Comparison of change detection performance and visual search patterns among children with/without ADHD: Evidence from eye movements

BackgroundADHD participants showed poorer change detection performance compared to participants without any diagnosis. The difficulty to detect changes in ADHD children might be due to their voluntary eye movement control and attentional deficits.AimsTo evaluate change detection performance and visual search patterns of children with ADHD and compare their performances with typically developing (TD) children.Methods and procedures48 children (n_ADHD = 24, n_TD = 24) participated (M_age = 8 years, 10 months). Flicker paradigm was used to evaluate change detection performance, while eye movements were recorded during the experiment.ResultsChange detection accuracies of TD children were higher compared to ADHD children. TD groups made longer fixations on the changed area and their first fixation duration was also longer than ADHD children which showed that TD children had longer fixation maintenance than ADHD children.ConclusionsThe change detection performance, which is associated with visual attention and memory, was found to be worse in ADHD children than TD children and these children made shorter fixations on the changed area than TD children. The findings were found to be in line with the difficulty to sustain attention in ADHD children that is necessary for encoding the scene properties and goal-oriented behavior.     

The dynamics of cardiac defense: From attention to action

The attentional and motivational significance of cardiac defense is examined in two studies. In Study 1, cardiac defense was evoked by an intense acoustic stimulus in the context of either a visual search or a memory search task using letters as stimuli. Results showed a potentiation of the long latency acceleration of cardiac defense in the visual search task. In Study 2, participants performed the same visual search task using pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures as stimuli. Results showed a further potentiation of the long latency acceleration of cardiac defense when the visual search task was performed with unpleasant, compared to pleasant or neutral pictures. These results indicate that cardiac defense has both attentional and motivational contributions, where the attentional significance is related to increased sensory processing, whereas the motivational significance is associated with preparation for active defense.     

Stroop interference in children with developmental dyslexia: An event-related potentials study

Previous studies have identified inhibitory deficits in dyslexic children, but we have little understanding of their neural mechanisms, especially for Chinese children with developmental dyslexia.We used a double-blind controlled trial to study the electroencephalogram responses of dyslexic and non-dyslexic children when performing the Stroop color-word test.Behavioral data showed differences in response time and accuracy between the 2 groups. In the event-related potentials (ERP) results, dyslexic children displayed larger P2 and P3b on congruent trials, while non-dyslexic children displayed larger P2 and P3b on incongruent trials, the 2 groups showed opposite brain activation patterns on the Stroop test.Dyslexic children have poor inhibitory function, and this poor inhibition may be related to their abnormal brain activation patterns.     

Effects of Oxytocin on Attention to Emotional Faces in Healthy Volunteers and Highly Socially Anxious Males

Background:

Evidence suggests that individuals with social anxiety demonstrate vigilance to social threat, whilst the peptide hormone oxytocin is widely accepted as supporting affiliative behaviour in humans.

Methods:

This study investigated whether oxytocin can affect attentional bias in social anxiety. In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, within-group study design, 26 healthy and 16 highly socially anxious (HSA) male volunteers (within the HSA group, 10 were diagnosed with generalized social anxiety disorder) were administered 24 IU of oxytocin or placebo to investigate attentional processing in social anxiety. Attentional bias was assessed using the dot-probe paradigm with angry, fearful, happy and neutral face stimuli.

Results:

In the baseline placebo condition, the HSA group showed greater attentional bias for emotional faces than healthy individuals. Oxytocin reduced the difference between HSA and non-socially anxious individuals in attentional bias for emotional faces. Moreover, it appeared to normalize attentional bias in HSA individuals to levels seen in the healthy population in the baseline condition. The biological mechanisms by which oxytocin may be exerting these effects are discussed.

Conclusions:

These results, coupled with previous research, could indicate a potential therapeutic use of this hormone in treatment for social anxiety.     

Cognitive dysfunction in children with brain tumors at diagnosis

Background

Survivors of brain tumors have a high risk for a wide range of cognitive problems. These dysfunctions are caused by the lesion itself and its surgical removal, as well as subsequent treatments (chemo‐ and/or radiation therapy). Multiple recent studies have indicated that children with brain tumors (BT) might already exhibit cognitive problems at diagnosis, i.e., before the start of any medical treatment. The aim of the present study was to investigate the baseline neuropsychological profile in children with BT compared to children with an oncological diagnosis not involving the central nervous system (CNS).

Methods

Twenty children with BT and 27 children with an oncological disease without involvement of the CNS (age range: 6.1–16.9 years) were evaluated with an extensive battery of neuropsychological tests tailored to the patient's age. Furthermore, the child and his/her parent(s) completed self‐report questionnaires about emotional functioning and quality of life. In both groups, tests were administered before any therapeutic intervention such as surgery, chemotherapy, or irradiation. Groups were comparable with regard to age, gender, and socioeconomic status.

Results

Compared to the control group, patients with BTs performed significantly worse in tests of working memory, verbal memory, and attention (effect sizes between 0.28 and 0.47). In contrast, the areas of perceptual reasoning, processing speed, and verbal comprehension were preserved at the time of measurement.

Conclusion

Our results highlight the need for cognitive interventions early in the treatment process in order to minimize or prevent academic difficulties as patients return to school. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2015;62:1805–1812. © 2015 The Authors. Pediatric Blood & Cancer, published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

孤独症患儿对5种表情的视觉注意情况调查分析

目的：探讨和研究孤独症患儿对5种基本面部表情的认知特征。方法研究对象选取2014年1月～2014年12月被诊断为孤独症的46例患儿,设为观察组,选取基本情况与观察组匹配的100例正常儿童作为对照组,2组儿童分别被动观察高兴、悲伤、惊讶、愤怒、恐惧5种面部基本表情图,对比2组患者的视觉注意行为和自身情绪变化。结果视觉注意行为结果显示,观察组患儿对5种情绪的初次平均注视时间均显著低于对照组（P＜0.05）,且对5种情绪的回看次数也显著低于对照组（P＜0.05）;情绪反应结果显示,孤独症患儿的悲伤、惊讶、愤怒、恐惧的积极反应评分均高于对照组（P＜0.05）,高兴、悲伤、惊讶的消极反应评分均高于对照组（P＜0.05）,其他对比差异无统计学意义。结论孤独症患儿对于面部表情的视觉注意减少,存在一定程度的情绪感知缺陷,对于负性情绪的理解相对更为困难,应当引起临床关注。     

Evidenced-Based Cognitive Rehabilitation for Persons With Multiple Sclerosis: An Updated Review of the Literature From 2007 to 2016

Objective

To update the clinical recommendations for cognitive rehabilitation of people with multiple sclerosis (MS), based on a systematic review of the literature from 2007 through 2016.