In typical development, listeners can use semantic content of verbs to facilitate incremental language processing-a skill that is associated with existing language skills. Studies of children with ASD have not identified an association between incremental language processing in semantically-constraining contexts and language skills, perhaps because participants were adolescents and/or children with strong language skills.
Slide of the Week
Viji Easwar, PhD – Slide of the Week
EEG is currently the only clinically feasible method to evaluate hearing in infants and children who are unable to participate in behavioral hearing tests. We modified naturally spoken vowels and fricatives to elicit envelope following responses (EFR) at low, mid and high frequencies–the prime spectral regions essential for speech understanding, and speech and language development.
Darcie Moore, PhD – Slide of the Week
Neurogenesis is thought to be sustained throughout life through the constant regulation of neural stem cell (NSC) quiescence exit, a time in which a NSC enters the cell cycle to generate more neural stem cells and/or other neural cell types. One critical component of NSC quiescence exit is the clearance of aggregated proteins.
Qiang Chang, PhD – Slide of the Week
Rett syndrome (RTT) is a severe neurodevelopmental disease caused by mutations in the methyl-CpG binding protein 2 (MECP2) gene. Although altered interneuron development and function are clearly demonstrated in RTT mice, a particular mode of inhibition, tonic inhibition, has not been carefully examined.
Doug Dean, III, PhD – Slide of the Week
White matter microstructure, essential for efficient and coordinated transmission of neural communications, undergoes pronounced development during the first years of life, while deviations to this neurodevelopmental trajectory likely result in alterations of brain connectivity relevant to behavior. Hence, systematic evaluation of white matter microstructure in the normative brain is critical for a neuroscientific approach to both typical and atypical early behavioral development.
Karla Ausderau, PhD – Slide of the Week
Mealtime is an important family routine commonly affected for families with children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Limited research is available regarding strategies families incorporate to support mealtime engagement. The purpose of this study was to explore the frequency and characterize the purpose of Props used during mealtimes with children with ASD.
Richard J Davidson, PhD – Slide of the Week
Reduced hippocampal volume is frequently observed in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but the psychological processes associated with these alterations remain unclear. Given hippocampal involvement in memory and contextual representations of threat, we investigated relationships between retrospectively reported combat exposure, perceived threat, and hippocampal volume in trauma-exposed veterans.
Christopher L. Coe, PhD – Slide of the Week
Maternal recall of distress and health concerns during pregnancy correlated with cord blood ZnPP/H indices (r = 0.21, P < .01), even in the absence of major traumatic events. When concurrent with other known risks for iron deficiency, including maternal adiposity, socioeconomic status, and race, maternal stress had a summative effect, lowering cord blood iron.
Lauren Bishop, PhD – Slide of the Week
We have seen a profound increase in lifespan for individuals with Down syndrome (DS) in the past few decades leading to a large and somewhat understudied population of middle- and older aged adults with DS. One health condition consistently seen in clinic-based DS samples is dementia (including Alzheimer’s disease).
Bradley T Christian, PhD – Slide of the Week
Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) are at increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and show the earliest signs of amyloid-β (Aβ) deposition in the striatum. The metric for tracking Aβ burden using PET radiotracers frequently uses average standard uptake value ratios (SUVr) in signature regions of the brain specific to Aβ deposition.