Parenting links to parent-child interbrain synchrony: a real-time fNIRS hyperscanning study.

Parent-child interaction is crucial for children's cognitive and affective development. While bio-synchrony models propose that parenting influences interbrain synchrony during interpersonal interaction, the brain-to-brain mechanisms underlying real-time parent-child interactions remain largely understudied. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy, we investigated interbrain synchrony in 88 parent-child dyads (Mage children = 8.07, 42.0% girls) during a collaborative task (the Etch-a-Sketch, a joint drawing task). Our findings revealed increased interbrain synchrony in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and temporo-parietal areas during interactive, collaborative sessions compared to non-interactive, resting sessions. Linear regression analysis demonstrated that interbrain synchrony in the left temporoparietal junction was associated with enhanced dyadic collaboration, shared positive affect, parental autonomy support, and parental emotional warmth. These associations remained significant after controlling for demographic variables including child age, child gender, and parent gender. Additionally, differences between fathers and mothers were observed. These results highlight the significant association between brain-to-brain synchrony in parent-child dyads, the quality of the parent-child relationship, and supportive parenting behaviors. Interbrain synchrony may serve as a neurobiological marker of real-time parent-child interaction, potentially underscoring the pivotal role of supportive parenting in shaping these interbrain synchrony mechanisms.

Using normative modeling to assess pharmacological treatment effect on brain state in patients with schizophrenia.

Quantifying individual differences in neuroimaging metrics is attracting interest in clinical studies with mental disorders. Schizophrenia is diagnosed exclusively based on symptoms, and the biological heterogeneity makes it difficult to accurately assess pharmacological treatment effects on the brain state. Using the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience data set, we built normative models of brain states and mapped the deviations of the brain characteristics of each patient, to test whether deviations were related to symptoms, and further investigated the pharmacological treatment effect on deviation distributions. Specifically, we found that the patients can be divided into 2 groups: the normalized group had a normalization trend and milder symptoms at baseline, and the other group showed a more severe deviation trend. The baseline severity of the depression as well as the overall symptoms could predict the deviation of the static characteristics for the dorsal and ventral attention networks after treatment. In contrast, the positive symptoms could predict the deviations of the dynamic fluctuations for the default mode and dorsal attention networks after treatment. This work evaluates the effect of pharmacological treatment on static and dynamic brain states using an individualized approach, which may assist in understanding the heterogeneity of the illness pathology as well as the treatment response.

Heterogeneous brain dynamic functional connectivity patterns in first-episode drug-naive patients with major depressive disorder.

It remains challenging to identify depression accurately due to its biological heterogeneity. As people suffering from depression are associated with functional brain network alterations, we investigated subtypes of patients with first-episode drug-naive (FEDN) depression based on brain network characteristics. This study included data from 91 FEDN patients and 91 matched healthy individuals obtained from the International Big-Data Center for Depression Research. Twenty large-scale functional connectivity networks were computed using group information guided independent component analysis. A multivariate unsupervised normative modeling method was used to identify subtypes of FEDN and their associated networks, focusing on individual-level variability among the patients for quantifying deviations of their brain networks from the normative range. Two patient subtypes were identified with distinctive abnormal functional network patterns, consisting of 10 informative connectivity networks, including the default mode network and frontoparietal network. 16% of patients belonged to subtype I with larger extreme deviations from the normal range and shorter illness duration, while 84% belonged to subtype II with weaker extreme deviations and longer illness duration. Moreover, the structural changes in subtype II patients were more complex than the subtype I patients. Compared with healthy controls, both increased and decreased gray matter (GM) abnormalities were identified in widely distributed brain regions in subtype II patients. In contrast, most abnormalities were decreased GM in subtype I. The informative functional network connectivity patterns gleaned from the imaging data can facilitate the accurate identification of FEDN-MDD subtypes and their associated neurobiological heterogeneity.

Increasing audiovisual speech integration in autism through enhanced attention to mouth.

Autistic children (AC) show less audiovisual speech integration in the McGurk task, which correlates with their reduced mouth-looking time. The present study examined whether AC's less audiovisual speech integration in the McGurk task could be increased by increasing their mouth-looking time. We recruited 4- to 8-year-old AC and nonautistic children (NAC). In two experiments, we manipulated children's mouth-looking time, measured their audiovisual speech integration by employing the McGurk effect paradigm, and tracked their eye movements. In Experiment 1, we blurred the eyes in McGurk stimuli and compared children's performances in blurred-eyes and clear-eyes conditions. In Experiment 2, we cued children's attention to either the mouth or eyes of McGurk stimuli or asked them to view the McGurk stimuli freely. We found that both blurring the speaker's eyes and cuing to the speaker's mouth increased mouth-looking time and increased audiovisual speech integration in the McGurk task in AC. In addition, we found that blurring the speaker's eyes and cuing to the speaker's mouth also increased mouth-looking time in NAC, but neither blurring the speaker's eyes nor cuing to the speaker's mouth increased their audiovisual speech integration in the McGurk task. Our findings suggest that audiovisual speech integration in the McGurk task in AC could be increased by increasing their attention to the mouth. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of relations between face attention and audiovisual speech integration, and provide insights for the development of professional supports to increase audiovisual speech integration in AC. HIGHLIGHTS: The present study examined whether audiovisual speech integration in the McGurk task in AC could be increased by increasing their attention to the speaker's mouth. Blurring the speaker's eyes increased mouth-looking time and audiovisual speech integration in the McGurk task in AC. Cuing to the speaker's mouth also increased mouth-looking time and audiovisual speech integration in the McGurk task in AC. Audiovisual speech integration in the McGurk task in AC could be increased by increasing their attention to the speaker's mouth.

Autistic children's visual sensitivity to face movement.

There is a pressing need for studies of large sample sizes and variable age ranges to delineate the mechanism underlying reduced visual attention to biological motion in autism. Here we focused on the basic movement of the eyes or mouth in guiding attention. The stimuli face blinked continuously or moved the mouth silently. In a large sample (145 autistic and 132 non-autistic participants) ranging from 3 to 17 years old, we assessed whether autistic participants showed reduced visual attention to basic movement of the eyes or mouth using a free-viewing eye-tracking task. We found that, like non-autistic participants, autistic participants increased their eye-looking time when viewing the blinking face and increased mouth-looking time when viewing the mouth-moving face. Furthermore, these effects were stable across ages, suggesting the presence of a developmentally stable attentional capture by basic face movements in both groups. We also found that autistic participants looked less at basic face movement than non-autistic participants. Our results suggest that autistic children and adolescents could modulate their visual attention to the basic face movements, but their modulation effect is weaker than non-autistic participants. These results further our understanding of the mechanism underlying visual attention-to-face movement in autistic people.

Out of mind, out of sight? Investigating abnormal face scanning in autism spectrum disorder using gaze-contingent paradigm.

Diminished social motivation is hypothesized to explain abnormal face scanning pattern in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), especially reduced eye-looking time in ASDs than typically developing (TD) people. Here, we tested an alternative explanation that children with ASD may use a compensatory strategy to avoid direct eye contact by processing the eyes through peripheral vision. We compared the face scanning patterns of children with and without ASD in two conditions: in the clear condition, the face was completely visible; in the blur condition, by using the gaze-contingent paradigm, the whole face was blurred except for a small region being fixated at, thus children could not rely on the peripheral information to process the eyes. We found that children with ASD fixated less on the eyes than TD children in both conditions. Temporal-course analyses further revealed the possible motivation-based guidance of attention to process the eyes in the TD group but not in the ASD group. Additionally, we found that children with ASD scanned faces more randomly and less strategically than TD children. These results have ruled out the alternative hypothesis that the abnormal face scanning pattern in ASDs was due to their compensatory strategy to process eyes through peripheral vision, furthering our understanding of the mechanisms underlying their abnormal face scanning.

Autism Symptoms Modulate Interpersonal Neural Synchronization in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Cooperative Interactions.

Previous neuroscience studies exploring the neural mechanisms of social deficits of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have mainly examined single participants' brain responses to pictures or video-clips displayed on a monitor from the perspective of a passive observer. The present study examined inter-brain communication between children with ASD and their parents in a socio-interactive context. We used a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)-based hyperscanning technique to simultaneously measure the prefrontal activations in 16 pairs of children with ASD and their parents in a two-person key-press task. The children's task was to press a key together with their parents in a cooperation condition when a "go" signal was present or to press a key as fast as possible under the observation by their parents in a single-person condition. We also measured children's severity of autism symptoms.We found that children with ASD showed increased interpersonal neural synchronization in the frontal cortex when engaging in cooperative interactions with their parents than when performing solo and non-interactive behaviors. Furthermore, this neural synchronization was modulated by the children's autism symptoms, which also covaried with their cooperation task performance. That is, children with severer autism symptoms showed lower level of action and neural synchronization with their parents during cooperation. Our study moved a major step forward in understanding the neural correlates underlying social deficits in ASD and provided important implications for the treatment and behavioral training of ASD.

Sadder but wiser: Emotional reactions and wisdom in a simulated suicide intervention.

Scholars within the Berlin paradigm have analysed participants' responses to a hypothetical vignette about a friend's suicide ideation. However, no study has yet focused on participants' emotional reactions to this scenario, an important aspect of wisdom performance. We conducted a Thin-Slice Wisdom study where participants were asked to give advice to a hypothetical friend contemplating suicide. We analysed their emotional profiles using facial expression analysis software (FACET2.1 and FACEREADER7.1). Participants' verbal responses were also transcribed and then scored by 10 raters using the Berlin criteria. Results revealed that the sadder the participants felt, the wiser their performance. Wiser participants may have been better at exploring this sad, but true, existential human dilemma.

Differential emotion attribution to neutral faces of own and other races.

Past research has demonstrated differential recognition of emotion on faces of different races. This paper reports the first study to explore differential emotion attribution to neutral faces of different races. Chinese and Caucasian adults viewed a series of Chinese and Caucasian neutral faces and judged their outward facial expression: neutral, positive, or negative. The results showed that both Chinese and Caucasian viewers perceived more Chinese faces than Caucasian faces as neutral. Nevertheless, Chinese viewers attributed positive emotion to Caucasian faces more than to Chinese faces, whereas Caucasian viewers attributed negative emotion to Caucasian faces more than to Chinese faces. Moreover, Chinese viewers attributed negative and neutral emotion to the faces of both races without significant difference in frequency, whereas Caucasian viewers mostly attributed neutral emotion to the faces. These differences between Chinese and Caucasian viewers may be due to differential visual experience, culture, racial stereotype, or expectation of the experiment. We also used eye tracking among the Chinese participants to explore the relationship between face-processing strategy and emotion attribution to neutral faces. The results showed that the interaction between emotion attribution and face race was significant on face-processing strategy, such as fixation proportion on eyes and saccade amplitude. Additionally, pupil size during processing Caucasian faces was larger than during processing Chinese faces.

Piperine potentiates the antidepressant-like effect of trans-resveratrol: involvement of monoaminergic system.

Major depression is characterized by dysfunction of neuroendocrine and immune networks. Trans-resveratrol, a phenolic compound presented in polygonum cuspidatum, was demonstrated previously to exert antidepressant-like effects through regulating monoaminergic system, oxidative/antioxidant defense and inflammatory response. The present study investigated the synergistic antidepressant-like effect of trans-resveratrol and piperine, a bioavailability enhancer, in mice and explored the possible mechanism. Trans-resveratrol was shown to reduce the immobility time both in the tail suspension and forced swimming tests (TST and FST). But the maximal inhibition was nearly 60% even if the doses were increased by 160 mg/kg; while piperine produced weak antidepressant-like effects in these two models. The interaction between trans-resveratrol and piperine was shown a clear-cut synergistic effect as evidenced by an isobolographic analysis. The further study suggested that the anti-immobility response from the subthreshold dose of piperine (2.5 mg/kg) and low doses of trans-resveratrol (10 and 20 mg/kg) was abolished by pretreatment with para-chlorophenylalanine (PCPA, 300 mg/kg, i.p.) in TST and FST, indicating the involvement of serotonergic system. Moreover, treatment with the subthreshold dose of piperine and low doses of trans-resveratrol attenuated reserpine-induced hypothermia and ptosis arguing for the relevance of noradrenaline. Additional evidence from neurochemical (monoamines in the frontal cortex, hippocampus, and hypothalamus) and biochemical (monoamine oxidase, MAO activity) assays corroborated the synergistically elevated monoaminergic system after co-treatment with trans-resveratrol and piperine. The present results indicate the effect of trans-resveratrol combined with piperine on depressive-like behaviors may be partly due to the potentiated activation of monoaminergic system in the brain. Further studies are necessary to elucidate the involvement of the oxidative/nitrosative stress, inflammatory and neuroprotective pathway in the antidepressant-like effect of this combination. The synergistic effect obtained from the combination may provide innovative clues for designing novel antidepressants with high efficacy and low side effects.

[Influence of ferulic acid on the pain-depression dyad induced by reserpine].

This study is to offer a clinical pain-depression dyad therapy of ferulic acid, the pain-depression dyad induced by reserpine was established and the dose-effect relationship of ferulic acid on ameliorating pain-depression dyad was explored. Mice were randomly divided into control group, reserpine + vechile and reserpine + ferulic acid (5, 10, 20, 40 and 80 mg x kg(-1)) groups. The reserpine treated mice were tested with thermal hyperalgesia, mechanicial allodynia and forced swimming tests, and the SOD and NO levels of hippocampus and frontal cortex were measured. Moreover, the HPLC-ECD was used to detect the changes of central monoamines concentrations. Compared with control group, reserpine can induce a significant decrease in the nociceptive threshold and increase in the immobility time of the forced swimming test. The results suggested that reserpine significantly increased the level of nitrite in hippocampus and frontal cortex and reduced the levels of SOD, 5-HT and NE in these two brain regions. However, these indexes can be a dose-dependently reversed by ferulic acid (5, 10, 20, 40 and 80 mg x kg(-1)). Ferulic acid can reverse pain-depression dyad, especially at the dose of 80 mg x kg(-1). In addition, it can influence oxidative stress and monoamine level.

Understanding the heterogeneity of dynamic functional connectivity patterns in first-episode drug naïve depression using normative models.

BACKGROUND: The heterogeneity of the clinical symptoms and presumptive neural pathologies has stunted progress toward identifying reproducible biomarkers and limited therapeutic interventions' effectiveness for the first episode drug-naïve major depressive disorders (FEDN-MDD). This study combined the dynamic features of fMRI data and normative modeling to quantitative and individualized metrics for delineating the biological heterogeneity of FEDN-MDD. METHOD: Two hundred seventy-four adults with FEDN-MDD and 832 healthy controls from International Big-Data Center for Depression Research were included. Subject-specific dynamic brain networks and network fluctuation characteristics were computed for each subject using the group information-guided independent component analysis. Then, we mapped the heterogeneity of the dynamic features (network fluctuation characteristics and dynamic functional connectivity within brain networks) in the patients group via normative modeling. RESULTS: The FEDN-MDD whose network fluctuation characteristics deviate from the normative model also showed significant differences within the default mode network, executive control network, and limbic network compared with healthy controls. Furthermore, the network fluctuation characteristics are significantly increased in patients with FEDN-MDD. About 4.74 % of the patients showed a deviation of dynamic functional connectivity, and only 3.35 % of the controls deviated from the normative model in above 100 connectivities. More patients than healthy controls showed extreme dynamic variabilities in above 100 connectivities. CONCLUSIONS: This work evaluates the efficacy of an individualized approach based on normative modeling for understanding the heterogeneity of abnormal dynamic functional connectivity patterns in FEDN-MDD, and could be used as complementary to classical case-control comparisons.

Mindfulness and Stress Among Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in China.

Parenting a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be tremendously challenging. It is important to identify factors associated with parenting stress. This study examined the indirect effect of parental dispositional mindfulness on their anxiety and depressive symptoms and family quality of life (FQOL) through mindful parenting and then parenting stress. Seventy-nine Chinese parents (24.1% fathers) of children with ASD aged 3-13 years completed self-report questionnaires. Results indicated that higher dispositional mindfulness was associated with higher mindful parenting, which was related to lower parenting stress, and further related to lower anxiety and depressive symptoms and higher FQOL. The findings provide valuable insight into the potential pathways through which general mindfulness and mindful parenting may positively impact parental outcomes.

Vigilance or avoidance: How do autistic traits and social anxiety modulate attention to the eyes?

Introduction: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are highly overlapping in symptoms and have a high rate of comorbidity, posing challenges in diagnosis and intervention for both disorders. Both disorders are linked to abnormal attention to the eyes, yet how they interactively modulate the attentional process to the eyes remains unclear. Methods: In this study, we explored how autistic traits and social anxiety in college students separately and together affected different temporal stages of attention to the eyes. Participants were instructed to view virtual faces for 10 s and make an emotional judgment, while their eye movements were recorded. Results: We found that social anxiety and autistic traits affected different temporal stages of eye-looking. Social anxiety only affected the first fixation duration on the eyes, while autistic traits were associated with eye avoidance at several time points in the later stage. More importantly, we found an interactive effect of autistic traits and social anxiety on the initial attention to the eyes: Among people scoring high on autistic traits, social anxiety was related to an early avoidance of the eyes as well as attention maintenance once fixated on the eyes. Discussion: Our study suggests the separate and interactive roles of social anxiety and autistic traits in attention to the eyes. It contributes to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of social attention in both SAD and ASD and highlights the application of psychiatric diagnoses using eye-tracking techniques.

Investigating intra-individual variability of face scanning in autistic children.

LAY ABSTRACT: Atypical face scanning is suggested to be related to social interactions and communicative deficits in autistic children. We systematically examined whether autistic and non-autistic children used consistent scanning patterns when performing different tasks and scanning different types of faces. We found that autistic children scanned faces more variably than non-autistic children: While non-autistic children used more consistent scanning patterns, autistic children's scanning patterns changed frequently when watching different faces. Autistic children's variable face scanning patterns might delay and impair face processing, resulting in a social interaction deficit. What's more, variable scanning patterns may create an unstable and unpredictable perception of the environment for autistic children. Developing in such an unstable environment might motivate autistic children to retract from the environment, avoid social interaction, and focus instead on the performance of repetitive behavior. Therefore, studying face scanning variability might represent a new avenue for understanding core symptoms in autistic people.

Early development of social attention in toddlers at high familial risk for autism spectrum disorder.

The present study explored the early development of social attention of toddlers at high familial risk (HR) for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Eighteen HR toddlers and twenty-two toddlers at low familial risk for ASD (LR) between 11 and 24 months were asked to watch paired social and non-social videos. We found that: (1) the initial social preference in HR group decreased with age, but not in LR group; (2) both groups showed significant social habituation across trials, but HR group habituated slightly slower as age increased. These findings suggest that atypical social attention could be an early characteristic of toddlers at high familial risk for ASD.

Automatic classification of children with autism spectrum disorder by using a computerized visual-orienting task.

Early screening and diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) primarily rely on behavioral observations by qualified clinicians whose decision process can benefit from the combination of machine learning algorithms and sensor data. We designed a computerized visual-orienting task with gaze-related or non-gaze-related directional cues, which triggered participants' gaze-following behavior. Based on their eye-movement data registered by an eye tracker, we applied the machine learning algorithms to classify high-functioning children with ASD (HFA), low-functioning children with ASD (LFA), and typically developing children (TD). We found that TD children had higher success rates in obtaining rewards than HFA children, and HFA children had higher rates than LFA children. Based on raw eye-tracking data, our machine learning algorithm could classify the three groups with an accuracy of 81.1% and relatively high sensitivity and specificity. Classification became worse if only data from the gaze or nongaze conditions were used, suggesting that "less-social" directional cues also carry useful information for distinguishing these groups. Our findings not only provide insights about visual-orienting deficits among children with ASD but also demonstrate the promise of combining classical behavioral paradigms with machine learning algorithms for aiding the screening for individuals with ASD.

Face-viewing patterns predict audiovisual speech integration in autistic children.

Autistic children show audiovisual speech integration deficits, though the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. The present study examined how audiovisual speech integration deficits in autistic children could be affected by their looking patterns. We measured audiovisual speech integration in 26 autistic children and 26 typically developing (TD) children (4- to 7-year-old) employing the McGurk task (a videotaped speaker uttering phonemes with her eyes open or closed) and tracked their eye movements. We found that, compared with TD children, autistic children showed weaker audiovisual speech integration (i.e., the McGurk effect) in the open-eyes condition and similar audiovisual speech integration in the closed-eyes condition. Autistic children viewed the speaker's mouth less in non-McGurk trials than in McGurk trials in both conditions. Importantly, autistic children's weaker audiovisual speech integration could be predicted by their reduced mouth-looking time. The present study indicated that atypical face-viewing patterns could serve as one of the cognitive mechanisms of audiovisual speech integration deficits in autistic children. LAY SUMMARY: McGurk effect occurs when the visual part of a phoneme (e.g., "ga") and the auditory part of another phoneme (e.g., "ba") uttered by a speaker were integrated into a fused perception (e.g., "da"). The present study examined how McGurk effect in autistic children could be affected by their looking patterns for the speaker's face. We found that less looking time for the speaker's mouth in autistic children could predict weaker McGurk effect. As McGurk effect manifests audiovisual speech integration, our findings imply that we could improve audiovisual speech integration in autistic children by directing them to look at the speaker's mouth in future intervention.

Comparing visual preferences between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and normal children to explore the characteristics of visual preference of ASD children by improved visual preference paradigm: a case-control study.

BACKGROUND: One of features of Visual preference in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is that they tend to social stimuli to nonsocial stimuli. Though it has been studied widely, until now the results are still not consistent. One of the most important reasons may be that the stimuli of the past visual preference paradigm have different movement patterns. Therefore, the present study aimed to improve the visual preference paradigm to reduce the bias caused by different movement of stimuli and explore the features of visual preference of ASD further. METHODS: Two hundred and seven children who met DSM-5 criteria for ASD and 125 typically developmental (TD) children were enrolled. They were matched in age and gender. Visual preference was measured by eye tracking technology. The subjects presented simultaneously with dynamic object images (DOI) and dynamic social images (DSI) with the same type and same speed of repetitive movement. Social interaction deficits of ASD were assessed by parents with Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC). RESULTS: Compared with TD children, the following findings were noted: (I) children with ASD paid less attention to social stimuli and more attention to nonsocial stimuli (t=6.417, P<0.001). (II) Increased preference to DSI was positively correlated with age (R=0.23, P=0.001). (III) No association was noted between visual preference and IQ in children with ASD (R=0.081, P=0.435). (IV) Reduced preference to DSI was negatively correlated with the severity of social interaction impairment rated by parents with ABC in children with ASD (R=0.237, P=0.010). CONCLUSIONS: Children with ASD exhibited abnormal visual preference for social and nonsocial stimuli.

Social synchronization during joint attention in children with autism spectrum disorder.

We explored the social synchronization of gaze-shift behaviors when responding to joint attention in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Forty-one children aged 5 to 8 with ASD and 43 typically developing (TD) children watched a video to complete the response to joint attention (RJA) tasks, during which their gaze data were collected. The synchronization of gaze-shift behaviors between children and the female model in the video was measured with the cross-recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA). Ultimately, we discovered that children with ASD had the ability to synchronize their gaze shifts with the female model in the video during RJA tasks. Compared to the TD children, they displayed lower levels of synchronization and longer latency in this synchronized behavior. These findings provide a new avenue to deepen our understanding of the impairments of social interaction in children with ASD. Notably, the analytic method can be further applied to explore the social synchronization of numerous other social interactive behaviors in ASD. LAY SUMMARY: This study explored how autistic children synchronized their gazed shifts with others' gaze cues during joint attention. We found that compared to typical children, autistic children synchronized their gazed shifts less and needed more time to follow others' gaze. These findings provide a new avenue to deepen our understanding of the impairments of social interaction in children with ASD.