Absence of Predispositional Attentional Sensitivity to Angry Faces in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

自閉症児童は表情のよみとりが苦手 -コミュニケーション困難の一因か?- 京都大学プレスリリース. 2014-12-19.A rapid allocation of attention towards threatening stimuli in the environment is crucial for survival. Angry facial expressions act as threatening stimuli, and capture humans' attention more rapidly than emotionally positive facial expressions - a phenomenon known as the Anger Superiority Effect (ASE). Despite atypical emotional processing, adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have been reported to show ASE similar to typically developed (TD) individuals. One important question is whether the basic process for ASE is intact in individuals with ASD or whether instead they acquire an alternative process that enables ASE. To address this question, we tested the prevalence of ASE in young children with and without ASD using a face-in-the-crowd task. ASE was clearly observed in TD children, whereas ASD children did not show the effect. In contrast to previous reports of ASE in adults or relatively older children with ASD, our results suggest that in ASD basic predispositional mechanisms to allocate attention quickly towards angry faces are not preserved

Delayed disengagement of attention from snakes in children with autism.

In the visual search task, it is well known that detection of a tilted straight line as the target among vertical lines that act as distractors is easier than vice versa, and that detection of a snake image as the target among flower images is easier than vice versa. In this study, the degree of such search asymmetry was compared between 18 children with autism and 14 typically developing (TD) children. The results revealed that compared to TD children, children with autism were disproportionally slow when asked to detect the flower among the snake images, suggesting the possibility that they experienced difficulty of disengaging their attention from the snake images. This delayed disengagement would serve itself as an enhanced attentional bias toward snakes in children with autism that is similar to characteristics of visual search performance in anxiety patients

The Effect of Heparin on Antigen-Induced Mucus Hypersecretion in the Nasal Epithelium of Sensitized Rats

Background: Heparin is a potential anti-inflammatory drug for allergic airway inflammation. To elucidate the effects of heparin on allergic inflammation, we examined the in vivo effects of heparin on antigen-induced mucus hypersecretion and infiltration of eosinophils and neutrophils in the nasal epithelium of sensitized rats. Methods: We induced hypertrophic and metaplastic changes of goblet cells in the nasal epithelium of ovalbumin (OVA)-sensitized rats by intranasal challenge with OVA. The effects of intranasal instillation with low molecular weight heparin (LMWH; 1–1000 IU/0.1 ml) on mucus production and eosinophil/neutrophil infiltration were examined. Results: Intranasal instillation with low-dose LMWH (1–10 IU/0.1 ml) at 30 minutes before OVA instillation stimulated OVA-induced mucus production in the nasal epithelium of sensitized rats, whereas treatment with 100 IU/0.1 ml LMWH showed no effect. Intranasal instillation with high-dose LMWH (1000 IU/0.1 ml) significantly inhibited OVA-induced mucus production. Intranasal instillation with LMWH (1–1000 IU/0.1 ml) dose-dependently inhibited eosinophil and neutrophil infiltration into the rat nasal mucosa. Conclusions: These results indicate that heparin inhibits mucus hypersecretion and infiltration of eosinophils and neutrophils in allergic inflammation, though the inhibitory effect against mucus production is obtained in high-dose heparin. Intranasal instillation with high-dose heparin may provide a new therapeutic strategy for the treatment of nasal allergic inflammation

Intensive exposure to narrative in story books as a possibly effective treatment of social perspective-taking in schoolchildren with autism.

One of the major characteristics of autism is impairment of communication and socialization. While such impairment per se has been well documented, research into effective interventions for children with this developmental disorder is still limited. Here we present preliminary evidence for the possibility of improvement of the capability of social perspective-taking in schoolchildren with autism by having intensive experience with narrative, in which they were exposed to narrative in story books read by their parents over a consecutive 5- to 6-day-period. When their capability was evaluated on the basis of a conventional role-taking task, the mean score tended to increase after the exposure as compared to before the exposure, whereas such a change was not recorded in children who did not experience such exposure. These effects were confirmed when the children were retested 4 months later. Although preliminary, the current study represents a step toward the development of more effective social perspective-taking interventions for children with autism

Alterations of Both Dendrite Morphology and Weaker Electrical Responsiveness in the Cortex of Hip Area Occur Before Rearrangement of the Motor Map in Neonatal White Matter Injury Model

Hypoxia-ischemia (H-I) in rats at postnatal day 3 causes disorganization of oligodendrocyte development in layers II/III of the sensorimotor cortex without apparent neuronal loss, and shows mild hindlimb dysfunction with imbalanced motor coordination. However, the mechanisms by which mild motor dysfunction is induced without loss of cortical neurons are currently unclear. To reveal the mechanisms underlying mild motor dysfunction in neonatal H-I model, electrical responsiveness and dendrite morphology in the sensorimotor cortex were investigated at 10 weeks of age. Responses to intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) revealed that the cortical motor map was significantly changed in this model. The cortical area related to hip joint movement was reduced, and the area related to trunk movement was increased. Sholl analysis in Golgi staining revealed that layer I–III neurons on the H-I side had more dendrite branches compared with the contralateral side. To investigate whether changes in the motor map and morphology appeared at earlier stages, ICMS and Sholl analysis were also performed at 5 weeks of age. The minimal ICMS current to evoke twitches of the hip area was higher on the H-I side, while the motor map was unchanged. Golgi staining revealed more dendrite branches in layer I–III neurons on the H-I side. These results revealed that alterations of both dendrite morphology and ICMS threshold of the hip area occurred before the rearrangement of the motor map in the neonatal H-I model. They also suggest that altered dendritic morphology and altered ICMS responsiveness may be related to mild motor dysfunction in this model

Orthographic reading deficits in dyslexic Japanese children: Examining the transposed-letter effect in the color-word Stroop paradigm

In orthographic reading, the transposed-letter effect (TLE) is the perception of a transposed-letter position word such as "cholocate" as the correct word "chocolate." Although previous studies on dyslexic children using alphabetic languages have reported such orthographic reading deficits, the extent of orthographic reading impairment in dyslexic Japanese children has remained unknown. This study examined the TLE in dyslexic Japanese children using the color-word Stroop paradigm comprising congruent and incongruent Japanese hiragana words with correct and transposed-letter positions. We found that typically developed children exhibited Stroop effects in Japanese hiragana words with both correct and transposed-letter positions, thus indicating the presence of TLE. In contrast, dyslexic children indicated Stroop effects in correct letter positions in Japanese words but not in transposed, which indicated an absence of the TLE. These results suggest that dyslexic Japanese children, similar to dyslexic children using alphabetic languages, may also have a problem with orthographic reading