Cortical responses to social stimuli in infants at elevated likelihood of ASD and/or ADHD: A prospective cross-condition fNIRS study

Blanco, Borja; Lloyd-Fox, Sarah; Begum-Ali, Jannath; Pirazzoli, Laura; Goodwin, Amy; Mason, Luke; Pasco, Greg; Charman, Tony; Jones, Emily J.H.; Johnson, Mark H.; Agyapong, Mary; Bazelmans, Tessel; Blasi, Anna; Cheung, Celeste; Dafner, Leila; Elsabbagh, Mayada; Ersoy, Mutluhan; Gliga, Teodora; Goodwin, Amy; Haartsen, Rianne; Halkola, Hanna; Hendry, Alexandra; Holman, Rebecca; Kalwarowsky, Sarah; Kolesnik, Anna; Narvekar, Nisha; Pirazzoli, Laura; Taylor, Chloë

doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2023.07.010

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 87 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The same pattern of activation was found at 5 months in a sample at high risk of autism when applying a similar paradigm; while high-risk infants showed decreased activation to social stimuli in the right posterior temporal cortex, this activation was increased in infants at low risk of ASD [76]. Following the same direction, infants (4-6 months) with an elevated likelihood of ASD and/or ADHD showed atypical social brain responses to visual stimuli when compared to infants at typical development likelihood [39].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…Other fNIRS studies have investigated the brain responses to social stimuli of infants at elevated likelihood of atypical development, including those at risk for ASD and ADHD [39,74,75]. For instance, infants (4-6 months) at high risk for autism showed greater hemodynamic response to nonvocal stimuli and diminished response to visual stimuli in a short video paradigm in which visual and auditory stimuli are presented separately [74].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…fNIRS has been used to measure brain activity in social contexts such as social perception among infants at-risk for ASD comparing social and nonsocial context stimuli, ASD children interacting with a human or a robot in a video, and live interaction between ASD children and their parents [31,37]. Also, fNIRS has been deployed to investigate the impact on social processing of infants in low-resources and at-risk of ASD and ADHD [38,39]. Although fNIRS offers promising avenues for investigating the social brain function within the ASD population, the limited number of naturalistic studies with toddlers and preschoolers underscores the need for further exploration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Prefrontal Cortex Responses to Social Video Stimuli in Young Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder

Barreto,

Curtin,

Topoglu

et al. 2024

Brain Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting individuals worldwide and characterized by deficits in social interaction along with the presence of restricted interest and repetitive behaviors. Despite decades of behavioral research, little is known about the brain mechanisms that influence social behaviors among children with ASD. This, in part, is due to limitations of traditional imaging techniques specifically targeting pediatric populations. As a portable and scalable optical brain monitoring technology, functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) provides a measure of cerebral hemodynamics related to sensory, motor, or cognitive function. Here, we utilized fNIRS to investigate the prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity of young children with ASD and with typical development while they watched social and nonsocial video clips. The PFC activity of ASD children was significantly higher for social stimuli at medial PFC, which is implicated in social cognition/processing. Moreover, this activity was also consistently correlated with clinical measures, and higher activation of the same brain area only during social video viewing was associated with more ASD symptoms. This is the first study to implement a neuroergonomics approach to investigate cognitive load in response to realistic, complex, and dynamic audiovisual social stimuli for young children with and without autism. Our results further confirm that new generation of portable fNIRS neuroimaging can be used for ecologically valid measurements of the brain function of toddlers and preschool children with ASD.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Prefrontal Cortex Responses to Social Video Stimuli in Young Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder

Barreto,

Curtin,

Topoglu

et al. 2024

Brain Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

The neural correlates of response inhibition across the transition from infancy to toddlerhood: An fNIRS study

Fiske,

Collins-Jones,

de Klerk

et al. 2024

Imaging Neuroscience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The transition from late infancy into toddlerhood represents a fundamental period in early development. During this time, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is undergoing structural and functional maturation processes that parallel the emergence and improvement of executive function skills, such as inhibitory control. Despite the importance of this developmental period, relatively little is known about the emergence and development of response inhibition, a form of inhibitory control, and the associated neural substrates across this key transition. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), an optical imaging technique suitable for imaging the developing brain, and an age-appropriate response inhibition task, we investigated the brain regions associated with response inhibition in 16-month-old toddlers. This pre-registered study extends our previous work with 10-month-old infants (Fiske et al., 2022) as it follows the same cohort of participants, now at 16 months of age. Whilst our previous work demonstrated that 10-month-old infants recruited right-lateralised regions of the PFC and parietal cortex when inhibition was required, the current study suggests that by 16 months, toddlers recruit the left superior parietal gyrus, the right inferior frontal gyrus, and bilateral regions of the dorsolateral PFC and orbital frontal cortex. Although there was no longitudinal change in response inhibition performance, more widespread, bilateral regions of the PFC were recruited during response inhibition at 16 months compared with 10 months. We acknowledge the need for replication of these results. Nevertheless, our findings suggest that the transition from infancy to toddlerhood may constitute an important period of reorganisation of the PFC that might support the development of early inhibitory control processes.

show abstract

Human brain connectomes; autism services in Sri Lanka; sex differences in fragile X syndrome

Adams

2023

Spectrum

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cortical responses to social stimuli in infants at elevated likelihood of ASD and/or ADHD: A prospective cross-condition fNIRS study

Cited by 3 publications

References 87 publications

Prefrontal Cortex Responses to Social Video Stimuli in Young Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder

Prefrontal Cortex Responses to Social Video Stimuli in Young Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder

The neural correlates of response inhibition across the transition from infancy to toddlerhood: An fNIRS study

Human brain connectomes; autism services in Sri Lanka; sex differences in fragile X syndrome

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About