Search

Eyeblink conditioning (EBC) is a classical conditioning paradigm typically used to study the underlying neural processes of learning and memory. EBC has a well-defined neural circuitry, is non-invasive, and can be employed in human infants shortly after birth making it an ideal tool to use in both developing and special populations. In addition, abnormalities in the cerebellum, a region of the brain highly involved in EBC, have been implicated in a number of neurodevelopmental disorders including autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). In the current paper, we review studies that have employed EBC as a biomarker for several neurodevelopmental disorders including fetal alcohol syndrome, Down syndrome, fragile X syndrome, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, specific language impairment, and schizophrenia. In addition, we discuss the benefits of using such a tool in individuals with ASD. Keywords Eyeblink conditioning * Neurodevelopmental disorders * Autism spectrum disorder * Associative learning * Cerebellum, Introduction For over 50 years, eyeblink conditioning (EBC) has been used as a model system to study the underlying neural processes of learning and memory (Christian and Thompson 2003). As [...]

The current study examined the relations between individual differences in sustained attention in infancy, the temperamental trait behavioral inhibition in childhood, and social behavior in adolescence. The authors assessed 9-month-old infants using an interrupted-stimulus attention paradigm. Behavioral inhibition was subsequently assessed in the laboratory at 14 months, 24 months, 4 years, and 7 years. At age 14 years, adolescents acted out social scenarios in the presence of an unfamiliar peer as observers rated levels of social discomfort. Relative to infants with high levels of sustained attention, infants with low levels of sustained attention showed increasing behavioral inhibition throughout early childhood. Sustained attention also moderated the relation between childhood behavioral inhibition and adolescent social discomfort, such that initial levels of inhibition at 14 months predicted later adolescent social difficulties only for participants with low levels of sustained attention in infancy. These findings suggest that early individual differences in attention shape how children respond to their social environments, potentially via attention's gate-keeping role in framing a child's environment for processing. Keywords: sustained attention, temperament, social behavior, infancy, childhood and adolescence DOI: 10.1037/a0021064

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01379.x Byline: Nathan A. Fox (1), Michael Rutter (2) Author Affiliation: (1)University of Maryland (2)Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London Article note: Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Nathan A. Fox, Department of Human Development, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. Electronic mail may be sent to fox@umd.edu.

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01390.x Byline: Anna T. Smyke (1), Charles H. Zeanah (1), Nathan A. Fox (2), Charles A. Nelson (3), Donald Guthrie (4) Abstract: This study examined classifications of attachment in 42-month-old Romanian children (N = 169). Institutionalized since birth, children were assessed comprehensively, randomly assigned to care as usual (CAU) or to foster care, and compared to family-reared children. Attachment classifications for children in foster care were markedly different from those in the CAU. Importantly, children placed in foster care before 24 months were more likely to have secure attachments and if placed earlier were less likely to have disorganized or insecure-other attachments. Cognitive status predicted greater likelihood of organized attachment in the CAU and greater likelihood of secure attachment in the foster care and never-institutionalized groups. Foster care is an important intervention to reduce the adverse effects following early deprivation. Author Affiliation: (1)Tulane University School of Medicine (2)University of Maryland (3)Harvard Medical School/Children's Hospital Boston (4)University of California Los Angeles Article note: Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Anna T. Smyke, Department of Psychiatry/Neurology, Tulane University Health Sciences Center, 1440 Canal Street - TB-52, New Orleans, LA 70112. Electronic mail may be sent to asmyke@tulane.edu.

The odds of a lifetime diagnosis of social anxiety disorder increases by 3.79 times for children who had a stable report of behavioral inhibition from their mothers. This finding has important implications for the early identification and prevention of social anxiety disorder.

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01315.x Byline: Margaret C. Moulson (1), Alissa Westerlund (2), Nathan A. Fox (3), Charles H. Zeanah (4), Charles A. Nelson (5) Abstract: Data are reported from 3 groups of children residing in Bucharest, Romania. Face recognition in currently institutionalized, previously institutionalized, and never-institutionalized children was assessed at 3 time points: preintervention (n = 121), 30 months of age (n = 99), and 42 months of age (n = 77). Children watched photographs of caregiver and stranger faces while event-related potentials were recorded. Results demonstrate that institutionalized children show pervasive cortical hypoarousal in response to faces and that foster care is somewhat effective in remediating this deficit by 42 months of age. All 3 groups of children distinguished between the familiar and unfamiliar faces. These results have the potential to inform an understanding of the role of early experience in the development of the neural systems that subserve face recognition. Author Affiliation: (1)Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2)Children's Hospital Boston (3)University of Maryland (4)Tulane University Health Sciences Center (5)Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School Article note: Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Margaret C. Moulson, The MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Room 46-4089, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139. Electronic mail may be sent to mmoulson@mit.edu.

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02374.x Byline: Louis A. Schmidt (1), Nathan A. Fox (2), Koraly Perez-Edgar (3), Dean H. Hamer (4) Abstract: ABSTRACT Gene-environment interactions involving exogenous environmental factors are known to shape behavior and personality development. Although gene-environment interactions involving endogenous environmental factors are hypothesized to play an equally important role, this conceptual approach has not been empirically applied in the study of early-developing temperament in humans. Here we report evidence for a gene-endoenvironment (i.e., resting frontal brain electroencephalogram, EEG, asymmetry) interaction in predicting child temperament. The dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) gene (long allele vs. short allele) moderated the relation between resting frontal EEG asymmetry (left vs. right) at 9 months and temperament at 48 months. Children who exhibited left frontal EEG asymmetry at 9 months and who possessed the DRD4 long allele were significantly more soothable at 48 months than other children. Among children with right frontal EEG asymmetry at 9 months, those with the DRD4 long allele had significantly more difficulties focusing and sustaining attention at 48 months than those with the DRD4 short allele. Resting frontal EEG asymmetry did not influence temperament in the absence of the DRD4 long allele. We discuss how the interaction of genetic and endoenvironmental factors may confer risk and protection for different behavioral styles in children. Author Affiliation: (1)Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University (2)Department of Human Development, University of Maryland, College Park (3)Department of Psychology, George Mason University; and (4)Laboratory of Biochemistry, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland Article History: (R eceived 4/27/08; R evision accepted 11/14/08) Article note: Address correspondence to Louis A. Schmidt, Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, 1280 Main St. West, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1, Canada, e-mail: schmidtl@mcmaster.ca.

In 1989, Nicolai Ceausescu, the Communist dictator who ruled Romania for 24 years, was executed by firing squad. A revolution followed, which led to a new government and then exploration [...]

Purpose: This study examined children's self-reported quality of life with a cochlear implant as related to children's actual perceptions of speech and the emotional information conveyed by sound. Effects of age at amplification with hearing aids and fitting of cochlear implants on perceived quality of life were also investigated. Method: A self-reported quality of life questionnaire and assessments of speech perception (single words) and emotion identification were administered to a sample of 37 children with cochlear implants who were congenitally deaf, who were 5-14 years of age, and who all used spoken language. Results: The children reported significant improvement in quality of life because of their cochlear implants, and they also reported low levels of concern about typical problems associated with wearing an implant. The children's perceived quality of life did not significantly predict speech perception performance at the single word level. In contrast, increased quality of life predicted better performance on the emotion identification task. Age at first use of amplification predicted perceived quality of life. Conclusions: The findings regarding age reinforce the importance of early detection and intervention for children's positive quality of life with cochlear implants later in childhood. KEY WORDS: quality of life, children, cochlear implants, speech perception, emotion understanding, The literature on children with cochlear implants has demonstrated significant outcomes in many areas. In particular, dramatic progress has been noted in the perception of speech by children with cochlear [...]

To examine the neurobiological consequences of early institutionalization, the authors recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) from 3 groups of Romanian children--currently institutionalized, previously institutionalized but randomly assigned to foster care, and family-reared children--in response to pictures of happy, angry, fearful, and sad facial expressions of emotion. At 3 assessments (baseline, 30 months, and 42 months), institutionalized children showed markedly smaller amplitudes and longer latencies for the occipital components PI, N170, and P400 compared to family-reared children. By 42 months, ERP amplitudes and latencies of children placed in foster care were intermediate between the institutionalized and family-reared children, suggesting that foster care may be partially effective in ameliorating adverse neural changes caused by institutionalization. The age at which children were placed into foster care was unrelated to their ERP outcomes at 42 months. Facial emotion processing was similar in all 3 groups of children; specifically, fearful faces elicited larger amplitude and longer latency responses than happy faces for the frontocentral components P250 and Nc. These results have important implications for understanding of the role that experience plays in shaping the developing brain. Keywords: early experiences, face processing, event-related potentials, facial emotion, institutionalization

Seven hundred seventy-nine infants were screened at 4 months of age for motor and emotional reactivity. At age 9 months, infants who showed extreme patterns of motor and negative (n = 75) or motor and positive (n = 73) reactivity and an unselected control group (n = 86) were administered the Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery, and baseline electroencephalogram data were collected. Negatively reactive infants showed significantly more avoidance than positively reactive infants and displayed a pattern of right frontal electroencephalogram asymmetry. Positively reactive infants exhibited significantly more approach behavior than controls and exhibited a pattern of left frontal asymmetry. Results support the notion that approach--withdrawal bias underlies reactivity in infancy. Keywords: temperament, frontal EEG asymmetry, approach--withdrawal bias

Anxious individuals show an attention bias towards threatening information. However, under conditions of sustained environmental threat this otherwise-present attention bias disappears. It remains unclear whether this suppression of attention bias can be caused by a transient activation of the fear system. In the present experiment, high socially anxious and low socially anxious individuals (HSA group, n = 12; LSA group, n = 12) performed a modified dot-probe task in which they were shown either a neutral or socially threatening prime word prior to each trial. EEG was collected and ERP components to the prime and faces displays were computed. HSA individuals showed an attention bias to threat after a neutral prime, but no attention bias after a threatening prime, demonstrating that suppression of attention bias can occur after a transient activation of the fear system. LSA individuals showed an opposite pattern: no evidence of a bias to threat with neutral primes but induction of an attention bias to threat following threatening primes. ERP results suggested differential processing of the prime and faces displays by HSA and LSA individuals. However, no group by prime interaction was found for any of ERP components. Keywords: Social anxiety Attention bias Threat Social information processing Priming ERP

To elucidate the differential saliency of infant emotions to mothers across interactive contexts, the authors examined the moderating role of observed infant affect during interactions with mother in the relation between maternal and laboratory-based ratings of infant temperament. Fifty-nine developmentally healthy 9-month-old infants were judged for degree of infant positive, infant negative, and mother-infant mutually positive affect during the course of object-focused and routine home-based activities with mother. Mothers completed the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (M. K. Rothbart, 1981), and infants underwent the Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (H. H. Goldsmith & M. K. Rothbart, 1999). Results revealed that maternal and observer ratings of infant negativity converged when infants manifested high degrees of negative affect during routine home-based activities. Maternal and observer ratings of infant positivity converged when infants experienced low mutually positive affect during play. These findings support the hypothesis that maternal perceptions are based on mothers' experiences with their infants but that the salience of infant temperamental characteristics to mothers varies across emotion and interactive context. Keywords: infant temperament, mother-infant interaction, maternal perceptions

Research assessing the quality of attachment of children to their mothers at 14, 24 and 58 months of age shows stability in attachment classification between 14 and 24 months. However, lack of stability was seen between either 14 or 24 months and 58 months. Mothers of children who did not show stability of attachment reported more negative and fewer positive life events. This research does not support a 'strong stability' attachment position, in which, in the face of normative developmental change, the pattern of attachment strategies formed around the end of the first year of life remains stable for subsequent interactions with others.

A group of 155 parents and their preschool children attending Head Start reported on the children's exposure to community violence, level of distress symptoms, and behavioral problems. The behavioral correlates of exposure were found to differ according to exposure modality: internalizing problems were more likely in children who witnessed violence, and externalizing problems in those victimized by violence. Issues regarding self-reports by preschool children are highlighted, and clinical and research implications discussed.

The role of infant and toddler temperament in the prediction of empathy in 2-year-old children was examined. Assessments of temperament included reactivity and affect observed at 4 months of age, as well as inhibition at Age 2. Empathy was measured in 2-year-old children's responses to simulations of distress performed by their mothers and by an unfamiliar person. Children showed relatively more concern for the mother's distress, but they were also responsive to unfamiliar victims. Infants who were unreactive and showed little affect also showed less empathy toward the unfamiliar adult almost 2 years later. Inhibition toward an unfamiliar adult (but not toward the mother) at 2 years of age was negatively related to empathy. Inhibited temperament may thus have a major impact on young children's empathy in unfamiliar contexts. Findings also highlight the need to consider early underarousal as another dimension of temperament that may dampen expressions of empathic concern.

Recent studies have found that positive affect is associated with greater relative left frontal EEG activation and negative affect is associated with greater relative right frontal EEG activation. Further, chronically depressed adults typically display stable right frontal EEG activation. The present study investigated the effects of music on mood state and right frontal EEG activation associated with chronic depression. Fourteen chronically depressed female adolescents listened to rock music for a 23-minute session. These adolescents were compared with a control sample of chronically depressed female adolescents who were simply asked to sit and relax their minds and their muscles for the same time period. EEG was recorded during baseline, music, and post-music for three minutes each, and saliva samples were collected before and after the session to determine the effects of the music on stress hormone (cortisol) levels. No group differences or changes were noted for observed or reported mood state. However, cortisol levels decreased and relative right frontal activation was significantly attenuated during and after the music procedure. It was concluded that music had positive effects on the physiological and biochemical measures even though observed and self-reported mood did not change., Music reduces stress (Stratton, 1992) and anxiety levels (Mornhinweg, 1992), and even enhances performance on abstract/spatial reasoning tests (Rauscher, Shaw, & Ky, 1.993). According to some researchers these effects can […]

Emotion regulation (ER) was assessed during a negative mood induction in 79 preschoolers who varied in degree of behavior problems. Facial expressivity during the induction was used to identify 3 ER groups: inexpressive, modulated expressive, and highly expressive. Group differences in ER were significantly related to heart rate and skin conductance. Inexpressive preschoolers had the highest heart rate, lowest vagal tone, and smallest autonomic nervous system (ANS) change during the induction. Highly expressive preschoolers had the slowest heart rate, highest vagal tone, and largest ANS change. The inexpressive and highly expressive groups had more externalizing symptoms than the modulated group at preschool age and at follow-up at the end of 1st grade. Inexpressive preschoolers appeared to have more depressed and anxious symptoms at follow-up.

Usage of the Self-Expressiveness in the Family Questionnaire Proved useful in accurately ascertaining the emotional expressiveness in 499 mothers and 362 fathers. This measure is found to possess good convergent, discriminant, construct validity and internal consistency in assessing marital and parent-child problems.

Recent studies suggest that an initial component involving stimulus evaluation may precede subsequent steps in the generation of emotion. This article presents a model for the development of emotion that involves an initial decision of approach or withdrawal, which results in motor programs, including facial expression, that facilitate either approach or withdrawal. With development, more complex emotions arise, as products of these basic initial responses and interaction with the environment. Evidence is presented that suggests that there are brain asymmetries (as measured by scalp recorded EEG activity) localized to the frontal region that are associated with the generation of emotion in infants. Variability in the pattern of EEG asymmetry between infants may be an important marker of differences in temperament.

The relation between measures of heart period and vagal tone and infant reactivity was investigated in a longitudinal study of infants from birth to 5 months of age. At 2 days of age, electrocardiogram (EKG) was recorded and a pacifier-withdrawal task was administered. At 5 months of age, EKG was recorded, after which infants and mothers participated in a laboratory session designed to elicit positive and negative reactivity. Maternal ratings of 5-month infant temperament were also obtained. There was a significant concurrent relation between 5-month vagal tone and negative reactivity elicited in the laboratory and maternal ratings of activity level and smiling behavior. Newborn vagal tone predicted maternal ratings of frustration and fear. Moderate stability was found for infant reactivity.

Speech, for most of us, is a bimodal percept whenever we both hear the voice and see the lip movements of a speaker. Children who are born deaf never have this bimodal experience. We tested children who had been deaf from birth and who subsequently received cochlear implants for their ability to fuse the auditory information provided by their implants with visual information about lip movements for speech perception. For most of the children with implants (92%), perception was dominated by vision when visual and auditory speech information conflicted. For some, bimodal fusion was strong and consistent, demonstrating a remarkable plasticity in their ability to form auditory-visual associations despite the atypical stimulation provided by implants. The likelihood of consistent auditory-visual fusion declined with age at implant beyond 2.5 years, suggesting a sensitive period for bimodal integration in speech perception. auditory visual integration | deafness | learning | sensitive periods | speech development

The language skills of children with cochlear implants are compared to those with normal hearing. Results indicate that children with cochlear implants showed language scores appropriate for their age, however, their performance was significantly lower compared to normal hearing children. The impacts of age and duration of use of cochlear implants on language skills are also examined.

We sought to extend earlier work by examining whether there are ordinary variations in human maternal caregiving behavior (MCB) that are related to stress reactivity in infants. We observed 185 mother-infant dyads and used standard coding systems to identify variations in caregiving behavior. We then created two extreme groups and found that infants receiving low-quality MCB showed more fearfulness, less positive joint attention, and greater right frontal electroencephalographic asymmetry than infants receiving high-quality MCB. Group differences in stress reactivity were not a result of measured infant temperament. However, infants receiving low-quality MCB manifested significantly more negative affect during caregiving activities than did infants receiving high-quality MCB. The results suggest that ordinary variations in MCB may influence the expression of neural systems involved in stress reactivity in human infants.