Defining the clinical and cognitive phenotype of child savants with autism spectrum disorder

Objective: Whilst savant syndrome is most commonly observed in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), it has historically been associated with intellectual impairment, and little is known about the clinical and cognitive characteristics of intellectually able individuals with ASD and savant skills. Methods: Participants with ASD and validated savant skills were compared with age and intelligence matched non-savants with ASD using a range of diagnostic and standardised tests. Results: Although the analysis of the clinical data revealed few differences between the groups, striking differences emerged during cognitive testing. Children with savant skills exhibited highly superior working memory and their scores on tests of analytic skills were also superior to those of non-savants. Conclusion: We propose that obsessionality, focused attention, superior working memory and analytic skills facilitate veridical mapping and pattern perception abilities characteristic in savant syndrome

Selection process for the Malaria Box.

<p>Selection process for the Malaria Box.</p

Principal Component Analysis plots.

<p>Chemical diversity of the GSK, Novartis and St Jude libraries displayed (Panel A); Overlap in chemical diversity of the combined datasets and the commercially available compounds (Panel B); Overlap in chemical diversity of the commercially available compounds where the drug-like and probe-like chemotypes were annotated (Panel C).</p

St Jude's, Novartis and GSK datasets profiled with respect to molecular weight, the number of hydrogen-bond donors, ALogP and N+O (nitrogen count plus oxygen count).

<p>St Jude's, Novartis and GSK datasets profiled with respect to molecular weight, the number of hydrogen-bond donors, ALogP and N+O (nitrogen count plus oxygen count).</p

Correlation (Log scale) between the <i>P. falciparum</i> 3D7 and K1 EC₅₀s for the Malaria Box compounds resulting from the confirmatory screen.

<p>Displayed with Vortex (v2012.11.17233) Dotmatics Limited 2007, 2012.</p

Venn diagram presenting the overlap of structures in the St. Jude, Novartis and GSK datasets.

<p>The data was generated using Pipeline Pilot 8.5, and displayed using R 2.14.1.</p

Molecular weight distribution for the drug-like set (blue) and probe-like set (green).

<p>Displayed with Vortex (v2012.11.17233) Dotmatics Limited 2007, 2012.</p

Topological Polar Surface Area versus the ALogP for the Malaria Box drug-like set (green) and probe-like set (red).

<p>Displayed with Vortex (v2012.11.17233) Dotmatics Limited 2007, 2012.</p

Parasite viability correlates with the mode-of-action of antimalarials.

<p><i>P. falciparum</i> viability time-course profiles for artemisinin, atovaquone, GW648495, and GW844520 measured at 0, 24, 48, 72, 96, and 120 hours. Artemether and artesunate have been investigated at 24 hours only. Error bars are SEM of at least 4 independent experiments.</p

Parasite viability in response to various classical antimalarial drugs.

<p><b>A. </b><i>P. falciparum</i> viability time-course profiles for chloroquine (chq), mefloquine (mef), piperaquine (pip), artemisinin (art), lumefantrine (lum), pyronaridine (pyro), pyrimethamine (pyri), and atovaquone (ato). Error bars represent the SEM of at least 4 independent experiments. <b>B</b>. and <b>C</b>. Scatter plots of the compounds tested reporting the IC₅₀ versus the log(PRR) and 99.9% PCT, respectively. The dotted line in panel B is a log linear regression, the slope thereof is not significantly different from zero (<i>p</i> = 0.48). Data of panel C do not converge enough to establish a regression line.</p