Glucose regulation and face recognition deficits in older adults: the role of attention

The present study investigated the perceptual, attentional and memory processes underlying face recognition deficits observed in older adults with impaired glucoregulation. Participants were categorised as good glucoregulators or poor glucoregulators on the basis of an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). Using event-related potential (ERP) methodology, 23 participants (18 females, range = 62 to 88 years old, mean age = 73.87 years old, SD = 8.41) performed a 2-stimulus oddball task. Participants were asked to rate and memorise 10 ‘target’ faces, which were then presented amongst 120 unfamiliar foils. Behavioural results indicated that good glucoregulators were significantly more accurate at recognising target faces. ERP markers of early visual perception (the P1 and N170 components) and memory formation (the P3 component) were unaffected by glucoregulatory efficiency. The P2 component, an index of attentional processing, was larger and delayed in the poor glucoregulators. To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to suggest that face recognition deficits in poor glucoregulators may be due to impairments in attentional processing

Facial emotion recognition in Williams syndrome and Down syndrome: A matching and developmental study

In this study both the matching and developmental trajectories approaches were used to clarify questions that remain open in the literature on facial emotion recognition in Williams syndrome (WS) and Down syndrome (DS). The matching approach showed that individuals with WS or DS exhibit neither proficiency for the expression of happiness nor specific impairments for negative emotions. Instead, they present the same pattern of emotion recognition as typically developing (TD) individuals. Thus, the better performance on the recognition of positive compared to negative emotions usually reported in WS and DS is not specific of these populations but seems to represent a typical pattern. Prior studies based on the matching approach suggested that the development of facial emotion recognition is delayed in WS and atypical in DS. Nevertheless, and even though performance levels were lower in DS than in WS, the developmental trajectories approach used in this study evidenced that not only individuals with DS but also those with WS present atypical development in facial emotion recognition. Unlike in the TD participants, where developmental changes were observed along with age, in the WS and DS groups, the development of facial emotion recognition was static. Both individuals with WS and those with DS reached an early maximum developmental level due to cognitive constraints

The Interplay Between Anxiety and Social Functioning in Williams Syndrome

The developmental disorder Williams syndrome (WS) has been associated with an atypical social profile of hyper-sociability and heightened social sensitivity across the developmental spectrum. In addition, previous research suggests that both children and adults with WS have a predisposition towards anxiety. The current research aimed to explore the profiles of social behaviour and anxiety across a broad age range of individuals with the disorder (n = 59, ages 6–36 years). We used insights from parental reports on two frequently used measures, the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS-P) and the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS). Severity of anxiety was correlated with a greater degree of social dysfunction as measured by the SRS in this group. We split the group according to high or low anxiety as measured by the SCAS-P and explored the profile of social skills for the two groups. Individuals high and low in anxiety differed in their social abilities. The results emphasise the need to address anxiety issues in this disorder and to consider how components of anxiety might relate to other features of the disorder

The impact of social isolation and changes in work patterns on ongoing thought during the first COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom

The COVID-19 pandemic led to lockdowns in countries across the world, changing the lives of billions of people. The United Kingdom’s first national lockdown, for example, restricted people’s ability to socialize and work. The current study examined how changes to socializing and working during this lockdown impacted ongoing thought patterns in daily life. We compared the prevalence of thought patterns between two independent real-world, experience-sampling cohorts, collected before and during lockdown. In both samples, young (18 to 35 y) and older (55+ y) participants completed experience-sampling measures five times daily for 7 d. Dimension reduction was applied to these data to identify common “patterns of thought.” Linear mixed modeling compared the prevalence of each thought pattern 1) before and during lockdown, 2) in different age groups, and 3) across different social and activity contexts. During lockdown, when people were alone, social thinking was reduced, but on the rare occasions when social interactions were possible, we observed a greater increase in social thinking than prelockdown. Furthermore, lockdown was associated with a reduction in future-directed problem solving, but this thought pattern was reinstated when individuals engaged in work. Therefore, our study suggests that the lockdown led to significant changes in ongoing thought patterns in daily life and that these changes were associated with changes to our daily routine that occurred during lockdown

Does culture shape face perception in autism? Cross-cultural evidence of the own-race advantage from the UK and Japan

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are associated with face perception atypicalities, and atypical experience with faces has been proposed as an underlying explanation. Studying the own‐race advantage (ORA) for face recognition can reveal the effect of experience on face perception in ASD, although the small number of studies in the area present mixed findings. The current study probed the ORA in ASD by comparing two cultural groups simultaneously for the first time. Children with ASD in the UK (N=16) and Japan (N=26) were compared to age and ability matched TD children in the UK (N=16) and Japan (N=26). Participants completed a two‐alternative forced‐choice task, whereby they had to recognise a just‐seen face from a foil which was manipulated in one of four ways (IC: identity change; EE: easy eyes; HE: hard eyes; HM: hard mouth). Face stimuli were Asian and Caucasian, and thus the same stimuli were own and other‐race depending on the cultural group. The ASD groups in the UK and Japan did not show impaired face recognition abilities, or impairments with recognising faces depending on manipulations to the eye region, and importantly they showed an ORA. There was considerable heterogeneity in the presence of the ORA in ASD and TD and also across cultures. Children in Japan had higher accuracy than children in the UK, and TD children in Japan did not show an ORA. The present cross‐cultural study challenges the view that atypical experiences with faces lead to a reduced/absent ORA in ASD

A clinical and cost effectiveness trial of a parent group intervention to manage challenging restricted and repetitive behaviours in young children with autism spectrum disorder: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background Restricted and repetitive behaviours vary greatly across the autism spectrum, and although not all are problematic some can cause distress and interfere with learning and social opportunities. We have, alongside parents, developed a parent group based intervention for families of young children with autism, which aims to offer support to parents and carers; helping them to recognise, understand and learn how to respond to their child’s challenging restricted repetitive behaviours. Methods The study is a clinical and cost-effectiveness, multi-site randomised controlled trial of the Managing Repetitive Behaviours (MRB) parent group intervention versus a psychoeducation parent group Learning About Autism (LAA) (n = 250; 125 intervention/125 psychoeducation; ~ 83/site) for parents of young children aged 3–9 years 11 months with a diagnosis of autism. All analyses will be done under intention-to-treat principle. The primary outcome at 24 weeks will use generalised estimating equation (GEE) to compare proportion of children with improved RRB between the MRB group and the LAA group. The GEE model will account for the clustering of children by parent groups using exchangeable working correlation. All secondary outcomes will be analysed in a similar way using appropriate distribution and link function. The economic evaluation will be conducted from the perspective of both NHS costs and family access to local community services. A ‘within trial’ cost-effectiveness analysis with results reported as the incremental cost per additional child achieving at least the target improvement in CGI-I scale at 24 weeks. Discussion This is an efficacy trial to investigate the clinical and cost-effectiveness of a parent group based intervention designed to help parents understand and manage their child’s challenging RRB. If found to be effective, this intervention has the potential to improve the well-being of children and their families, reduce parental stress, greatly enhance community participation and potential for learning, and improve longer-term outcomes. Trial registration Trial ID: ISRCTN15550611 Date registered: 07/08/2018. Sponsor and Monitor: Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust R&D Manager Lyndsey Dixon, Address: St Nicholas Hospital, Jubliee Road, Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne NE3 3XT, [email protected], Tel: 0191 246 722

Glucose effects on long-term memory performance : duration and domain specificity.

Rational; Previous research has suggested that long term- verbal declarative memory is particularly sensitive to enhancement by glucose loading, however investigation of glucose effects on certain memory domains has hitherto been neglected. Therefore domain specificity of glucose effects merits further elucidation. Objectives; The aim of the present research was to provide a more comprehensive investigation of the possible effects of glucose administration on different aspects of memory by i) contrasting the effect of glucose administration on different memory domains (implicit/ explicit memory; verbal/ non-verbal memory, recognition/ familiarity processes), ii) investigating whether potential effects on memory domains differ depending on the dose of glucose administered (25g versus 60g), iii) exploring the duration of the glucose facilitation effect (assessment of memory performance 35 min and 1 week after encoding). Methods; a double blind, between- subjects design was used to test the effects of administration of 25 and 60g glucose on memory performance. Results; Implicit memory was improved following administration of 60g of glucose. Glucose supplementation failed to improve face recognition performance but significantly improved performance of word recall and recognition following administration of 60g of glucose. However, effects were not maintained one-week following encoding. Conclusions; Improved implicit memory performance following glucose administration has not been reported before. Furthermore the current data tentatively suggest that level of processing may determine the required glucose dosage to demonstrate memory improvement and that higher dosages may be able to exert effects on memory pertaining to both hippocampal and non-hippocampal brain regions