The Lantern Vol. 50, No. 1, Fall 1983

• Reaching for My Dream • All Hail • Appreciation • Egotism • Me (Dedicated to...) • Butterfly • Balloon and Bird • Never Again • Mother • The Deaf Ears • Healing • Distress • Silent Death • Whose Reality Is It Anyway? • To Helen • Luna Llena y Soledad • Saved • Jenny • Slope • A Poem in C Minor • A Birth of Proficiency • The Traveling Man • Competing With the Sea • To R. • The Child • And Besides • An Actress\u27 Demise • A Loving Tribute to Francis • Rapunzel • Memorieshttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/lantern/1123/thumbnail.jp

MAKING ANIMALS ALCOHOLIC: SHIFTING LABORATORY MODELS OF ADDICTION

The use of animals as experimental organisms has been critical to the development of addiction research from the nineteenth century. They have been used as a means of generating reliable data regarding the processes of addiction that was not available from the study of human subjects. Their use, however, has been far from straightforward. Through focusing on the study of alcoholism, where the nonhuman animal proved a most reluctant collaborator, this paper will analyze the ways in which scientists attempted to deal with its determined sobriety and account for their consistent failure to replicate the volitional consumption of ethanol to the point of physical dependency. In doing so, we will see how the animal model not only served as a means of interrogating a complex pathology, but also came to embody competing definitions of alcoholism as a disease process, and alternative visions for the very structure and purpose of a research field

Shorter spontaneous fixation durations in infants with later emerging autism

Little is known about how spontaneous attentional deployment differs on a millisecond-level scale in the early development of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We measured fine-grained eye movement patterns in 6-to 9-month-old infants at high or low familial risk (HR/LR) of ASD while they viewed static images. We observed shorter fixation durations (i.e. the time interval between saccades) in HR than LR infants. Preliminary analyses indicate that these results were replicated in a second cohort of infants. Fixation durations were shortest in those infants who went on to receive an ASD diagnosis at 36 months. While these findings demonstrate early-developing atypicality in fine-grained measures of attentional deployment early in the etiology of ASD, the specificity of these effects to ASD remains to be determined

Motion and pattern cortical potentials in adults with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder

Purpose: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a condition in which visual perception to both static and moving stimuli is altered. The aim of this study was to investigate the early cortical responses of subjects with ASD to simple patterns and moving radial rings using visual evoked potentials (VEPs). Methods: Male ASD participants (n = 9) and typically developing (TD) individuals (n = 7) were matched for full, performance and verbal IQ (p > 0.263). VEPs were recorded to the pattern reversing checks of 50′ side length presented with Michelson contrasts of 98 and 10 % and to the onset of motion—either expansion or contraction of low-contrast concentric rings (33.3 % duty cycle at 10 % contrast). Results: There were no significant differences between groups in the VEPs elicited by pattern reversal checkerboards of high (98 %) or low (10 %) contrast. The ASD group had a significantly larger N160 peak (1.85 x) amplitude to motion onset VEPs elicited by the expansion of radial rings (p = 0.001). No differences were evident in contraction VEP peak amplitudes nor in the latencies of the motion onset N160 peaks. There was no evidence of a response that could be associated with adaptation to the motion stimulus in the interstimulus interval following an expansion or contraction phase of the rings. Conclusion: These data support a difference in processing of motion onset stimuli in this adult high-functioning ASD group compared to the TD group

Enhancing studies of the connectome in autism using the autism brain imaging data exchange II

The second iteration of the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE II) aims to enhance the scope of brain connectomics research in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Consistent with the initial ABIDE effort (ABIDE I), that released 1112 datasets in 2012, this new multisite open-data resource is an aggregate of resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and corresponding structural MRI and phenotypic datasets. ABIDE II includes datasets from an additional 487 individuals with ASD and 557 controls previously collected across 16 international institutions. The combination of ABIDE I and ABIDE II provides investigators with 2156 unique cross-sectional datasets allowing selection of samples for discovery and/or replication. This sample size can also facilitate the identification of neurobiological subgroups, as well as preliminary examinations of sex differences in ASD. Additionally, ABIDE II includes a range of psychiatric variables to inform our understanding of the neural correlates of co-occurring psychopathology; 284 diffusion imaging datasets are also included. It is anticipated that these enhancements will contribute to unraveling key sources of ASD heterogeneity

Reduced engagement with social stimuli in 6-month-old infants with later Autism Spectrum Disorder: a longitudinal prospective study of infants at high familial risk

Background: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects more than 1% of the population, and close to 20% of prospectively studied infants with an older sibling with ASD. Although significant progress has been made in characterizing the emergence of behavioral symptoms of ASD, far less is known about the underlying disruptions to early learning. Recent models suggest that core aspects of the causal path to ASD may only be apparent in early infancy. Here, we investigated social attention in 6- and 12-month-old infants who did and did not meet criteria for ASD at 24 months using both cognitive and electrophysiological methods. We hypothesized that a reduction in attention engagement to faces would be associated with later ASD. Methods: In a prospective longitudinal design, we used measures of both visual attention (habituation) and brain function (event-related potentials to faces and objects) at 6 and 12 months, and investigated the relationship to ASD outcome at 24 months. Results: High-risk infants who met criteria for ASD at 24 months showed shorter epochs of visual attention, faster but less prolonged neural activation to faces, and delayed sensitization responses (increases in looking) to faces at 6 months; these differences were less apparent at 12 months. These findings are consistent with disrupted engagement of sustained attention to social stimuli. Conclusions: These findings suggest that there may be fundamental early disruptions to attention engagement that may have cascading consequences for later social functioning

The effectiveness of psychosocial interventions for anxiety in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder:a systematic review and meta-analysis

Anxiety is a common problem in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This meta-analysis aimed to systematically evaluate the evidence for the use of psychosocial interventions to manage anxiety in this population. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) was the primary intervention modality studied. A comprehensive systematic search and study selection process was conducted. Separate statistical analyses were carried out for clinician-, parent-, and self-reported outcome measures. Sensitivity analyses were conducted by removing any outlying studies and any studies that did not use a CBT intervention. A subgroup analysis was performed to compare individual and group delivery of treatment. Ten randomised control trials involving a total of 470 participants were included. The overall SMD was d = 1.05 (95 % CI 0.45, 1.65; z = 3.45, p = 0.0006) for clinician- reported outcome measures; d = 1.00 (95%CI 0.21, 1.80; z = 2.47, p = 0.01) for parent-reported outcome measures; and d = 0.65 (95%CI -0.10, 1.07; z = 1.63, p = 0.10) for self-reported outcome measures. Clinician- and parent-reported outcome measures showed that psychosocial interventions were superior to waitlist and treatment-as-usual control conditions at post-treatment. However, the results of self-reported outcome measures failed to reach significance. The sensitivity analyses did not significantly change these results and the subgroup analysis indicated that individual treatment was more effective than group treatment. The main limitations of this review were the small number of included studies as well as the clinical and methodological variability between studies

Ets1 Induces Dysplastic Changes When Expressed in Terminally-Differentiating Squamous Epidermal Cells

BACKGROUND: Ets1 is an oncogene that functions as a transcription factor and regulates the activity of many genes potentially important for tumor initiation and progression. Interestingly, the Ets1 oncogene is over-expressed in many human squamous cell cancers and over-expression is highly correlated with invasion and metastasis. Thus, Ets1 is believed to mainly play a role in later stages of the oncogenic process, but not early events. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To better define the role of Ets1 in squamous cell carcinogenesis, we generated a transgenic mouse model in which expression of the Ets1 oncogene could be temporally and spatially regulated. Upon Ets1 induction in differentiating cells of stratified squamous epithelium, these mice exhibited dramatic changes in epithelial organization including increased proliferation and blocked terminal differentiation. The phenotype was completely reversed when Ets1 expression was suppressed. In mice where Ets1 expression was re-induced at a later age, the phenotype was more localized and the lesions that developed were more invasive. Many potential Ets1 targets were upregulated in the skin of these mice with the most dramatic being the metalloprotease MMP13, which we demonstrate to be a direct transcriptional target of Ets1. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Collectively, our data reveal that upregulation of Ets1 can be an early event that promotes pre-neoplastic changes in epidermal tissues via its regulation of key genes driving growth and invasion. Thus, the Ets1 oncogene may be important for oncogenic processes in both early and late stages of tumor development

Serologic and immunohistochemical prognostic biomarkers of cutaneous malignancies

Biomarkers are important tools in clinical diagnosis and prognostic classification of various cutaneous malignancies. Besides clinical and histopathological aspects (e.g. anatomic site and type of the primary tumour, tumour size and invasion depth, ulceration, vascular invasion), an increasing variety of molecular markers have been identified, providing the possibility of a more detailed diagnostic and prognostic subgrouping of tumour entities, up to even changing existing classification systems. Recently published gene expression or proteomic profiling data relate to new marker molecules involved in skin cancer pathogenesis, which may, after validation by suitable studies, represent future prognostic or predictive biomarkers in cutaneous malignancies. We, here, give an overview on currently known serologic and newer immunohistochemical biomarker molecules in the most common cutaneous malignancies, malignant melanoma, squamous cell carcinoma and cutaneous lymphoma, particularly emphasizing their prognostic and predictive significance