Prenatal maternal infections and early childhood developmental outcomes: analysis of linked administrative health data for Greater Glasgow & Clyde, Scotland.

BACKGROUND: Previous research has linked prenatal maternal infections to later childhood developmental outcomes and socioemotional difficulties. However, existing studies have relied on retrospectively self-reported survey data, or data on hospital-recorded infections only, resulting in gaps in data collection. METHODS: This study used a large linked administrative health dataset, bringing together data from birth records, hospital records, prescriptions and routine child health reviews for 55,856 children born in Greater Glasgow & Clyde, Scotland, 2011-2015, and their mothers. Logistic regression models examined associations between prenatal infections, measured as both hospital-diagnosed prenatal infections and receipt of infection-related prescription(s) during pregnancy, and childhood developmental concern(s) identified by health visitors during 6-8 week or 27-30 month health reviews. Secondary analyses examined whether results varied by (a) specific developmental outcome types (gross-motor-skills, hearing-communication, vision-social-awareness, personal-social, emotional-behavioural-attention and speech-language-communication) and (b) the trimester(s) in which infections occurred. RESULTS: After confounder/covariate adjustment, hospital-diagnosed infections were associated with increased odds of having at least one developmental concern (OR: 1.30; 95% CI: 1.19-1.42). This was broadly consistent across all developmental outcome types and appeared to be specifically linked to infections occurring in pregnancy trimesters 2 (OR: 1.34; 95% CI: 1.07-1.67) and 3 (OR: 1.33; 95% CI: 1.21-1.47), that is the trimesters in which foetal brain myelination occurs. Infection-related prescriptions were not associated with any clear increase in odds of having at least one developmental concern after confounder/covariate adjustment (OR: 1.03; 95% CI: 0.98-1.08), but were associated with slightly increased odds of concerns specifically related to personal-social (OR: 1.12; 95% CI: 1.03-1.22) and emotional-behavioural-attention (OR: 1.15; 95% CI: 1.08-1.22) development. CONCLUSIONS: Prenatal infections, particularly those which are hospital-diagnosed (and likely more severe), are associated with early childhood developmental outcomes. Prevention of prenatal infections, and monitoring of support needs of affected children, may improve childhood development, but causality remains to be established.

Maternal metabolic syndrome in pregnancy and child development at age 5: exploring mediating mechanisms using cord blood markers.

BACKGROUND: There is limited evidence on how the classification of maternal metabolic syndrome during pregnancy affects children's developmental outcomes and the possible mediators of this association. This study uses a cohort sample of 12,644 to 13,832 mother-child pairs from the UK Born in Bradford Study to examine the associations between maternal metabolic syndrome classification (MetS) and child development outcomes at age 5, using cord blood markers as candidate mediators. METHODS: Maternal cardiometabolic markers included diabetes, obesity, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, blood pressure, hypertension, and fasting glucose during pregnancy. Cord blood markers of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, leptin, and adiponectin were used as child mediators. Child outcomes included two starting school variables: British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS) and the Letter Identification Assessment (LID), and five developmental milestone domains from a national UK framework: (1) communication and language (COM); (2) personal, social, and emotional (PSE); (3) physical development (PHY); (4) literacy (LIT); and (5) mathematics (MAT). Mediation models were used to examine the associations between the classification of maternal metabolic syndrome and child developmental milestones. Models were adjusted for potential maternal, socioeconomic, and child confounders such as maternal education, deprivation, and gestational age. RESULTS: In mediation models, significant total effects were found for MetS associations with children's development in the LIT domain at age 5. MetS predicted individual cord blood mediators of lower HDL and increased leptin levels in both adjusted and unadjusted models. Total indirect effects (effects of all mediators combined) for MetS on a child's COM and PSE domain were significant, through all child cord blood mediators of LDL, HDL, triglycerides, adiponectin, and leptin for adjusted models. CONCLUSIONS: The results support the hypothesis that maternal metabolic syndrome classification during pregnancy is associated with some child developmental outcomes at age 5. After adjusting for maternal, child, and environmental covariates, maternal metabolic syndrome classification during pregnancy was associated with children's LIT domain through direct effects of maternal metabolic health and indirect effects of cord blood markers (total effects), and COM and PSE domains via changes only in a child's cord blood markers (total indirect effects).

A symptom level perspective on reactive and proactive aggressive behaviours and ADHD symptoms in childhood.

OBJECTIVE: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most prevalent childhood disorders, affecting around 3.4% of children worldwide. A common and impairing correlate of ADHD is aggressive behaviour. ADHD symptoms and aggression are both heterogeneous and it has been speculated that certain symptoms of ADHD might be more important in aggressive behaviours of different types than others. This study uses a symptom-level analysis to investigate the concurrent and temporal links between ADHD symptoms and aggressive behaviours. METHODS: Using Gaussian Graphical Models and Graphical Vector Autoregression Models, longitudinal and cross-sectional networks of ADHD symptoms and aggressive behaviours, measured using parent-reported Social Behaviour Questionnaires, were estimated. Participants included 1,246 children taking part in the longitudinal Swiss z-proso cohort study at ages 7, 9 and 11. RESULTS: The longitudinal network highlighted that ADHD symptoms and aggressive behaviours share a multitude of reciprocal temporal relations, with inattentive ADHD symptoms preceding both reactive and proactive aggression. Cross-sectional networks suggested that hyperactive/impulsive symptoms were predominantly connected to reactive aggressive behaviours but also to a form of proactive aggression, namely dominating other children. CONCLUSION: Findings provide preliminary evidence which specific symptoms are the most promising targets for reducing aggressive behaviours in children with ADHD. They also highlight the potential importance of targeting feedback loops resulting from aggressive behaviours. Future research is needed to better understand the mechanisms through which ADHD and aggressive behaviours become linked.

Polygenic risks for joint developmental trajectories of internalizing and externalizing problems: findings from the ALSPAC cohort.

BACKGROUND: Joint developmental trajectories of internalizing and externalizing problems show considerable heterogeneity; however, this can be parsed into a small number of meaningful subgroups. Doing so offered insights into risk factors that lead to different patterns of internalizing/externalizing trajectories. However, despite both domains of problems showing strong heritability, no study has yet considered genetic risks as predictors of joint internalizing/externalizing problem trajectories. METHODS: Using parallel process latent class growth analysis, we estimated joint developmental trajectories of internalizing and externalizing difficulties assessed across ages 4 to 16 using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Multinomial logistic regression was used to evaluate a range of demographic, perinatal, maternal mental health, and child and maternal polygenic predictors of group membership. Participants included 11,049 children taking part in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Polygenic data were available for 7,127 children and 6,836 mothers. RESULTS: A 5-class model was judged optimal: Unaffected, Moderate Externalizing Symptoms, High Externalizing Symptoms, Moderate Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms and High Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms. Male sex, lower maternal age, maternal mental health problems, maternal smoking during pregnancy, higher child polygenic risk scores for ADHD and lower polygenic scores for IQ distinguished affected classes from the unaffected class. CONCLUSIONS: While affected classes could be relatively well separated from the unaffected class, phenotypic and polygenic predictors were limited in their ability to distinguish between different affected classes. Results thus add to existing evidence that internalizing and externalizing problems have mostly shared risk factors.

Maternal infections during pregnancy and child cognitive outcomes.

BACKGROUND: Maternal prenatal infections have been linked to children's neurodevelopment and cognitive outcomes. It remains unclear, however, whether infections occurring during specific vulnerable gestational periods can affect children's cognitive outcomes. The study aimed to examine maternal infections in each trimester of pregnancy and associations with children's developmental and intelligence quotients. The ALSPAC birth cohort was used to investigate associations between maternal infections in pregnancy and child cognitive outcomes. METHODS: Infection data from mothers and cognition data from children were included with the final study sample size comprising 7,410 mother-child participants. Regression analysis was used to examine links between maternal infections occurring at each trimester of pregnancy and children's cognition at 18 months, 4 years, and 8 years. RESULTS: Infections in the third trimester were significantly associated with decreased verbal IQ at age 4 (p < .05, adjusted R2 = 0.004); decreased verbal IQ (p < .01, adjusted R2 = 0.001), performance IQ (p < .01, adjusted R2 = 0.0008), and total IQ at age 8 (p < .01, adjusted R2 = 0.001). CONCLUSION: Results suggest that maternal infections in the third trimester could have a latent effect on cognitive development, only emerging when cognitive load increases over time, though magnitude of effect appears to be small. Performance IQ may be more vulnerable to trimester-specific exposure to maternal infection as compared to verbal IQ. Future research could include examining potential mediating mechanisms on childhood cognition, such as possible moderating effects of early childhood environmental factors, and if effects persist in future cognitive outcomes.

Foetal oestrogens and autism.

Elevated latent prenatal steroidogenic activity has been found in the amniotic fluid of autistic boys, based on measuring prenatal androgens and other steroid hormones. To date, it is unclear if other prenatal steroids also contribute to autism likelihood. Prenatal oestrogens need to be investigated, as they play a key role in synaptogenesis and corticogenesis during prenatal development, in both males and females. Here we test whether levels of prenatal oestriol, oestradiol, oestrone and oestrone sulphate in amniotic fluid are associated with autism, in the same Danish Historic Birth Cohort, in which prenatal androgens were measured, using univariate logistic regression (n = 98 cases, n = 177 controls). We also make a like-to-like comparison between the prenatal oestrogens and androgens. Oestradiol, oestrone, oestriol and progesterone each related to autism in univariate analyses after correction with false discovery rate. A comparison of standardised odds ratios showed that oestradiol, oestrone and progesterone had the largest effects on autism likelihood. These results for the first time show that prenatal oestrogens contribute to autism likelihood, extending the finding of elevated prenatal steroidogenic activity in autism. This likely affects sexual differentiation, brain development and function.

Sex-specific impact of prenatal androgens on social brain default mode subsystems.

Early-onset neurodevelopmental conditions (e.g., autism) affect males more frequently than females. Androgens may play a role in this male-bias by sex-differentially impacting early prenatal brain development, particularly neural circuits that later develop specialized roles in social cognition. Here, we find that increasing prenatal testosterone in humans is associated with later reduction of functional connectivity between social brain default mode (DMN) subsystems in adolescent males, but has no effect in females. Since testosterone can work directly via the androgen receptor (AR) or indirectly via the estrogen receptor through aromatase conversion to estradiol, we further examined how a potent non-aromatizable androgen, dihydrotestosterone (DHT), acts via the AR to influence gene expression in human neural stem cells (hNSC)-particularly for genes of high-relevance for DMN circuitry. DHT dysregulates a number of genes enriched for syndromic causes of autism and intellectual disability and for genes that in later development are expressed in anatomical patterns that highly correspond to the cortical midline DMN subsystem. DMN-related and DHT-affected genes (e.g., MEF2C) are involved in a number of synaptic processes, many of which impact excitation-inhibition balance. Androgens have male-specific prenatal influence over social brain circuitry in humans and may be relevant towards explaining some component of male-bias in early-onset neurodevelopmental conditions.

Prenatal exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and associations with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder in children.

BACKGROUND: Prenatal exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) may be a risk factor for neurodevelopmental deficits and disorders, but evidence is inconsistent. OBJECTIVES: We investigated whether prenatal exposure to PFAS were associated with childhood diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or autism spectrum disorder (ASD). METHODS: This study was based on the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study and included n = 821 ADHD cases, n = 400 ASD cases and n = 980 controls. Diagnostic cases were identified by linkage with the Norwegian Patient Registry. In addition, we used data from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway. The study included the following PFAS measured in maternal plasma sampled mid-pregnancy: Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), perfluorodecanoic acid (PFDA), perfluoroundecanoic acid (PFUnDA), perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS), perfluoroheptanesulfonic acid (PFHpS), and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS). Relationships between individual PFAS and ADHD or ASD diagnoses were examined using multivariable adjusted logistic regression models. We also tested for possible non-linear exposure-outcome associations. Further, we investigated the PFAS mixture associations with ASD and ADHD diagnoses using a quantile-based g-computation approach. RESULTS: Odds of ASD was significantly elevated in PFOA quartile 2 [OR = 1.71 (95% CI: 1.20, 2.45)] compared to quartile 1, and PFOA appeared to have a non-linear, inverted U-shaped dose-response relationship with ASD. PFOA was also associated with increased odds of ADHD, mainly in quartile 2 [OR = 1.54 (95% CI: 1.16, 2.04)] compared to quartile 1, and displayed a non-linear relationship in the restricted cubic spline model. Several PFAS (PFUnDA, PFDA, and PFOS) were inversely associated with odds of ADHD and/or ASD. Some of the associations were modified by child sex and maternal education. The overall PFAS mixture was inversely associated with ASD [OR = 0.76 (95% CI: 0.64, 0.90)] as well as the carboxylate mixture [OR = 0.79 (95% CI: 0.68, 0.93)] and the sulfonate mixture [OR = 0.84 (95% CI: 0.73, 0.96)]. CONCLUSION: Prenatal exposure to PFOA was associated with increased risk of ASD and ADHD in children. For some PFAS, as well as their mixtures, there were inverse associations with ASD and/or ADHD. However, the inverse associations reported herein should not be interpreted as protective effects, but rather that there could be some unresolved confounding for these relationships. The epidemiologic literature linking PFAS exposures with neurodevelopmental outcomes is still inconclusive, suggesting the need for more research to elucidate the neurotoxicological potential of PFAS during early development.

Links between perinatal risk factors and maternal psychological distress: A network analysis.

INTRODUCTION: This paper explores a range of perinatal risk factors that may increase maternal vulnerability to postnatal psychological distress in a sample of 17 531 women participating in the Millennium Cohort Study, a diverse British, longitudinal birth cohort study. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Using a graphical network modeling framework, this study models the links between postnatal psychological distress and perinatal risk factors, while controlling for sociodemographic factors and history of depression and anxiety. Postnatal psychological distress was assessed at 9 months postpartum using the Rutter Malaise Inventory. RESULTS: Results of the graphical network models indicate that lower levels of happiness about the pregnancy (Edge weight [w] = 0.084, 95% CI = 0.069-0.100, b = 0.095), smoking during pregnancy (w = 0.026, 95% CI = -0.009-0.060, b = 0.029), infection during pregnancy (w = 0.071, 95% CI = 0.024-0.118, b = 0.090), hyperemesis gravidarum (w = 0.068, 95% CI = 0.013-0.123, b = 0.083), baby in special care (w = 0.048, 95% CI = -0.004-0.099, b = 0.062), not being white (w = 0.101, 95% CI = 0.062-0.140, b = 0.118), being from a more deprived area (w = -0.028, 95% CI = -0.051 to -0.005, b = -0.039), lower income (w = -0.025, 95% CI = -0.055-0.005, b = -0.036), and history of depression or anxiety (w = 0.574, 95% CI = 0.545-0.603, b = 0.764) were associated with increased psychological distress. CONCLUSIONS: Some perinatal risk factors may be directly associated with postnatal psychological distress, but many risk factors appear to be primarily associated with demographic factors. This emphasizes the importance of taking a holistic approach when evaluating an individual's risk of developing postnatal psychological distress.

Prenatal maternal infections and children's socioemotional development: findings from the UK Millennium Cohort Study.

Previous research suggests that prenatal maternal infections may be associated with increased odds of children having a neurodevelopmental disorder. However, little evidence exists on associations with broader child outcomes, especially subclinical symptoms. Participants were the N = 14,021 members of the population-representative UK Millennium Cohort Study. We examined associations between prenatal maternal infections, both maternal-reported and hospital-recorded, and children's socioemotional development, using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) at age three. Maternal-reported prenatal infections were associated with increased emotional symptoms, after adjusting for several potential confounds and covariates. Hospital-recorded prenatal infections were not associated with children's socioemotional outcomes, after adjusting for potential confounding and covarying factors. Findings suggest that prenatal maternal infections, particularly those which the mothers remember months later, may be associated with increased emotional problems in early childhood. This emphasises the need for screening for and preventing infections during pregnancy. Further, the occurrence of prenatal infection indicates the potential need for early intervention for children's emotional difficulties.

Age-related differentiation in verbal and visuospatial working memory processing in childhood.

Working memory (WM), a key feature of the cognitive system, allows for maintaining and processing information simultaneously and in a controlled manner. WM processing continuously develops across childhood, with significant increases both in verbal and visuospatial WM. Verbal and visuospatial WM may show different developmental trajectories, as verbal (but not visuospatial) WM relies on internal verbal rehearsal, which is less developed in younger children. We examined complex VWM and VSWM performance in 125 younger (age 4-6 years) and 101 older (age 8-10 years) children. Latent multi-group modeling showed that (1) older children performed better on both verbal and visuospatial WM span tasks than younger children, (2) both age groups performed better on verbal than visuospatial WM, and (3) a model with two factors representing verbal and visuospatial WM fit the data better than a one-factor model. Importantly, the correlation between the two factors was significantly higher in younger than in older children, suggesting an age-related differentiation of verbal and spatial WM processing in middle childhood. Age-related differentiation is an important characteristic of cognitive functioning and thus the findings contribute to our general understanding of WM processing.

Sex differences in ADHD trajectories across childhood and adolescence.

Previous studies have hinted at sex differences in developmental trajectories in ADHD symptoms; however, little is known about the nature or cause of these differences and their implications for clinical practice. We used growth mixture modelling in a community-ascertained cohort of n = 1,571 participants to study sex differences in ADHD symptom developmental trajectories across the elementary and secondary school years. Participants were measured at ages 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 15. We found that females were more likely to show large symptom increases in early adolescence while males were more likely to show elevated symptoms from childhood. For both males and females, early adolescence represented a period of vulnerability characterized by relatively sudden symptom increases. Females affected by hyperactivity/impulsivity may be more likely to be excluded from diagnosis due to current age of onset criteria. More attention should be paid to early adolescence as a period of risk for hyperactivity/impulsivity symptom onset or worsening.

Sex Differences in the Adult Human Brain: Evidence from 5216 UK Biobank Participants.

Sex differences in the human brain are of interest for many reasons: for example, there are sex differences in the observed prevalence of psychiatric disorders and in some psychological traits that brain differences might help to explain. We report the largest single-sample study of structural and functional sex differences in the human brain (2750 female, 2466 male participants; mean age 61.7 years, range 44-77 years). Males had higher raw volumes, raw surface areas, and white matter fractional anisotropy; females had higher raw cortical thickness and higher white matter tract complexity. There was considerable distributional overlap between the sexes. Subregional differences were not fully attributable to differences in total volume, total surface area, mean cortical thickness, or height. There was generally greater male variance across the raw structural measures. Functional connectome organization showed stronger connectivity for males in unimodal sensorimotor cortices, and stronger connectivity for females in the default mode network. This large-scale study provides a foundation for attempts to understand the causes and consequences of sex differences in adult brain structure and function.

Improving effect size estimation and statistical power with multi-echo fMRI and its impact on understanding the neural systems supporting mentalizing.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research is routinely criticized for being statistically underpowered due to characteristically small sample sizes and much larger sample sizes are being increasingly recommended. Additionally, various sources of artifact inherent in fMRI data can have detrimental impact on effect size estimates and statistical power. Here we show how specific removal of non-BOLD artifacts can improve effect size estimation and statistical power in task-fMRI contexts, with particular application to the social-cognitive domain of mentalizing/theory of mind. Non-BOLD variability identification and removal is achieved in a biophysical and statistically principled manner by combining multi-echo fMRI acquisition and independent components analysis (ME-ICA). Without smoothing, group-level effect size estimates on two different mentalizing tasks were enhanced by ME-ICA at a median rate of 24% in regions canonically associated with mentalizing, while much more substantial boosts (40-149%) were observed in non-canonical cerebellar areas. Effect size boosting occurs via reduction of non-BOLD noise at the subject-level and consequent reductions in between-subject variance at the group-level. Smoothing can attenuate ME-ICA-related effect size improvements in certain circumstances. Power simulations demonstrate that ME-ICA-related effect size enhancements enable much higher-powered studies at traditional sample sizes. Cerebellar effects observed after applying ME-ICA may be unobservable with conventional imaging at traditional sample sizes. Thus, ME-ICA allows for principled design-agnostic non-BOLD artifact removal that can substantially improve effect size estimates and statistical power in task-fMRI contexts. ME-ICA could mitigate some issues regarding statistical power in fMRI studies and enable novel discovery of aspects of brain organization that are currently under-appreciated and not well understood.

Eating disorders and their putative risk factors among female German professional athletes.

This study examines putative non-sport-specific and sport-specific risk factors for eating disorders (ED) among groups of professional female athletes versus non-athletes. In detail, societal pressure to be thin, its internalisation, body dissatisfaction, sports pressure and early specialisation were investigated. The cross-sectional study included 46 aesthetic and 62 ball game sports athletes, and 108 age-matched non-athletes. Study methods comprised a clinical interview to detect ED and questionnaires. More athletes from aesthetic (17%) than from ball game sports (3%) and non-athletes (2%) suffered from ED. Aesthetic sports athletes did not differ from non-athletes in non-sport-specific factors but obtained higher levels than ball game sports athletes in sport-specific variables (p < .01). All factors together accounted for 57.3% of variation in disordered eating, with sports pressure and body dissatisfaction as significant predictors. The results confirm ED risk for German aesthetic athletes and indicate the importance of sports pressure and body dissatisfaction in explaining athletes' vulnerability.

The effects of oxytocin on social reward learning in humans.

It has been hypothesised that the mechanisms modulating social affiliation are regulated by reward circuitry. Oxytocin, previously shown to support affiliative behaviour and the processing of socio-emotional stimuli, is expressed in areas of the brain involved in reward and motivation. However, limited data are available that test if oxytocin is directly involved in reward learning, or whether oxytocin can modulate the effect of emotion on reward learning. In a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, within-group study design, 24 typical male volunteers were administered 24 IU of oxytocin or placebo and subsequently completed an affective reward learning task. Oxytocin selectively reduced performance of learning rewards, but not losses, from happy faces. The mechanism by which oxytocin may be exerting this effect is discussed in terms of whether oxytocin is affecting identity recognition via affecting the salience of happy faces. We conclude that oxytocin detrimentally affects learning rewards from happy faces in certain contexts.

Effects of oxytocin on attention to emotional faces in healthy volunteers and highly socially anxious males.

BACKGROUND: Evidence suggests that individuals with social anxiety demonstrate vigilance to social threat, whilst the peptide hormone oxytocin is widely accepted as supporting affiliative behaviour in humans. METHODS: This study investigated whether oxytocin can affect attentional bias in social anxiety. In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, within-group study design, 26 healthy and 16 highly socially anxious (HSA) male volunteers (within the HSA group, 10 were diagnosed with generalized social anxiety disorder) were administered 24 IU of oxytocin or placebo to investigate attentional processing in social anxiety. Attentional bias was assessed using the dot-probe paradigm with angry, fearful, happy and neutral face stimuli. RESULTS: In the baseline placebo condition, the HSA group showed greater attentional bias for emotional faces than healthy individuals. Oxytocin reduced the difference between HSA and non-socially anxious individuals in attentional bias for emotional faces. Moreover, it appeared to normalize attentional bias in HSA individuals to levels seen in the healthy population in the baseline condition. The biological mechanisms by which oxytocin may be exerting these effects are discussed. CONCLUSIONS: These results, coupled with previous research, could indicate a potential therapeutic use of this hormone in treatment for social anxiety.

Why are autism spectrum conditions more prevalent in males?

Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) are much more common in males, a bias that may offer clues to the etiology of this condition. Although the cause of this bias remains a mystery, we argue that it occurs because ASC is an extreme manifestation of the male brain. The extreme male brain (EMB) theory, first proposed in 1997, is an extension of the Empathizing-Systemizing (E-S) theory of typical sex differences that proposes that females on average have a stronger drive to empathize while males on average have a stronger drive to systemize. In this first major update since 2005, we describe some of the evidence relating to the EMB theory of ASC and consider how typical sex differences in brain structure may be relevant to ASC. One possible biological mechanism to account for the male bias is the effect of fetal testosterone (fT). We also consider alternative biological theories, the X and Y chromosome theories, and the reduced autosomal penetrance theory. None of these theories has yet been fully confirmed or refuted, though the weight of evidence in favor of the fT theory is growing from converging sources (longitudinal amniocentesis studies from pregnancy to age 10 years old, current hormone studies, and genetic association studies of SNPs in the sex steroid pathways). Ultimately, as these theories are not mutually exclusive and ASC is multi-factorial, they may help explain the male prevalence of ASC.

Associations Between Reward and Future-Related Orientations and General and Specific Mental Health Issues in Adolescence.

Adolescence is characterised by a peak in sensation seeking accompanied by gradually developing self-control skills. Adolescents typically show steeper delay discounting performance than other age groups; a feature that is transdiagnostically related to a variety of mental health disorders. However, delay discounting performance is not a singular mental process but involves both risk/reward and future orientation elements, usually operationalised as probability/risk and time discounting tasks, respectively. To clarify the specific relations between the risk/reward and future orientation elements of delay discounting and different types of mental health problems, two bi-factor models and a series of structural equation models (SEMs) were fitted to multi-informant (parent and adolescent self-reported) mental health data from a large UK study. A transdiagnostic promotive role of future orientation was found using bi-factor modelling to separate general and dimension-specific mental health variation; however, this was limited to parent reports. In addition, future orientation was negatively associated with conduct problems and ADHD symptoms, but positively associated with emotional problems. Risk aversion was negatively associated with conduct problems, but positively associated with emotional and peer problems. The findings highlight that risk/reward and future orientation elements of delay discounting play partly distinct roles in different mental health problems and can serve both promotive and risk roles during adolescence. Findings also illuminate which elements of delay discounting should be intervention targets for different mental health concerns.

The relationship between social cognitive processes and behavior changes in people with amnestic mild cognitive impairment or dementia using the Edinburgh Social Cognition Test (ESCoT).

OBJECTIVE: People with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) or dementia often exhibit a decline in their social abilities, but few tests of social cognition exist that are suitable for clinical use. Moreover, the relationship between changes in behavior and impairments in social cognition is poorly understood. We examined the utility of the Edinburgh Social Cognition Test (ESCoT) in people with aMCI/dementia and explored associations between social cognition performance and behavior changes. METHOD: We administered the ESCoT and two established social cognition tests (the Reading the Mind in the Eyes and the Social Norms Questionnaire) to 28 people with aMCI or dementia and 28 age and sex matched cognitively healthy controls. Behavior change was measured using a semistructured interview which assesses behavioral abnormalities found in frontotemporal dementia. RESULTS: People with aMCI/dementia were impaired on the ESCoT affective theory of mind, ESCoT total score and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes. Behavior changes in the domains of apathy, loss of sympathy/empathy, perseveration, and psychotic symptoms were associated with poorer affective theory of mind scores. Disinhibition, loss of sympathy/empathy and hyperorality or altered food preferences were associated with cognitive theory of mind. All behaviors were significantly associated with poorer performance on ESCoT total score, but were not associated with performance on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes or the Social Norms Questionnaire. CONCLUSIONS: The ESCoT was sensitive to social cognition impairments in people with aMCI/dementia and it relates to behavior change in aMCI/dementia unlike established tests. Different subtests of the ESCoT were related to different behavior changes. These findings suggest that the ESCoT may be a clinically valuable tool when examining social cognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).