Face-like pareidolia images are more difficult to detect than real faces in children with autism spectrum disorder.

BACKGROUND: Research on the diagnosis, treatment and pathophysiology of neurodevelopmental disorders is multifaceted, requiring the use of genetics, imaging, psychology, and artificial intelligence (AI). Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by a limited ability to communicate and a limited interest in social environments. Facial recognition is really important in daily life. Seeing faces in unusual objects, e.g., a face in a cloud, is called face pareidolia. OBJECTIVES: Although more evidence points to a greater role of genetic factors in ASD, neuropsychological tests have an important role in diagnosing ASD. The aim of the study was to investigate how face perception is processed in children with autism using a new digital test that consists of faces and pareidolia images. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Twenty typically developing (TD) children (8 male, 12 female) between 6 and 16 years of age and 21 children with ASD (14 male, 7 female) between 6 and 14 years of age were included in the study. A new neuropsychological test called the digital pareidolia test was administered to the participants. The study consisted of 2 stages: a face condition and a pareidolia condition. RESULTS: Our results showed that children with autism (n = 21) were less successful in identifying both face and pareidolia images, and were slower to react in both conditions than children from the TD group. Both children with ASD and the TD group reacted faster to face images than pareidolia images. CONCLUSIONS: The findings in this study are in agreement with atypical and different face perceptions in autism which cause social difficulties. We demonstrated that the digital face and pareidolia test has considerable potential for use as a neuropsychological test that can specify the diagnosis and progression of autism in subclinical areas. Pareidolia faces and real faces are processed in a common way.

A Survey of Attitudes, Anxiety Status, and Protective Behaviors of the University Students During the COVID-19 Outbreak in Turkey.

A new coronavirus disease began on 31 December 2019 in Wuhan/China and has caused a global outbreak in only a few months resulting in millions being infected. In conjunction with its' physical side effects, this outbreak also has a tremendous impact on psychology health. This study aims to assess the spread and frequency of protective behaviors, emotional and anxiety status among the Turkish population using a rapid survey during the COVID-19 outbreak. An online questionnaire was administered to 3,040 respondents between the ages of 18-30. This cross-sectional study was conducted from Apr 2 to Apr 8, 2020. While questions related to the outbreak were created by members of our neuroscience department, the Turkish version of the Abbreviated Beck Anxiety Inventory was included in our survey to measure anxiety status. Pearson correlation coefficient was used for statistical analysis. We found that 90% of respondents report washing hands more frequently since the outbreak while %50 wear protective gloves. Respondents were more fearful of their relatives catching the coronavirus disease than they were of themselves catching it. In response to the question, "What are your emotions about the coronavirus?", 38% responded with "worried". There was a significant correlation between anxiety status and consumption information from the media about COVID-19. Individual early protection behaviors might slow transmission of the outbreak. Our results showed that the behavior of the participants has changed in predictable ways during the COVID-19 outbreak. Understanding how emotional responses such as fear and anxiety status vary and the specific factors that mediate it may help with the design of outbreak control strategies.

Event-Related Potentials Elicited by Face and Face Pareidolia in Parkinson's Disease.

BACKGROUND: Parkinson's disease is associated with impaired ability to recognize emotional facial expressions. In addition to a visual processing disorder, a visual recognition disorder may be involved in these patients. Pareidolia is a type of complex visual illusion that permits the interpretation of a vague stimulus as something known to the observer. Parkinson's patients experience pareidolic illusions. N170 and N250 waveforms are two event-related potentials (ERPs) involved in emotional facial expression recognition. OBJECTIVE: In this study, we investigated how Parkinson's patients process face and face-pareidolia stimuli at the neural level using N170, vertex positive potential (VPP), and N250 components of event-related potentials. METHODS: To examine the response of face and face-pareidolia processing in Parkinson's patients, we measured the N170, VPP, and N250 components of the event-related brain potentials in a group of 21 participants with Parkinson's disease and 26 control participants. RESULTS: We found that the latencies of N170 and VPP responses to both face and face-pareidolia stimuli were increased along with their amplitudes, and the amplitude of N250 responses decreased in Parkinson's patients compared to the control group. In both control and Parkinson's patients, face stimuli generated greater ERP amplitude and shorter latency in responses than did face-pareidolia stimuli. CONCLUSION: The results of our study showed that ERPs associated with face and also face-pareidolia stimuli processing are changed in early-stage neurophysiological activity in the temporoparietal cortex of Parkinson's patients.

Brain activity underlying face and face pareidolia processing: an ERP study.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Face pareidolia is described as an interpretation of any unrelated object seen for the first time as a face. It is still unclear how to face pareidolia is processed. In this study, the neural basis of face and face pareidolia processing was investigated through recording event-related potentials (ERPs). METHODS: The ERPs were recorded from 35 right-handed and healthy participants in response to faces and face pareidolia. Amplitudes and latencies of N170, vertex-positive potential (VPP), and N250 components were analyzed, and current source density (CSD) maps relevant to these components were obtained. RESULTS: N170 response was earlier and larger in response to faces compared to face pareidolias. VPP is also evoked earlier in response to faces as in the case of N170; however, the VPP amplitude was larger for face pareidolias than for faces. Statistical analyses did not reveal any differences between faces and face pareidolias in terms of N250 component. CONCLUSION: The results indicated that faces and face pareidolias are processed in the early stages of visual perception. In addition, the N250 component does not reflect the neural processing of faces and face pareidolias.

Changes in face and face pareidolia processing in patients with migraine: an ERP study.

Migraine is a multifactorial brain disorder characterized by recurrent disabling headache attacks. One of the possible mechanisms in the pathogenesis of migraine may be a decrease in inhibitory cortical stimuli in the primary visual cortex attributable to cortical hyperexcitability. The aim of this study was to investigate the neural correlates underlying face and face pareidolia processing in terms of the event-related potential (ERP) components, N170, vertex positive potential (VPP), and N250, in patients with migraine. In total, 40 patients with migraine without aura, 23 patients with migraine and aura, and 30 healthy controls were enrolled. We recorded ERPs during the presentation of face and face pareidolia images. N170, VPP, and N250 mean amplitudes and latencies were examined. N170 was significantly greater in patients with migraine with aura than in healthy controls. VPP amplitude was significantly greater in patients with migraine without aura than in healthy controls. The face stimuli evoked significantly earlier VPP responses to faces (168.7 ms, SE = 1.46) than pareidolias (173.4 ms, SE = 1.41) in patients with migraine with aura. We did not find a significant difference between N250 amplitude for face and face pareidolia processing. A significant difference was observed between the groups for pareidolia in terms of N170 [F(2,86) = 14,75, P < 0.001] and VPP [F(2,86) = 16.43, P < 0.001] amplitudes. Early ERPs are a valuable tool to study the neural processing of face processing in patients with migraine to demonstrate visual cortical hyperexcitability.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Event-related potentials (ERPs) are important for understanding face and face pareidolia processing in patients with migraine. N170, vertex positive potential (VPP), and N250 ERPs were investigated. N170 was revealed as a potential component of cortical excitability for face and face pareidolia processing in patients with migraine.

Man-In-The-Barrel Syndrome: Acute bilateral brachial plexopathy after recurrent microtrauma.

The presence of brachial diplegia despite the normal muscular strength of the lower extremities is called the man-in-the-barrel syndrome (MIBS). Although this rare syndrome often occurs due to the bilateral supratentorial brain lesions, it may also rarely occur as a result of infratentorial causes. In this report, we describe a case presenting with MIBS of which etiological underlying cause was bilateral brachial plexopathy developed secondarily to recurrent microtrauma. A 51-year-old male patient presented to our clinic with complaints of pain and weakness on both arms. After electrodiagnostic examination, bilateral brachial plexopathy was identified. The findings of the patient improved following methylprednisolone therapy. It is very important to determine the treatable causes of this syndrome at an early stage.

Dynamic thiol-disulphide homeostasis in patients with Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate dynamic thiol-disulphide homeostasis as a novel oxidative stress parameter in patients with Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS). METHODS: A total of 130 participants were included in this study, 70 of whom were diagnosed with GBS. Total thiol (-SH+-S-S-) and native thiol (-SH) levels in serum were measured in all patients and healthy individuals. Amount of dynamic disulphide bond were calculated from these values. In the GBS patients, disability status was determined by the Hughes and Medical Research Center (MRC) sum scores at the time of admission and 3 months thereafter. RESULTS: Total and native thiol levels were significantly lower in patients with GBS compared with healthy individuals. There was no statistically significant difference in the number of dynamic disulphide bonds between groups. There was a negative correlation between total thiol levels in patients with GBS and Hughes scores at month 3. DISCUSSION: Oxidative stress is among the molecular changes underlying the pathogenesis of GBS. In this study, we have investigated the dynamic thiol-disulfide homeostasis in patients with epilepsy using a new method in the literature. Also, functional recovery in Guillain-Barré syndrome patients could be promoted by increasing antioxidant activity.

Neural mechanisms underlying visual pareidolia processing: An fMRI study.

OBJECTIVES: Pareidolia is the interpretation of previously unseen and unrelated objects as familiar due to previous learning. The present study aimed to determine the specific brain areas that exhibited activation during real-face and face-pareidolia processing. METHODS: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scans were performed on 20 healthy subjects under real-face and face-pareidolia conditions in National Magnetic Resonance Research Center (UMRAM), Ankara, Turkey from April 2016 to January 2017. FSL software was used to conduct a FEAT higher level (group) analysis to identify the brain areas activated during real-face and face-pareidolia processing. RESULTS: Under both the real-face and face-pareidolia conditions, activation was observed in the Prefrontal Cortex (PFCX), occipital cortex V1, occipital cortex V2, and inferior temporal regions. Also under both conditions, the same degree of activation was observed in the right Fusiform Face Area (FFA) and the right PFCX. On the other hand, PFCX activation was not evident under the real-face versus face scrambled or face-pareidolia versus pareidolia scrambled conditions. CONCLUSIONS: The present findings suggest that, as in real-face perception, face-pareidolia requires interaction between top-down and bottom-up brain regions including the FFA and frontal and occipitotemporal areas. Additionally, whole-brain analyses revealed that the right PFCX played an important role in processing real faces and in face pareidolia (illusory face perception), as did the FFA.

Complexity Analysis of Resting-State fMRI in Adult Patients with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Brain Entropy.

OBJECTIVE: Complexity analysis of functional brain structure data represents a new multidisciplinary approach to examining complex, living structures. I aimed to construct a connectivity map of visual brain activities using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data and to characterize the level of complexity of functional brain activity using these connectivity data. METHODS: A total of 25 healthy controls and 20 patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) participated. fMRI preprocessing analysis was performed that included head motion correction, temporal filtering, and spatial smoothing process. Brain entropy (BEN) was calculated using the Shannon entropy equation. RESULTS: My findings demonstrated that patients exhibited reduced brain complexity in visual brain areas compared to controls. The mean entropy value of the ADHD group was 0.56 ± 0.14, compared to 0.64 ± 0.11 in the control group. CONCLUSION: My study adds an important novel result to the growing literature pertaining to abnormal visual processing in ADHD that my ADHD patients had lower BEN values, indicating more-regular functional brain structure and abnormal visual information processing.

Electrical source localization by LORETA in patients with epilepsy: Confirmation by postoperative MRI.

BACKGROUND: Few studies have been conducted that have compared electrical source localization (ESL) results obtained by analyzing ictal patterns in scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) with the brain areas that are found to be responsible for seizures using other brain imaging techniques. Additionally, adequate studies have not been performed to confirm the accuracy of ESL methods. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this study, ESL was conducted using LORETA (Low Resolution Brain Electromagnetic Tomography) in 9 patients with lesions apparent on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and in 6 patients who did not exhibit lesions on their MRIs. EEGs of patients who underwent surgery for epilepsy and had follow-ups for at least 1 year after operations were analyzed for ictal spike, rhythmic, paroxysmal fast, and obscured EEG activities. Epileptogenic zones identified in postoperative MRIs were then compared with localizations obtained by LORETA model we employed. RESULTS: We found that brain areas determined via ESL were in concordance with resected brain areas for 13 of the 15 patients evaluated, and those 13 patients were post-operatively determined as being seizure-free. CONCLUSION: ESL, which is a noninvasive technique, may contribute to the correct delineation of epileptogenic zones in patients who will eventually undergo surgery to treat epilepsy, (regardless of neuroimaging status). Moreover, ESL may aid in deciding on the number and localization of intracranial electrodes to be used in patients who are candidates for invasive recording.