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The present study examined the relationship between multisensory integration and the temporal binding window (TBW) for multisensory processing in adults with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The ASD group was less likely than the typically developing group to perceive an illusory flash induced by multisensory integration during a sound-induced flash illusion (SIFI) task. Although both groups showed comparable TBWs during the multisensory temporal order judgment task, correlation analyses and Bayes factors provided moderate evidence that the reduced SIFI susceptibility was associated with the narrow TBW in the ASD group. These results suggest that the individuals with ASD exhibited atypical multisensory integration and that individual differences in the efficacy of this process might be affected by the temporal processing of multisensory information.

The present study examined whether fundamental sensory functions such as temporal processing and multisensory integration are related to autistic traits in the general population. Both a narrower temporal window (TW) for simultaneous perception, as measured by a temporal order judgement task, and a reduced ability to engage in multisensory integration during the sound-induced flash illusion task were related to higher levels of autistic traits. Additionally, a narrow TW is associated with high levels of autistic traits due to a deficiency in multisensory integration. Taken together, these findings suggest that alterations in fundamental functions produce a cascading effect on higher-order social and cognitive functions, such as those experienced by people with autism spectrum disorder.

Objective: The implementation of school-based mental health screening offers promise for early detection of mental health issues in children; however, various barriers hinder its widespread adoption. This study aimed to investigate the predictive value of digital data obtained from an established daily health observation scheme in Japanese schools to identify later mental health issues in children., Methods: Data for the analysis were obtained from 2,433 students enrolled in five public schools. The data acquisition period spanned 76 school days, from September 1, 2022, to December 23, 2022, and student absences were recorded during this period. Depressive and anxiety symptoms were assessed in January 2023. The students' daily physical and emotional health status was recorded as "daily health issue" scores and group-based trajectory modeling was employed to classify the long-term trends in these scores. Additionally, rolling z-scores were utilized to capture variability in daily health issue scores, with z-scores above +1 considered unusual responses., Results: After 4 months of daily health observations, students' response trends were classified into five trajectory groups. The group experiencing the highest number of daily health issues (Group 5; 5.4% of the sample) exhibited more subsequent depressive and anxiety symptoms compared to the group with fewer issues (Group 1; 47.5%) (incident rate ratio [IRR] = 5.17; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 3.82, 6.99). Group 5 also demonstrated significantly more days of absence than Group 1 (IRR = 2.14, 95% CI: 1.19, 3.85). The average daily health issue scores for the entire period were associated with both depressive/anxiety symptoms and the number of days absent from school (IRR = 1.59, 95% CI: 1.45, 1.73; IRR = 1.18, 95% CI: 1.04, 1.35, respectively). Furthermore, a higher number of unusual responses during the entire period was also associated with more depressive/anxiety symptoms (IRR = 1.10, 95% CI: 1.07, 1.12)., Conclusion: The current study is the first to demonstrate the predictive capability of a traditional daily health observation scheme to identify mental health issues in children. This study highlights the scheme's potential to screen and safeguard children's mental health, emphasizing the importance of digitalization and collaboration with various stakeholders., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision., (Copyright © 2024 Nishimura, Wakuta, Osuka, Tsukui, Hirata, Takahashi, Adachi, Katayama, Aizaki, Sumiya, Kawakami, Iwabuchi and Senju.)

A coiled coil-nucleotide binding site-leucine rich repeat-type resistance gene, RCY1, confers resistance to a yellow strain of Cucumber mosaic virus, CMV(Y), in Arabidopsis thaliana ecotype C24. Resistance to CMV(Y) in C24 is accompanied by a hypersensitive response (HR) that is characterized by the development of necrotic local lesions at the primary infection sites. To further study the HR and resistance to CMV(Y) in ecotype Col-0, which is susceptible to CMV(Y), Col-0 were transformed with RCY1. Systemic spread of CMV(Y) was completely suppressed in RCY1-transformed Col-0 (Col::pRCY1 lines 2 to 6), whereas virulent strain CMV(B2) spread and multiplied systemically in these transgenic lines similar to that in wild-type Col-0. Interestingly, the resistant phenotype of Col::pRCY1 varied among the lines. In lines 3 and 6, in which levels of RCY1 transcript were similar to that in wild-type C24, the HR and resistance to CMV(Y) was induced. Line 4, which expresses moderately elevated levels of RCY1 transcript, exhibited moderately enhanced resistance compared with that in C24 or line 3. In contrast, lines 2 and 5, which highly overexpress the RCY1 gene, did not exhibit either visible lesions or a micro-HR on the inoculated leaves. Moreover, virus coat protein was not detected in either inoculated or noninoculated upper leaves of these two lines, suggesting that extreme resistance (ER) to CMV(Y) was induced by high levels of expression of RCY1. Furthermore, in transgenic lines expressing hemagglutinin (HA) epitope-tagged RCY1 (Col::pRCY1-HA), high levels of accumulation of RCY1-HA protein were also correlated with the ER phenotype. Global gene expression analysis in line 2, which highly overexpresses RCY1, indicated that expression of several defense-related genes were constitutively elevated compared with wild-type Col-0. Despite this, line 2 did not have enhanced resistance to other avirulent and virulent pathogens. Take together, constitutive accumulation of high levels of RCY1 protein appears to regulate the strength of RCY1-conferred resistance in a gene-for-gene manner and implies that ER and HR-associated resistance differ only in the strength of resistance.