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ISDN2014_0186: mTOR kinase role in dendritic arbor formation of neonatal born neurons
Author(s) -
Skalecka Agnieszka,
Jaworski Jacek
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
international journal of developmental neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.761
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1873-474X
pISSN - 0736-5748
DOI - 10.1016/j.ijdevneu.2015.04.152
Subject(s) - citation , editorial board , library science , computer science
Low social motivation is one of the core features of autism, but assessing it without relying on overt behavior is challenging. This study investigated whether the ability to develop familiarity with novel faces from passive repeated exposures measured by event-related potentials (ERP) could reflect orienting to and forming representations of the social stimuli, two components of the social motivation theory. Visual ERPs were recorded in 7–13-year-old children with autism and age-matched typical peers (n = 56). Children passively viewed color photographs of unfamiliar smiling young adults and house facades. One face and one house were randomly selected and repeated 50 times throughout the session, the rest were shown once (50 trials). Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ), Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), Adaptive Behavior Assessment System (ABAS), and NEPSY Memory for Faces were used to assess social skills and face memory ability. The two groups did not differ in perceptual responses to faces evidenced by larger N170 responses for faces than houses and showed reduced parietal P600 responses to the repeated vs. single houses, consistent with deactivation of the novelty-detection network. Only typical children demonstrated increased parietal P600 responses to repeated faces, indicating that even without explicit memorization instructions, faces were sufficiently salient to elicit the old/new response reported previously in active recognition/recall studies. The extent of face memory (the amplitude difference between repeated and single presentations) was independent of age, IQ or ADOS scores, but correlated with NEPSY delayed memory for faces (r = .506, p = .014), SRS (r = −.522, p = .009) and ABAS communication scores (r = .580, p = .003). ERP responses remained stable over a 3-week business-as-usual period. Conversely, treatment targeting social interactions in children with autism resulted in an increased ERP response to repeated faces. These findings suggest that ERPs in a passive nonverbal repetition detection paradigm may be a promising marker of social motivation components in neurodevelopmental disabilities.