Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of psychiatric disorders have identified multiple genetic associations with such disorders, but better methods are needed to derive the underlying biological mechanisms that these signals indicate. We sought to identify biological pathways in GWAS data from over 60,000 participants from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. We developed an analysis framework to rank pathways that requires only summary statistics. We combined this score across disorders to find common pathways across three adult psychiatric disorders: schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorder. Histone methylation processes showed the strongest association, and we also found statistically significant evidence for associations with multiple immune and neuronal signaling pathways and with the postsynaptic density. Our study indicates that risk variants for psychiatric disorders aggregate in particular biological pathways and that these pathways are frequently shared between disorders. Our results confirm known mechanisms and suggest several novel insights into the etiology of psychiatric disorders.

The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1980) is a commonly used self-report instrument designed to assess empathic tendencies. The IRI consists of four separate subscales: Perspective Taking (PT), Fantasy (FS), Empathic Concern (EC), and Personal Distress (PD). The objective of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of a Dutch version of the IRI. The IRI was administered to a Dutch sample of 651 normal functioning adults. The factor structure of the IRI was examined by using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The results of the CFA revealed that there is room for improvement and modification of the original theoretical model. The validity of the IRI was tested using internal criteria (i.e., scale intercorrelations) and external criteria (i.e., correlations with subscales of the EQ-i (Bar-On, 1997), the NEO-FFI (Hoekstra, Ormel, & De Fruyt, 1996), Mach-IV (Van Kenhove, Vermeir, & Verniers, 2001), Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965), and the WAIS-III (Wechsler, 2000)). Overall, the internal consistency, construct validity, and factor structure of scores from the Dutch version of the IRI suggest that it is a useful instrument to measure people's self-reported empathic tendencies.

Pragmatic difficulties do occur in both HFA and ADHD. The present studies indicate that the CCC is a useful instrument to obtain information concerning pragmatic language use in both a clinical and a research setting. Although the information of parents is more tightly linked to the diagnosis, combining the information of both parent and teacher slightly improves case identification.

SARS‐CoV‐2 is the virus causing COVID‐19 and is spread through close person‐to‐person contact. The use of face masks has been described as an important strategy to slow its transmission. We evaluated the effects of coaching caregivers via telehealth technologies to teach face mask wearing to children with autism spectrum disorder. Six participants with a history of challenging behavior associated with mask wearing were recruited from different parts of the world, and trained using graduated exposure, shaping, and contingent reinforcement. By the end of the intervention, all participants wore a face mask for a period of 10 min without exhibiting challenging behavior. The skills generalized to a novel mask or a community setting. Mask wearing did not affect the percentage of oxyhemoglobin saturation of participants, and caregivers found the intervention useful. The findings support previous tolerance training treatment evaluations in children with developmental disorders exhibiting resistance to healthcare routines.

Timing accuracy in presenting experimental stimuli (visual information on a PC or on a TV) and responding (keyboard presses and mouse signals) is of importance in several experimental paradigms. In this article, a simple system for measuring timing accuracy is described. The system uses two PCs (at least Pentium II, 200 MHz), a photocell, and an amplifier. No additional boards and timing hardware are needed. The first PC, a SlavePC, monitors the keyboard presses or mouse signals from the PC under test and uses a photocell that is placed in front of the screen to detect the appearance of visual stimuli on the display. The software consists of a small program running on the SlavePC. The SlavePC is connected through a serial line with a second PC. This MasterPC controls the SlavePC through an ActiveX control, which is used in a Visual Basic program. The accuracy of our system was investigated by using a similar setup of a SlavePC and a MasterPC to generate pulses and by using a pulse generator card. These tests revealed that our system has a 0.01-msec accuracy. As an illustration, the reaction time accuracy of INQUISIT for a few applications was tested using our system. It was found that in those applications that we investigated, INQUISIT measures reaction times from keyboard presses with millisecond accuracy.