Reduced neural sensitivity to social stimuli in infants at risk for autism

In the hope of discovering early markers of autism, attention has recently turned to the study of infants at risk owing to being the younger siblings of children with autism. Because the condition is highly heritable, later-born siblings of diagnosed children are at substantially higher risk for developing autism or the broader autism phenotype than the general population. Currently, there are no strong predictors of autism in early infancy and diagnosis is not reliable until around 3 years of age. Because indicators of brain functioning may be sensitive predictors, and atypical social interactions are characteristic of the syndrome, we examined whether temporal lobe specialization for processing visual and auditory social stimuli during infancy differs in infants at risk. In a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study, infants aged 4–6 months at risk for autism showed less selective neural responses to social stimuli (auditory and visual) than low-risk controls. These group differences could not be attributed to overall levels of attention, developmental stage or chronological age. Our results provide the first demonstration of specific differences in localizable brain function within the first 6 months of life in a group of infants at risk for autism. Further, these differences closely resemble known patterns of neural atypicality in children and adults with autism. Future work will determine whether these differences in infant neural responses to social stimuli predict either later autism or the broader autism phenotype frequently seen in unaffected family members

Retired A Stars: The Effect of Stellar Evolution on the Mass Estimates of Subgiants

Doppler surveys have shown that the occurrence rate of Jupiter-mass planets appears to increase as a function of stellar mass. However, this result depends on the ability to accurately measure the masses of evolved stars. Recently, Lloyd (2011) called into question the masses of subgiant stars targeted by Doppler surveys. Lloyd argues that very few observable subgiants have masses greater than 1.5 Msun, and that most of them have masses in the range 1.0-1.2 Msun. To investigate this claim, we use Galactic stellar population models to generate an all-sky distribution of stars. We incorporate the effects that make massive subgiants less numerous, such as the initial mass function and differences in stellar evolution timescales. We find that these effects lead to negligibly small systematic errors in stellar mass estimates, in contrast to the roughly 50% errors predicted by Lloyd. Additionally, our simulated target sample does in fact include a significant fraction of stars with masses greater than 1.5 Msun, primarily because the inclusion of an apparent magnitude limit results in a Malmquist-like bias toward more massive stars, in contrast to the volume-limited simulations of Lloyd. The magnitude limit shifts the mean of our simulated distribution toward higher masses and results in a relatively smaller number of evolved stars with masses in the range 1.0-1.2 Msun. We conclude that, within the context of our present-day understanding of stellar structure and evolution, many of the subgiants observed in Doppler surveys are indeed as massive as main-sequence A stars.Comment: Accepted to ApJ, 5 pages, 3 figures; changed title, reworded introduction and conclusion

Infant cortex responds to other humans from shortly after birth

A significant feature of the adult human brain is its ability to selectively process information about conspecifics. Much debate has centred on whether this specialization is primarily a result of phylogenetic adaptation, or whether the brain acquires expertise in processing social stimuli as a result of its being born into an intensely social environment. Here we study the haemodynamic response in cortical areas of newborns (1–5 days old) while they passively viewed dynamic human or mechanical action videos. We observed activation selective to a dynamic face stimulus over bilateral posterior temporal cortex, but no activation in response to a moving human arm. This selective activation to the social stimulus correlated with age in hours over the first few days post partum. Thus, even very limited experience of face-to-face interaction with other humans may be sufficient to elicit social stimulus activation of relevant cortical regions

Team Approach Or Individual Approach: A Statistical Analysis Of The Impact Of Socioeconomic Heterogeneity On Students Preference In Writing Term Papers In Management Courses

The purpose of this paper is to examine students preference in writing term papers in management courses. Specifically, students attitudes and preferences toward the choices, i.e., whether it is written as an individual effort, or as a team effort, are examined. These choices (individual approach, team approach, freedom of choice and indifferent) are then tested against a set of socioeconomic factors to see if there are significant relationships among the variables. The paper reports the empirical findings of the study

Loneliness in early psychosis: a qualitative study exploring the views of mental health practitioners in early intervention services

BACKGROUND: Loneliness is an important public health problem with established adverse effects on physical and mental health. Although people with psychosis often experience high levels of loneliness, relatively little is known about the relationship between loneliness and early psychosis. Potential interventions to address loneliness might be easier to implement early in the illness when social networks and social skills may be more intact than at a later stage. We investigated the views of mental health practitioners about the context and causes of loneliness in people with early psychosis, and about potential interventions. METHODS: Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with mental health practitioners (n = 20). Participants were purposively recruited from four early intervention services for first-episode psychosis in the UK. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematic analysis was conducted. RESULTS: Participants believed that the majority of service users with early psychosis experience feelings of loneliness. They often saw socially isolated and disconnected clients and believed them to be lonely, but rarely discussed loneliness explicitly in clinical interactions. A combination of symptoms, stigma and negative sense of self were believed to underpin loneliness. Participants could not identify any specific current interventions delivered by their services for tackling loneliness, but thought some routinely provided interventions, including social groups and psychological treatments, could be helpful. They favoured making a wider range of loneliness interventions available and believed that community agencies beyond mental health services should be involved to make these effective and feasible to deliver. They suggested social participation interventions without an explicit mental health focus as potentially promising and valued a co-produced approach to intervention development. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that loneliness is not routinely discussed in early intervention services, and a targeted strategy for tackling it is lacking. Co-produced, individualised community approaches, and interventions that target symptoms, stigma and negative self-schemas might be beneficial in alleviating loneliness for people with early psychosis. Empirical research is needed to develop and test such interventions

Securing recruitment and obtaining informed consent in minority ethnic groups in the UK

Background: Previous health research has often explicitly excluded individuals from minority ethnic backgrounds due to perceived cultural and communication difficulties, including studies where there might be language/literacy problems in obtaining informed consent. This study addressed these difficulties by developing audio-recorded methods of obtaining informed consent and recording data. This report outlines 1) our experiences with securing recruitment to a qualitative study investigating alternative methods of data collection, and 2) the development of a standardised process for obtaining informed consent from individuals from minority ethnic backgrounds whose main language does not have an agreed written form. Methods: Two researchers from South Asian backgrounds recruited adults with Type 2 diabetes whose main language was spoken and not written, to attend a series of focus groups. A screening tool was used at recruitment in order to assess literacy skills in potential participants. Informed consent was obtained using audio-recordings of the patient information and recording patients' verbal consent. Participants' perceptions of this method of obtaining consent were recorded. Results: Recruitment rates were improved by using telephone compared to face-to-face methods. The screening tool was found to be acceptable by all potential participants. Audio-recorded methods of obtaining informed consent were easy to implement and accepted by all participants. Attrition rates differed according to ethnic group. Snowballing techniques only partly improved participation rates. Conclusion: Audio-recorded methods of obtaining informed consent are an acceptable alternative to written consent in study populations where literacy skills are variable. Further exploration of issues relating to attrition is required, and a range of methods may be necessary in order to maximise response and participation

Neural mechanisms of body awareness in infants

The ability to differentiate one’s body from others is a fundamental aspect of social perception and has been shown to involve the integration of sense modalities attributable to the self. Though behavioral studies in infancy have investigated infants’ discrimination of body-related multisensory stimuli, whether they attribute this information as belonging to the self is still unknown. In human adults, neuroimaging studies have demonstrated the recruitment of a specific set of brain regions in response to body-related multisensory integration. To test whether the infant brain integrates this information similarly to adults, in a first functional near-infrared spectroscopy study we investigated the role of visual–proprioceptive feedback when temporal cues are manipulated by showing 5-month-old infants an online video of their own face while the infant was performing movements. To explore the role of body-related contingency further, in a second study we investigated whether cortical activation in response to self-initiated movements and external tactile stimulationwas similar to that found in the first study. Our results indicate that infants’ specialized cortical activation in response to body-related contingencies is similar to brain activation seen in response to body awareness in adults

Eroding Potentiometers

Eroding potentiometers have been devised for measuring the time-dependent positions of char fronts advancing through layers of insulating material subject to intense heating from one side. In the original application, the material layers of interest are thermal insulators in rocket motors and the heat comes from firing of the motors, but the principle of operation is equally applicable to other insulating materials subject to intense heating (e.g., ablative fire-retardant materials). Measuring the thickness decrement of propellant (in hybrid motors in particular) is another possible application of this transducer. Telemetry informs mission control of the propellant left after each burn. An eroding potentiometer could be characterized, more precisely, as an eroding two-wire resistor. It includes a twisted pair of thin, insulated wires oriented along the thickness of, and embedded in, the layer of thermal-insulation material to be tested (see figure). The electrical insulation material on the wires should be one for which the charring temperature is about the same as (or perhaps slightly less than) that of the thermal- insulation material to be tested. In the original rocket-motor application, the wires have a diameter of 0.003 in. (.0.08 mm), are made of manganin, and are coated with polyimide for electrical insulation. Outside the thermal insulation on the cold side, the wire leads are connected to a Wheatstone bridge circuit for measurement of electrical resistance change