Effect of empathy trait on attention to faces: an event-related potential (ERP) study

BACKGROUND: Empathy is deeply linked with the ability to adapt to human social environments. The present study investigated the relationship between the empathy trait and attention elicited by discriminating facial expressions. METHODS: Event-related potentials were measured while 32 participants (17 men and 15 women) discriminated facial expressions (happy or angry) and colors of flowers (yellow or purple) under an oddball paradigm. The empathy trait of participants was measured using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980). RESULTS: The empathy trait correlated positively with both the early portion (300 to 600 ms after stimulus onset) and late portion (600 to 800 ms after stimulus onset) of late positive potential (LPP) amplitude elicited by faces, but not with LPP elicited by flowers. CONCLUSIONS: This result suggests that, compared to people with low empathy, people with high empathy pay more attention when discriminating facial expressions. The present study suggests that differences exist in methods of adapting to social environments between people with high and low empathy

Association of Genetic Risks with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Early Neurodevelopmental Delays among Children without Intellectual Disability

IMPORTANCE Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is highly heritable, and modest contributions of common genetic variants to ASD have been reported. However, the association of genetic risks derived from common risk variants with ASD traits in children from the general population is not clear, and the association of these genetic risks with neurodevelopment in infants has not been well understood. OBJECTIVE To test whether a polygenic risk score (PRS) for ASD is associated with neurodevelopmental progress at age 18 months and ASD traits at age 6 years among children from the general population. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In this cohort study, 876 children in the Hamamatsu Birth Cohort for Mothers and Children in Hamamatsu, Japan, underwent testing for the association of an ASD PRS with neurodevelopmental progress and ASD traits. Data collection began in December 2007 and is ongoing. Data analysis was conducted from April to December 2019. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Summary data from the largest genome-wide association study were used to generate ASD PRSs, and significance of thresholds was calculated for each outcome. The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule 2 was used to measure ASD traits at age 6 years, and the Mullen Scales of Early Learning was used to measure neurodevelopmental progress at age 18 months. RESULTS Of 876 participants (mean [SD] gestational age at birth, 38.9 [1.6] weeks; 438 [50.0%] boys; 868 [99.1%] Japanese), 734 were analyzed. The ASD PRS was associated with ASD traits (R2 = 0.024; β, 0.71; SE, 0.24; P = .03). The association of ASD PRS with infant neurodevelopment was most pronounced in gross motor (R2 = 0.015; β, −1.25; SE, 0.39; P = .01) and receptive language (R2 = 0.014; β, −1.19; SE, 0.39; P = .02) scores on the Mullen Scales of Early Learning. Gene set enrichment analyses found that several pathways, such as cell maturation (R2 = 0.057; β, −5.28; SE, 1.40; P \u3c .001) and adenylyl cyclase activity and cyclic adenosine monophosphate concentration (R2 = 0.064; β, −5.30; SE 1.30; P \u3c .001), were associated with ASD traits. Gene sets associated with inflammation were commonly enriched with ASD traits and gross motor skills (eg, chemokine motif ligand 2 production: R2 = 0.051; β, −6.04; SE, 1.75; P = .001; regulation of monocyte differentiation: R2 = 0.052; β, −6.63; SE, 1.90; P = .001; and B-cell differentiation: R2 = 0.051; β, 7.37; SE, 2.15; P = .001); glutamatergic signaling–associated gene sets were commonly enriched with ASD traits and receptive language skills (eg, regulation of glutamate secretion: R2 = 0.052; β, −5.82; SE, 1.68; P = .001; ionotropic glutamate receptor signaling pathway: R2 = 0.047; β, 3.54; SE, 1.09; P = .001; and negative regulation of glutamate secretion: R2 = 0.045; β, −5.38; SE, 1.74; P = .002). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this study, the ASD PRS was associated with ASD traits among children from the general population. Genetic risks for ASD might be associated with delays in some neurodevelopmental domains, such as gross motor and receptive language skills

Polygenic Risk Score Analysis Revealed Shared Genetic Background in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Narcolepsy

Attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) is a highly heritable neurodevelopmental disorder, and excessive daytime sleepiness is frequently observed in ADHD patients. Excessive daytime sleepiness is also a core symptom of narcolepsy and essential hypersomnia (EHS), which are also heritable conditions. Psychostimulants are effective for the symptomatic control of ADHD (primary recommended intervention) and the two sleep disorders (frequent off-label use). However, the common biological mechanism for these disorders has not been well understood. Using a previously collected genome-wide association study of narcolepsy and EHS, we calculated polygenic risk scores (PRS) for each individual. We investigated a possible genetic association between ADHD and narcolepsy traits in the Hamamatsu Birth Cohort for mothers and children (HBC study) (n=876). Gene-set enrichment analyses were used to identify common pathways underlying these disorders. Narcolepsy PRS were significantly associated with ADHD traits both in the hyperactivity domain (e.g.,P-value threshold \u3c 0.05,β[SE], 5.815 [1.774];P=0.002) and inattention domain(e.g.,P-value threshold \u3c 0.05,β[SE], 5.734 [1.761];P=0.004). However, EHS PRS was not significantly associated with either domain of ADHD traits. Gene-set enrichment analyses revealed that pathways related to dopaminergic signaling, immune systems, iron metabolism, and glial cell function involved in both ADHD and narcolepsy. Findings indicate that ADHD and narcolepsy are genetically related, and there are possible common underlying biological mechanisms for this relationship. Future studies replicating these findings would be warranted to elucidate the genetic vulnerability for daytime sleepiness in individuals with ADHD

Gender difference in N170 elicited under oddball task

Background: Some studies have reported gender differences in N170, a face-selective event-related potential (ERP) component. This study investigated gender differences in N170 elicited under oddball paradigm in order to clarify the effect of task demand on gender differences in early facial processing. Findings: Twelve males and 10 females discriminated targets (emotional faces) from non-targets (emotionally neutral faces) under an oddball paradigm, pressing a button as quickly as possible in response to the target. Clear N170 was elicited in response to target and non-target stimuli in both males and females. However, females showed more negative amplitude of N170 in response to target compared with non-target, while males did not show different N170 responses between target and non-target. Conclusions: The present results suggest that females have a characteristic of allocating attention at an early stage when responding to faces actively (target) compared to viewing faces passively (non-target). This supports previous findings suggesting that task demand is an important factor in gender differences in N170

Seasonal variation of non-shivering thermogenesis (NST) during mild cold exposure

Background: The physiological function of non-shivering thermogenesis (NST) has been investigated in recent years, and some studies have discussed the importance of NST with respect to human cold adaptation. The present study aimed to clarify individual and seasonal variations in NST that occurred as a result of mild cold exposure.Methods: Seventeen male university students participated in the present study during summer and winter. The climate chamber used was programmed so that ambient temperature dropped from 28°C to 16°C over an 80-min period. Physiological parameters of test subjects were recorded during the experiments.Results: Increases in oxygen intake (VO2) during cold exposure were significantly greater without shivering in winter than they were in summer. Respiratory exchange ratio (RER) was significantly lower during thermoneutral baseline and cold exposure in winter than it was during the same periods in summer. In addition, there was a significant negative correlation between ΔVO2 and ΔRER.Conclusions: Increase of VO2 without shivering indicated increase of NST, and decrease of RER depends on the metabolization of fat in winter. These results suggested that NST activity was activated by seasonal acclimatization, and individual variation of NST depends on individual variation of fat metabolism