Leveraging epigenetics to examine differences in developmental trajectories of social attention: A proof-of-principle study of DNA methylation in infants with older siblings with autism

Preliminary evidence suggests that changes in DNA methylation, a widely studied epigenetic mechanism, contribute to the etiology of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, data is primarily derived from post-mortem brain samples or peripheral tissue from adults. Deep-phenotyped longitudinal infant cohorts are essential to understand how epigenetic modifications relate to early developmental trajectories and emergence of ASD symptoms. We present a proof-of-principle study designed to evaluate the potential of prospective epigenetic studies of infant siblings of children with ASD.Illumina genome-wide 450 K DNA methylation data from buccal swabs was generated for 63 male infants at multiple time-points from 8 months to 2 years of age (total N = 107 samples). 11 of those infants received a diagnosis of ASD at 3 years. We conducted a series of analyses to characterize DNA methylation signatures associated with categorical outcome and neurocognitive measures from parent-report questionnaire, eye-tracking and electro-encephalography.Effects observed across the entire genome (epigenome-wide association analyses) suggest that collecting DNA methylation samples within infant-sibling designs allows for the detection of meaningful signals with smaller sample sizes than previously estimated. Mapping networks of co-methylated probes associated with neural correlates of social attention implicated enrichment of pathways involved in brain development. Longitudinal modelling found covariation between phenotypic traits and DNA methylation levels in the proximity of genes previously associated with cognitive development, although larger samples and more complete datasets are needed to obtain generalizable results.In conclusion, assessment of DNA methylation profiles at multiple time-points in infant-sibling designs is a promising avenue to comprehend developmental origins and mechanisms of ASD.     

Developmental Process of Japanese Psychotherapists Based on Their Life Histories

We identified the mastery processes of experienced psychotherapists by drawing their life histories, which indicated principles for guiding the development of young psychotherapists. Participants were psychotherapists with over 30 years of experience (N = 7, six men and one woman, mean age = 71.86 years). The data were analyzed using the trajectory equifinality model (TEM). The results indicated that a psychotherapist might continue to practice even while experiencing conflicts and might eventually integrate and establish their unique therapeutic approach into their work. Essential factors in facilitating the motivation to be a psychotherapist include: hope; good friends, coworkers, and supervisors; experience with many cases; learning from a global perspective; and interest in human beings. Moreover, after the mid-career, adverse events in participants' private lives had positive effects on their development as experts. It was concluded that the development of a psychotherapist is a process of growth as a person. This study indicated factors necessary to continue as a psychotherapist while facing conflicts, which is considered useful for educating future Japanese psychotherapists.     

Trajectories of public psycho-behavioural responses relating to influenza A(H7N9) over the winter of 2014-15 in Hong Kong

Objective: To explore trajectories of public psycho-behavioural responses over one influenza A(H7N9) epidemic wave, and examine the interplays among social norm influence, disease worry and protective behaviours.

Methods: Participants were 464 adults who completed the baseline and at least two follow-up assessments on their H7N9-related Perceived Susceptibility, Perceived Severity, Perceived Efficacy, Worry, Social Norms influence and Protective Behaviours in a five-phase longitudinal survey over one H7N9 epidemic wave. Latent growth modelling (LGM) identified trajectories of these psycho-behavioural responses while multi-process LGM examined the inter-relationships among trajectories of Social Norms influence, Worry and Protective Behaviours.

Results: Trajectories of Perceived Susceptibility, Worry, Social Norms and Protective Behaviours increased initially but declined as the epidemic decayed, while Perceived Severity increased linearly and Perceived Efficacy remained stable across the epidemic. Change in Social Norms influence was significantly associated with change in Worry (β?=?0.65) which was significantly associated with change in Protective Behaviours (β?=?0.62).

Conclusion: The public’s threat appraisal but not efficacy appraisal may have been well-informed by epidemic-related information. Social Norms may be important contributors of public emotional response to an epidemic. Communication via social networks during an epidemic could be important for regulating public emotional response and guiding their behavioural change.     

成人注意缺陷多动障碍在内外源冲突时的表现:眼动的证据

在注意定向与维持上,注意缺陷多动障碍(ADHD)个体更容易受到外部刺激的干扰而导致目标任务加工进程受阻,表现出了注意定向反应的缺陷,但导致任务失败的原因是由于对突然出现的外部无关刺激的过度兴奋还是对内源性目标刺激的持续维持能力减弱,尚不清楚。研究采用反向眼跳范式、记忆导向眼跳范式和视觉导向眼跳范式,来探索成人ADHD内外源注意定向反应的情况,以及当二者发生冲突时,成人ADHD失败的可能机制。结果发现,在反向眼跳任务上,成人注意缺陷多动障碍组错误率更高,并且差异性显著。但在记忆导向眼跳任务中,成人注意缺陷多动障碍组与正常组的差异不显著。在视觉导向眼跳任务中,成人注意缺陷多动障碍组的正确眼跳潜伏期比正常组要短,且二者之间的差异显著。这说明,在内外源刺激反应的冲突导致的情境中,成人注意缺陷多动障碍的反应明显落后于正常个体,这种缺陷并非由于其维持内源性注意产生定向反应落后所导致的,而是与其外源注意定向反应过强有关。     

Developmental emergence of holistic processing in word recognition

Holistic processing (HP) of faces refers to the obligatory, simultaneous processing of the parts and their relations, and it emerges over the course of development. HP is manifest in a decrement in the perception of inverted versus upright faces and a reduction in face processing ability when the relations between parts are perturbed. Here, adopting the HP framework for faces, we examined the developmental emergence of HP in another domain for which human adults have expertise, namely, visual word processing. Children, adolescents, and adults performed a lexical decision task and we used two established signatures of HP for faces: the advantage in perception of upright over inverted words and nonwords and the reduced sensitivity to increasing parts (word length). Relative to the other groups, children showed less of an advantage for upright versus inverted trials and lexical decision was more affected by increasing word length. Performance on these HP indices was strongly associated with age and with reading proficiency. Also, the emergence of HP for word perception was not simply a result of improved visual perception over the course of development as no group differences were observed on an object decision task. These results reveal the developmental emergence of HP for orthographic input, and reflect a further instance of experience-dependent tuning of visual perception. These results also add to existing findings on the commonalities of mechanisms of word and face recognition.

Research Highlights

• Children showed less of an advantage for upright versus inverted trials compared to adolescents and adults.
• Relative to the other groups, lexical decision in children was more affected by increasing word length.
• Performance on holistic processing (HP) indices was strongly associated with age and with reading proficiency.
• HP emergence for word perception was not due to improved visual perception over development as there were no group differences on an object decision task.