ASD Flashcards

Question

'Couldn't see the forest for the trees' ASD?

Answer 1

Stronger image center bias regardless of object distribution (possible due to lower saccade velocity), reduced saliency for faces and locations but increase in pixel-level saliency at expense of semantic level (wang et al., 2015) Focus on detail means that they cannot see the full picture. Supported by faster detection of single targets embedded in cluttered displays and relative insensitivity to number of distractors. Despite this cannot identify global direction of movement (general direction crowd of people moving). Robertson and Baron-Cohen, 2017

Answer 2

Children with autism often show difficulty discerning the relative presentation order of two closely occurring tones and show delayed evoked neural responses to auditory tones compared with typically developing children (Robertson and Baron-Cohen 2017)

Answer 3

Music experience causes participants to shift through verbal and non communication. means for verbal people to access sensory experiences and for people without spoken language to interact communicatively without words. It enables all to engage on a more emotional, relationship‐oriented level than may be accessible through verbal language. Motor timing and sensorimotor impaired in ASD help treat this. Another theory is that mothers voices are musical to shape understanding. Cochrane review by Geretsegger et al., 2022: moderate evidance that reduces ASD severity and improves quality of life immediately post intervention however no evidence of changed in social interaction.

Answer 4

Could serve as early diagnostic markers (earlier treatment) as present before stereotypies and altered social communication. Shown to be largely genetic as parents and siblings of ASD have higher levels of self reported sensory traits. Could be used to classify ASD into more homogenous groups.

Answer 5

Results are varied: some say more, similar or less than neurotypical. One difference in autistic tactile perception is well replicated: whereas control individuals present worse detection thresholds for stimuli that gradually increase in amplitude over time into a detectable range (reflective of dynamic thresholds) relative to acute stimuli (which require static thresholds), dynamic presentation does not impair tactile sensitivity in individuals with autism” Thought to be from reduced feedforward inhib (Robertson and Baron-Cohen, 2017)

Answer 6

Elongated window of audio-visual temporal binding and more likely to perceive asynchronous events as synchronous. Robertson and Baron-Cohen 2017

Answer 7

E/I imbalance in Autism: mice with mutations in Mecp2, Gabrb3, Shank3 or Fmr1 all demonstrate tactile sensitivity ansd has been linked to loss ofGABA AR mediated inhibition. mecp2 KO (Rett's) show reduced amplitude of visually evoked responses in V1.

Answer 8

1)decreased number of social explorations and increased latency to social behaviors, both pointing to social deficits 2) increased locomotor and repetitive/stereotypic-like activities combined with lower exploratory activity, suggesting increased locomotor stereotypies and compulsive behaviors 3)lower sensitivity to pain at the spinal and supraspinal (only in adult-hood) levels and higher sensitivity to non-painful stimuli, suggesting sensory system deficits 4)lowered acoustic pre-pulse inhibition, pointing to attention and information processing deficits and impaired sensorimotor gating that could result in stronger reactions to environmental stimuli and ultimately lead to increased repetitive, stereotypic behaviors. 5)delayed maturation (late eye opening), lower body weight, delayed motor development, and delayed nest-seeking response

Answer 9

Increased local connectivity (weaker and more synapses in layer V and less excitable cells) Increased dendritic branches Decreased NLg3.

Answer 10

Persistent Social impairment and restrictive behaviour (often present since childhood).

Answer 11

Rates of ASD increase due to lack of money in education. Some people with ASD who could cope due to improved school environments can no longer and therefore more diagnosis of 'less severe'

Answer 12

Assume that other person knows what they are thinking and therefore speech is redundant. This why children will have fits as they assume their needs have been vocalised but have not been.

Answer 13

in ASD they execute repetitive movements to ease anxiety (they can control doing the same thing over and over again). OCD: person does not want to repeat.

Answer 14

ASD can be thought of as an information processing disorder = take in too much info that overload. ears: control audition/prevent sound closed eyes: control vision/prevent rocking: control proprioception as often reported to have increased or decreased proprioception.

Answer 15

ASD comorbidity with chronic pain, double neurotypical at 16% SCN9A: encodes voltage gated na channel in PNS (dorsal root ganglion, where sensory neurons cluster). - there are several variants: some of which decreased rate of AP firing. - However, gain of function has been implicated in paroxysmal pain disorder (not ASD) - So ASD goes against prev literature. Also interesting to note: shank3 mutations cause pain insensitivity so thought that in ASD there is altered pain perception not necessarily higher (seen by some painful behaviours ASD exhibit).

Answer 16

Over 1% worldwide with higher proportion of men (up to 16:1) Women diff phenotype and more likely to be misdiagnosed with anxiety. Better masking

Answer 17

Baron-Cohen 1999 Foetal testosterone impacts downstream targets (dendritic spines and synapse formation). Evidence… 1) men more systematic 2) women more empathetic Obvs this theory not accepted anymore and also got a lot wrong saying ASD better at spatial learning when tend to be worse