Precision Functional Mapping of Individual Human Brains

This study assessed the efficacy of FaceSay, a computer-based social skills training program for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). This randomized controlled study (N = 49) indicates that providing children with low-functioning autism (LFA) and high functioning autism (HFA) opportunities to practice attending to eye gaze, discriminating facial expressions and recognizing faces and emotions in FaceSay’s structured environment with interactive, realistic avatar assistants improved their social skills abilities. The children with LFA demonstrated improvements in two areas of the intervention: emotion recognition and social interactions. The children with HFA demonstrated improvements in all three areas: facial recognition, emotion recognition, and social interactions. These findings, particularly the measured improvements to social interactions in a natural environment, are encouraging.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10803-011-1179-z.pdf

Avatar assistant: improving social skills in students with an ASD through a computer-based intervention.

Before children can read, their brains have yet to develop selective responses to words. This study demonstrates that a child's connectivity pattern at age 5 can predict where their own word-selective cortex will later develop. This suggests that connectivity lays the groundwork for later functional development of cortex.

Connectivity precedes function in the development of the visual word form area

This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the influence of a 9-month physical activity program on task-evoked brain activation during childhood. The results demonstrated that 8- to 9-year-old children who participated in 60+ min of physical activity, 5 days per week, for 9 months, showed decreases in fMRI brain activation in the right anterior prefrontal cortex coupled with within-group improvements in performance on a task of attentional and interference control. Children assigned to a wait-list control group did not show changes in brain function. Furthermore, at post-test, children in the physical activity group showed similar anterior frontal brain patterns and incongruent accuracy rates to a group of college-aged young adults. Children in the wait-list control group still differed from the young adults in terms of anterior prefrontal activation and performance at post-test. There were no significant changes in fMRI activation in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) for either group. These results suggest that physical activity during childhood may enhance specific elements of prefrontal cortex function involved in cognitive control.

http://labs.kch.illinois.edu/Research/Labs/neurocognitive-kinesiology/files/Articles/Chaddock_2013_TheEffectsOfPhysicalActivity.pdf

The effects of physical activity on functional MRI activation associated with cognitive control in children: a randomized controlled intervention.

Supplemental melatonin has shown promise in treating sleep onset insomnia in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Twenty-four children, free of psychotropic medications, completed an open-label dose-escalation study to assess dose-response, tolerability, safety, feasibility of collecting actigraphy data, and ability of outcome measures to detect change during a 14-week intervention. Supplemental melatonin improved sleep latency, as measured by actigraphy, in most children at 1 or 3 mg dosages. It was effective in week 1 of treatment, maintained effects over several months, was well tolerated and safe, and showed improvement in sleep, behavior, and parenting stress. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on supplemental melatonin for insomnia in ASD and inform planning for a large randomized trial in this population.

/pdf/melatonin-for-sleep-in-children-with-autism-a-controlled-57p2z377r0.pdf

Melissa L. Allen

Papers

Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test