the traditional predictors. This novel finding reveals the powerful role of intersensory processing in shaping language development and highlights the importance of incorporating individual differences in intersensory processing as a predictor in models of developmental pathways to language. In turn, these findings can inform interventions where intersensory processing can be used as an early screener for children at risk for language delays

Precis of neuroconstructivism: how the brain constructs cognition

Neuroconstructivism: How the Brain Constructs Cognition proposes a unifying framework for the study of cognitive development that brings together (1) constructivism (which views development as the progressive elaboration of increasingly complex structures), (2) cognitive neuroscience (which aims to understand the neural mechanisms underlying behavior), and (3) computational modeling (which proposes formal and explicit specifications of information processing). The guiding principle of our approach is context dependence, within and (in contrast to Marr [1982]) between levels of organization. We propose that three mechanisms guide the emergence of representations: competition, cooperation, and chronotopy; which themselves allow for two central processes: proactivity and progressive specialization. We suggest that the main outcome of development is partial representations, distributed across distinct functional circuits. This framework is derived by examining development at the level of single neurons, brain systems, and whole organisms. We use the terms encellment, embrainment, and embodiment to describe the higher-level contextual influences that act at each of these levels of organization. To illustrate these mechanisms in operation we provide case studies in early visual perception, infant habituation, phonological development, and object representations in infancy. Three further case studies are concerned with interactions between levels of explanation: social development, atypical development and within that, developmental dyslexia. We conclude that cognitive development arises from a dynamic, contextual change in embodied neural structures leading to partial representations across multiple brain regions and timescales, in response to proactively specified physical and social environment

The relation between handedness for reaching and unimanual handedness from 6 to 14 months

Unimanual hand preference is a behavior in which one hand is used more often than the other when single-handedly manipulating objects. The progressive lateralization theory (Michel, 2002) of handedness proposes that handedness gradually concatenates during infancy as a cascade from initially a preference for contacting objects to acquiring them, to their unimanual manipulation, to the eventual emergence of a hand preference for role-differentiated bimanual manipulation (RDBM). Together, these behaviors represent the individual's handedness expressed across most manual skills. Thus, the theory posits that an early hand preference for object acquisition will predict a later preference for single-handed object manipulations. This proposal was examined by describing the development of hand-use preferences for unimanual manipulation of objects for 90 infants (57 males) tested monthly from 6 to 14 months. These 90 infants were obtained from a larger sample of 380 infants: 30 infants from a group of 45 with left hand-use preferences for acquiring objects were matched for sex and development of locomotion skills with 30 infants with a right hand-use preference and 30 with no hand preference for acquiring objects. Results showed that the frequency of unimanual manipulations is stable during the 6-14 month period. Multilevel modeling of unimanual manipulation trajectories for the three acquisition hand-preference groups revealed that hand-use preferences for unimanual manipulation become more prominent with age and the preference is predicted by the hand-use preference for object acquisition. Also, infants with a right-hand preference for object acquisition develop a hand-use preference for unimanual manipulation sooner than those with a left preference and infants without a preference for acquisition remain without a preference for manipulation

How children make sense of the world:A perceptual learning account

The aim of this thesis was to describe the social and non-social development of infants and children from a perceptual learning account. Perceptual learning is a domain-general process by which children progressively can distinguish more diverse and relevant information in the world around them. This then allows children to couple perception and action in novel and adaptive ways, helping them to meet the demands and opportunities provided by that world. It is claimed that this does not require the mediation of any specialized cognitive functions, something that is usually either explicit or implicitly acclaimed in theories of development. This thesis reports several studies that show how infants and children develop social and non-social skills by means of perceptual learning, such as gaze following, specific forms of imitation, facial expression recognition, and understanding of physical mechanisms. As an example, it was shown that infants are able to perceive another person’s intended actions with objects by perceptually tuning into the sequence of events of how he or she interacts with those objects. In another reported study, it was shown that children’s interaction with physical mechanisms can create the perceptual information that helps them to understand those physical mechanisms in an advanced manner. For the future, it was suggested that perceptual learning should be used to further investigate early social development and learning contexts for children. This could lead to new insights on how to describe development and learning processes and to optimize contexts for learning to occur

A percepção da configuração do movimento biológico em bebés

Tese de doutoramento em Psicologia BásicaPara compreender os outros, interpretar as suas ações, emoções ou intenções, é necessário aprender a descodificar o movimento dos nossos parceiros sociais. Para isso, primeiro, precisamos de ser capazes de orientar a nossa atenção para o movimento das outras pessoas; em seguida, necessitámos de integrar o movimento das diferentes partes do corpo (por exemplo, dos membros) na configuração coerente e global de um corpo humano em movimento—a isto designamos de processamento configural; só então é que finalmente somos capazes de interpretar o objetivo e o significado de uma ação. O processamento configural do movimento biológico é um processo básico, mas altamente relevante na interpretação do significado de uma ação e, consequentemente, crucial para a interação social e para a cognição social humana. A investigação acerca do desenvolvimento da percepção do movimento biológico indica que o processamento configural surge durante o primeiro ano de vida (Bertenthal, 1993), associado à maturação cortical dos bebés e ao seu desenvolvimento sociocognitivo (Pavlova, 2012). A presente dissertação pretende investigar o desenvolvimento do processamento configural na percepção do movimento biológico durante a primeira metade do primeiro ano de vida dos bebés. Para isso, combinamos duas técnicas de investigação da Psicologia do Desenvolvimento, distintas mas complementares: o functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) e o procedimento de atenção preferencial (preferential looking). Nesta dissertação são então apresentados os resultados de quatro estudos experimentais, dois de fNIRS e dois comportamentais, realizados em bebés com idades compreendidas entre os três e os sete meses de idade. No Capítulo 1 é apresentada uma extensa revisão da literatura sobre o papel do processamento configural na percepção do movimento biológico, ou seja, sobre como esta competência perceptual é relevante para a cognição-social humana e, em particular, para o desenvolvimento sociocognitivo dos bebés. No Capítulo 2 e 3 são apresentados e discutidos dois estudos de fNIRS realizados com bebés de sete meses. Estes foram os primeiros estudos realizados na infância, que mediram a resposta hemodinâmica do cérebro ao movimento humano utilizando displays de pontos de luz (point-light walkers) como estímulos. Estes estudos visaram investigar se a percepção do movimento biológico é sustentada, na infância tal como nos adultos, pelo funcionamento do sulco temporal superior direito (STS direito). O STS é uma área central do córtex humano para o processamento de estímulos sociais, e o processamento da configuração do movimento biológico parece também ocorrer neste local em adultos (Deen, Koldewyn, Kanwisher, & Saxe, 2015). No Capítulo 4, são apresentados dois estudos de atenção preferencial, um longitudinal e outro transversal. Os dois estudos pretendem perceber quando é que os bebés preferem uma configuração coerente do movimento humano. Especificamente, procuram descobrir quando, na infância, surge uma preferência pela configuração coerente e global humana de uma pessoa a andar em relação a um estímulo cujas posições dos pontos de luz foram randomizadas. Bebés de três e cinco meses foram testados num estudo transversal, e bebés de três, cinco e sete meses de idade, longitudinalmente. Finalmente, no Capítulo 5, discutimos e concluímos acerca as implicações das nossas descobertas. Encontramos importantes mudanças de desenvolvimento na percepção da configuração do movimento biológico durante os primeiros meses de vida—os nossos resultados contribuem para uma compreensão mais completa da percepção do movimento biológico em bebés e das origens e desenvolvimento da cognição social humana.To understand others, interpret their actions, emotions or intentions, we have to learn how to decode human motion. For that, first, we need to start by paying attention to the motion of others; afterward, we have to be able to integrate the individual and local motion of moving body parts (such as limbs) into the coherent and motion configuration of a whole human body acting—this is called configural processing; only then we are finally able to predict, interpret, and understand the goal and meaning of an action. Configural processing is a basic but highly relevant process in biological motion perception with implications on action understanding, social interaction and in human social cognition. Developmental research on biological motion perception indicates that configural processing emerges during our first year of life (Bertenthal, 1993), associated to important cortical specializations, and to infants’ social-cognitive development (Pavlova, 2012). The present dissertation investigated the development of configural processing in biological motion during the first half of infants’ first year of life. For that, two distinct but complementary techniques from developmental research were combined: functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and the preferential looking procedure. This dissertation presents and discusses the outcomes of two neuroimaging and two behavioral experiments conducted with infants, aged from three to seven months of age, on the perception of biological motion configuration. Chapter 1 begins with an extensive literature revision on the role of configural processing in biological motion perception, namely, on how this basic perceptual skill is relevant for human social abilities and, in particular, for infants’ social-cognitive development. In Chapter 2 and 3, two fNIRS experiments conducted with seven months old infants are presented and discussed. These were the first fNIRS studies conducted in infancy, using point-light walkers as stimuli. They intended to investigate whether the perception of biological motion is underpinned, in infants as in adults, by the right superior temporal sulcus (right STS) functioning. The right STS is a cornerstone for human social-cognition, and biological motion configural processing occurs in this site in the adults brain (Deen, Koldewyn, Kanwisher, & Saxe, 2015). In Chapter 4, two preferential looking experiments, one longitudinal and another cross sectional, are presented. These two studies intended to find when, in infancy, emerges a preference for biological motion configuration. Specifically, when, in infants aged three to seven months, emerges a preference for the coherent motion configuration of a person walking in relation to scrambled display. Finally, in Chapter 5, we discuss and conclude about the implications of our findings. We found important developmental changes in the perception of biological motion configuration during the first few months of life—our results contribute to a broader understanding of biological motion perception in infancy thus to the origins of human social-cognition.The Portuguese Science Foundation through an individual doctoral grant attributed to Isabel C. Lisboa (PD/BD/105966/2014) supported this research. This grant was supported by Fundo Social Europeu and by national founds from MEC