Neural correlates of nonverbal social communication in high-risk infants

The aim of this study was to replicate and extend a study by Grossmann and colleagues (2008), examining infant neural responses to gaze in 5-month-olds, to older and high-risk infants. Participants were 9-month-old infants (5 preterm, [3 female]; 12 full term [7 female]) who underwent fNIRS while viewing gaze paradigms. Findings revealed that hemisphere predicted peak oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO2) across groups and conditions, with higher activation in the left hemisphere across groups. Interaction of group by condition predicted peak HbO2 value, with an increase in activation in the high-risk group during the averted condition. Participants as random effects accounted for a significant amount of the variance, highlighting the importance of individual variability in infant studies. Lower activation in left frontal regions was related to higher expressive language while lower activation in right frontal and temporal regions was related to higher receptive language. Overall, higher activation was related to reduced language performance, negative affect, and behavior problems at 12 months

Undergraduate Women\u27s Self-Reported Body Image After Exposure to Weight-Related versus Nonweight-Related Media Images

The proposed study aims to determine whether there is a relationship between exposure to weight-related media images and self-reported body image. About 60 undergraduate women at Bowling Green State University will participate in the study. Half of these women will view five weight-related media images and the other half will view five nonweight-related media images. After exposure to either the experimental or control condition, the women will be asked to complete the Body Ideals Questionnaire as well as reveal their age, year in school, race/ethnicity, and number of women’s studies courses taken on a survey. Correlational data will be obtained from the survey and questionnaire. It is hypothesized that women exposed to the weight-related media images will report higher scores on the Body Ideals Questionnaire, indicating high importance placed on various features of their body along with a large difference between that part of their body and their ideal image of that feature. It is also hypothesized that Caucasian women will report higher BIQ scores than women of color, younger women will report higher BIQ scores than older women, and women exposed to more education about media effects on women (i.e. more women’s studies courses) will report lower scores on the BIQ

The role of caregiver-reported emerging social attention in predicting duration of orienting and social communication

Early identification of atypical development could lead to opportunities for earlier intervention, ultimately improving developmental outcomes. Early signs of atypical attention, social attention, and social communication development emerge in infancy, yet age at diagnosis of neurodevelopmental difficulties does not typically occur until well after the first year of life. In order to achieve this goal of early identification, sensitive and accessible tools are needed to identify infants at risk for atypical development. This study examined whether caregivers could report on emerging social attention behaviors in the first days to weeks of life with a novel, experimental scale (PediaTrac SSIP). This investigation is part of a larger prospective, longitudinal investigation with a sample of 571 caregivers of infants (48% female) who were born either full term (N = 331; 49% female) or preterm (N = 240; 46% female). The findings revealed that caregiver report of social attention behaviors measured by SSIP at the newborn (NB) and 2-month period was a significant predictor of social, symbolic, and total communication, and duration of orienting at 6 months. Maternal education was significantly negatively correlated with all caregiver report measures, and it contributed to a significant amount of variance in all models, particularly in reported communication at 6 months. Reported emerging social attention at the NB period accounted for a significant amount of variance in symbolic communication (6%) and duration of orienting (12%) at 6 months. The findings suggest that caregivers are able to report on social attentional behaviors within the first 2 months of life that may be a key predictor of attentional and communication behaviors at 6 months. Gestational age did not contribute significantly to variance in outcome in any of the models. This further suggests that maternal education is a crucial factor in examining predictors of developmental outcomes. Findings from this study support further investigation of caregiver report as a tool for understanding aspects of development, including social attention and communication, from the first days of life

Undergraduate Women\u27s Self-Reported Body Image After Exposure to Weight-Related versus Nonweight-Related Media Images

The proposed study aims to determine whether there is a relationship between exposure to weight-related media images and self-reported body image. About 60 undergraduate women at Bowling Green State University will participate in the study. Half of these women will view five weight-related media images and the other half will view five nonweight-related media images. After exposure to either the experimental or control condition, the women will be asked to complete the Body Ideals Questionnaire as well as reveal their age, year in school, race/ethnicity, and number of women’s studies courses taken on a survey. Correlational data will be obtained from the survey and questionnaire. It is hypothesized that women exposed to the weight-related media images will report higher scores on the Body Ideals Questionnaire, indicating high importance placed on various features of their body along with a large difference between that part of their body and their ideal image of that feature. It is also hypothesized that Caucasian women will report higher BIQ scores than women of color, younger women will report higher BIQ scores than older women, and women exposed to more education about media effects on women (i.e. more women’s studies courses) will report lower scores on the BIQ

Higher media multi-tasking activity is associated with smaller gray-matter density in the anterior cingulate cortex

Media multitasking, or the concurrent consumption of multiple media forms, is increasingly prevalent in today’s society and has been associated with negative psychosocial and cognitive impacts. Individuals who engage in heavier media-multitasking are found to perform worse on cognitive control tasks and exhibit more socio-emotional difficulties. However, the neural processes associated with media multi-tasking remain unexplored. The present study investigated relationships between media multitasking activity and brain structure. Research has demonstrated that brain structure can be altered upon prolonged exposure to novel environments and experience. Thus, we expected differential engagements in media multitasking to correlate with brain structure variability. This was confirmed via Voxel-Based Morphometry (VBM) analyses: Individuals with higher Media Multitasking Index (MMI) scores had smaller gray matter density in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Functional connectivity between this ACC region and the precuneus was negatively associated with MMI. Our findings suggest a possible structural correlate for the observed decreased cognitive control performance and socio-emotional regulation in heavy media-multitaskers. While the cross-sectional nature of our study does not allow us to specify the direction of causality, our results brought to light novel associations between individual media multitasking behaviors and ACC structure differences

Patterns of altered neural synchrony in the default mode network in autism spectrum disorder revealed with magnetoencephalography (MEG): Relationship to clinical symptomatology

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142922/1/aur1908.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142922/2/aur1908_am.pd

Prepotent Response Inhibition and Interference Control in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Two Meta-Analyses

Search String Advanced > Saved Searches > ARTICLE TOOLS Get PDF (432K) Save to My Profile E-mail Link to this Article Export Citation for this Article Get Citation Alerts Request Permissions More Sharing ServicesShare|Share on citeulikeShare on facebookShare on deliciousShare on www.mendeley.comShare on twitter Abstract Article References Cited By View Full Article (HTML) Enhanced Article (HTML) Get PDF (432K) UvA-linker Full Text Keywords: ASD; autism; inhibition; interference; cognitive control; meta-analysis There is a substantial amount of data providing evidence for, but also against the hypothesis that individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) encounter inhibitory control deficits. ASD is often associated with interference control deficits rather than prepotent response inhibition. Moreover, the developmental trajectory for these inhibitory control processes is hypothesized to differ in ASD as compared to typical development. In efforts to gain a more comprehensive perspective of inhibition in ASD, separate quantitative analysis for prepotent response inhibition studies and interference control studies were conducted. Together, these two meta-analyses included 41 studies with a combined sample size of 1,091 people with ASD (M age 14.8 years), and 1,306 typically developing (TD) controls (M age 13.8 years).The meta-analyses indicated that individuals with ASD show increased difficulties in prepotent response inhibition (effect size 0.55) and in interference control (effect size 0.31). In addition, age was a relevant moderator for prepotent response inhibition but not for interference control. Exploratory analyses revealed that when IQ was taken into account, heterogeneity considerably decreased among interference control studies but not among prepotent response inhibition. In contrast to the general belief, both prepotent response inhibition and interference control problems were observed in individuals with ASD. However, a large variation between studies was also found. Therefore, there remain factors beyond inhibition type, age, or IQ that significantly influence inhibitory control performance among individuals with ASD