Head injuries can make children loners

New research has found that a child’s relationships may be a hidden casualty long after a head injury.

Neuroscientists at Brigham Young University studied a group of children three years after each had suffered a traumatic brain injury – most commonly from car accidents. The researchers found that lingering injury in a specific region of the brain predicted the health of the children’s social lives.

“The thing that’s hardest about brain injury is that someone can have significant difficulties but they still look okay,” said Shawn Gale, a neuropsychologist at BYU. “But they have a harder time remembering things and focusing on things as well and that affects the way they interact with other people. Since they look fine, people don’t cut them as much slack as they ought to.”

Gale and Ph.D. student Ashley Levan authored a study to be published April 10 by the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, the leading publication in the field of rehabilitation. The study compared the children’s social lives and thinking skills with the thickness of the brain’s outer layer in the frontal lobe. The brain measurements came from MRI scans and the social information was gathered from parents on a variety of dimensions, such as their children’s participation in groups, number of friends and amount of time spent with friends.

A second finding from the new study suggests one potential way to help. The BYU scholars found that physical injury and social withdrawal are connected through something called “cognitive proficiency.” Cognitive proficiency is the combination of short-term memory and the brain’s processing speed.

“In social interactions we need to process the content of what a person is saying in addition to simultaneously processing nonverbal cues,” Levan said. “We then have to hold that information in our working memory to be able to respond appropriately. If you disrupt working memory or processing speed it can result in difficulty with social interactions.”

Separate studies on children with ADHD, which also affects the frontal lobes, show that therapy can improve working memory. Gale would like to explore in future research with BYU’s MRI facility if improvements in working memory could “treat” the social difficulties brought on by head injuries.

“This is a preliminary study but we want to go into more of the details about why working memory and processing speed are associated with social functioning and how specific brain structures might be related to improve outcome,” Gale said.

Can ‘love hormone’ protect against addiction?

Researchers at the University of Adelaide say addictive behaviour such as drug and alcohol abuse could be associated with poor development of the so-called “love hormone” system in our bodies during early childhood.

The groundbreaking idea has resulted from a review of worldwide research into oxytocin, known as the “love hormone” or “bonding drug” because of its important role in enhancing social interactions, maternal behaviour and partnership.

This month’s special edition of the international journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior deals with the current state of research linking oxytocin and addiction, and has been guest edited by Dr Femke Buisman-Pijlman from the University of Adelaide’s School of Medical Sciences.

Dr Buisman-Pijlman, who has a background in both addiction studies and family studies, says some people’s lack of resilience to addictive behaviours may be linked to poor development of their oxytocin systems.

"We know that newborn babies already have levels of oxytocin in their bodies, and this helps to create the all-important bond between a mother and her child. But our oxytocin systems aren’t fully developed when we’re born - they don’t finish developing until the age of three, which means our systems are potentially subject to a range of influences both external and internal," Dr Buisman-Pijlman says.

She says the oxytocin system develops mainly based on experiences.

"The main factors that affect our oxytocin systems are genetics, gender and environment. You can’t change the genes you’re born with, but environmental factors play a substantial role in the development of the oxytocin system until our systems are fully developed," Dr Buisman-Pijlman says.

"Previous research has shown that there is a high degree of variability in people’s oxytocin levels. We’re interested in how and why people have such differences in oxytocin, and what we can do about it to have a beneficial impact on people’s health and wellbeing," she says.

She says studies show that some risk factors for drug addiction already exist at four years of age. “And because the hardware of the oxytocin system finishes developing in our bodies at around age three, this could be a critical window to study. Oxytocin can reduce the pleasure of drugs and feeling of stress, but only if the system develops well.”

Her theory is that adversity in early life is key to the impaired development of the oxytocin system. “This adversity could take the form of a difficult birth, disturbed bonding or abuse, deprivation, or severe infection, to name just a few factors,” Dr Buisman-Pijlman says.

"Understanding what occurs with the oxytocin system during the first few years of life could help us to unravel this aspect of addictive behaviour and use that knowledge for treatment and prevention."

Contagious Yawning May Not Be Linked to Empathy; Still Largely Unexplained

While previous studies have suggested a connection between contagious yawning and empathy, new research from the Duke Center for Human Genome Variation finds that contagious yawning may decrease with age and is not strongly related to variables like empathy, tiredness and energy levels.

The study, published March 14 in the journal PLOS ONE, is the most comprehensive look at factors influencing contagious yawning to date.

The researchers said a better understanding of the biology involved in contagious yawning could ultimately shed light on illnesses such as schizophrenia or autism.

“The lack of association in our study between contagious yawning and empathy suggests that contagious yawning is not simply a product of one’s capacity for empathy,” said study author Elizabeth Cirulli, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine at the Center for Human Genome Variation at Duke University School of Medicine.

Contagious yawning is a well-documented phenomenon that occurs only in humans and chimpanzees in response to hearing, seeing or thinking about yawning. It differs from spontaneous yawning, which occurs when someone is bored or tired. Spontaneous yawning is first observed in the womb, while contagious yawning does not begin until early childhood.

Why certain individuals are more susceptible to contagious yawning remains poorly understood. Previous research, including neuroimaging studies, has shown a relationship between contagious yawning and empathy, or the ability to recognize or understand another’s emotions. Other studies have shown correlations between contagious yawning and intelligence or time of day.

Interestingly, people with autism or schizophrenia, both of which involve impaired social skills, demonstrate less contagious yawning despite still yawning spontaneously. A deeper understanding of contagious yawning could lead to insights on these diseases and the general biological functioning of humans.

The current study aimed to better define how certain factors affect someone’s susceptibility to contagious yawning. The researchers recruited 328 healthy volunteers, who completed cognitive testing, a demographic survey, and a comprehensive questionnaire that included measures of empathy, energy levels and sleepiness.

The participants then watched a three-minute video of people yawning, and recorded the number of times they yawned while watching the video.

The researchers found that certain individuals were less susceptible to contagious yawns than others, with participants yawning between zero and 15 times during the video. Of the 328 people studied, 222 contagiously yawned at least once. When verified across multiple testing sessions, the number of yawns was consistent, demonstrating that contagious yawning is a very stable trait.

In contrast to previous studies, the researchers did not find a strong connection between contagious yawning and empathy, intelligence or time of day. The only independent factor that significantly influenced contagious yawning was age: as age increased, participants were less likely to yawn. However, age was only able to explain 8 percent of the variability in the contagious yawn response.

“Age was the most important predictor of contagious yawning, and even age was not that important. The vast majority of variation in the contagious yawning response was just not explained,” Cirulli said.

Because most variability in contagious yawning remains unexplained, the researchers are now looking to see whether there are genetic influences that contribute to contagious yawning. Their long-term goal in characterizing variability in contagious yawning is to better understand human diseases like schizophrenia and autism, as well as general human functioning, by identifying the genetic basis of this trait.

“It is possible that if we find a genetic variant that makes people less likely to have contagious yawns, we might see that variant or variants of the same gene also associated with schizophrenia or autism,” Cirulli said. “Even if no association with a disease is found, a better understanding of the biology behind contagious yawning can inform us about the pathways involved in these conditions.”

New study settles how social understanding is performed by the brain

A new study settles an important question about how social understanding is performed in the brain. The findings may help us to attain a better understanding of why people with autism and schizophrenia have difficulties with social interaction.

In a study to be published in Psychological Science, researchers from Aarhus University and the University of Copenhagen demonstrate that brain cells in what is called the mirror system help people make sense of the actions they see other people perform in everyday life.

Using magnetic stimulation to temporarily disrupt normal processing of the areas of the human brain involved in the production of actions of human participants, it is demonstrated that these areas are also involved in the understanding of actions. The study is the first to demonstrate a clear causal effect, whereas earlier studies primarily have looked at correlations, which are difficult to interpret.

One of the researchers, John Michael, explains the process:

“There has been a great deal of hype about the mirror system, and now we have performed an experiment that finally provides clear and straightforward evidence that the mirror system serves to help people make sense of others’ actions,” says John Michael.

Understanding autism and schizophrenia

The study shows that there are areas of the brain that are involved in the production of actions. And the researchers found evidence that these areas contribute to understanding others’ actions. This means that the same areas are involved in producing actions and understanding others’ actions. This helps us in everyday life, but it also holds great potential when trying to understand why people with autism and schizophrenia have difficulties with social interaction.

“Attaining knowledge of the processes underlying social understanding in people in general is an important part of the process of attaining knowledge of the underlying causes of the difficulties that some people diagnosed with autism and schizophrenia experience in sustaining social understanding. But it is important to emphasise that this is just one piece of the puzzle.”

“The findings may be interesting to therapists and psychiatrists who work with patients with schizophrenia or autism, or even to educational researchers,” adds John Michael.

Facts about the empirical basis

The participants (20 adults) came to the lab three times. They were given brain scans on the first visit. On the second and third, they received stimulation to their motor system and then performed a typical psychological task in which they watched brief videos of actors pantomiming actions (about 250 videos each time). After each video they had to choose a picture of an object that matched the pantomimed video. For example, a hammer was the correct answer for the video of an actor pretending to hammer. This task was intended to gauge their understanding of the observed actions. The researchers found that the stimulation interfered with their performance of this task.

Innovative method

The researchers used an innovative technique for magnetically stimulating highly specific brain areas in order to temporarily disrupt normal processing in those areas. The reason for using this technique (called continuous theta-burst stimulation) in general is that it makes it possible to determine which brain areas perform which functions. For example, if you stimulate (and thus temporarily impair) area A, and the participants subsequently have difficulty with some specific task (task T), then you can infer that area A usually performs task T. The effect goes away after 20 minutes, so this is a harmless and widely applicable way to identify which tasks are performed by which areas.

With continuous theta-burst stimulation, you can actually determine that the activation of A contributes as a cause to people performing T. This method thus promises to be of great use to neuroscientists in the coming years.

Theatre offers promise for youth with autism

A novel autism intervention program using theatre to teach reciprocal communication skills is improving social deficits in adolescents with the disorder that now affects an estimated one in 88 children, Vanderbilt University researchers released today in the journal Autism Research.

The newly released study assessed the effectiveness of a two-week theatre camp on children with autism spectrum disorder and found significant improvements were made in social perception, social cognition and home living skills by the end of the camp. There were also positive changes in the participants’ physiological stress and reductions in self-reported parental stress.

Called SENSE Theatre, the Social Emotional Neuroscience & Endocrinology (SENSE) program evaluates the social functioning of children with autism and related neurodevelopmental disorders.

Camp participants ages 8 to 17 years join with typically developing peers who are specially trained to serve as models for social interaction and communication, skills that are difficult for children with autism. The camp uses techniques such as role-play and improvisation and culminates in public performances of a play.

“The findings show that treatment can be delivered in an unconventional setting, and children with autism can learn from unconventional ‘interventionists’ – their typically developing peer,” said lead author Blythe Corbett, Ph.D., associate professor of Psychiatry.

Social perception and interaction skills were measured before and after the camp using neuropsychological measures, play with peers and parental reporting. Significant differences were found in face processing, social awareness and social cognition, and duration of interaction with familiar peers increased significantly over the course of the camp.

Additionally, the stress hormone cortisol was measured through saliva samples taken both at home and throughout the camp to compare the stress level of participants at home, at the beginning of the camp and at the end of the camp. Cortisol levels rose on the first day of camp when compared to home values but declined by the end of treatment and during post-treatment play with peers.

“Our findings show that the SENSE Theatre program contributes to improvement in core social deficits when engaging with peers both on and off the stage,” Corbett said. “This research also shows it’s never too late to make a significant difference in the lives of children and youth with autism spectrum disorder, as [this program] targets children who are much older than kids who are participating in early intervention, yet we are still seeing significant gains in the core deficits of autism, and in a rather brief intervention.”

This research was supported by the Martin McCoy-Jesperson Discovery Grant in Positive Psychology and a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (Grant No. R01 MH085717).

Corbett will continue using theatre techniques to study areas of social functioning among children with autism through a newly awarded grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (Grant No. R34 MH097793). This forthcoming study will explore treatment length and peer familiarity as factors in optimizing and generalizing gains and will enroll more than 30 youth with autism ages 8 to 16 in a 10-week program model beginning January 2014.

Chimpanzees communicate with robots

Chimpanzees are willing to socialise with robots, new research reveals. It is the first time that robots have been used to study behaviour in primates other than humans.

The study, by researchers at the University of Portsmouth, shows that chimps respond to even basic movements made by a robot, demonstrating that chimps want to communicate and interact with other ‘creatures’ on a social level. The researchers believe that these basic forms of communication in chimpanzees help to promote greater social bonding and lead to more complex forms of social interaction.

The research, published in Animal Cognition a few days ago, outlines how chimps responded to a human-like robot about the size of a doll. The chimps reacted to small movements made by the robot by inviting play, offering it toys and in one case even laughing at it. They also responded to being imitated by the robot.

The chimps did not appear to be put off by the primitive nature of the gestures but responded in the same way they might to humans or other chimps.

Lead researcher, Dr Marina Davila-Ross, is from the University’s Centre for Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology. She said that the advantage of using a robot in the study was that the chimps could be observed in a controlled but interactive setting while a human researcher was able to examine the chimps’ behaviour without needing to participate. This allowed the researchers to analyse simplest forms of ’social’ interactions.

She said: “It was especially fascinating to see that the chimps recognised when they were being imitated by the robot because imitation helps to promote their social bonding. They showed less active interest when they saw the robot imitate a human.

“Some of the chimps gave the robot toys and other objects and demonstrated an active interest in communicating. This kind of behaviour helps to promote social interactions and friendships. But there were notable differences in how the chimps behaved. Some chimps, for instance, seemed not interested in interacting with the robot and turned away as soon as they saw it.

“In our other studies we have found that humans will also react to robots in ways which suggest a willingness to communicate, even though they know the robots are not real. It’s a demonstration of the basic human desire to communicate and it appears that chimpanzees share this readiness to communicate with others.”

The interactive robot was approximately 45 centimetres high and its head and limbs could move independently while chimpanzee sounds (such as chimpanzee laughter) were sent via a small loudspeaker in its chest area, which was covered by a dress. The chimps first observed a person interacting with the robot which was then turned around to face the chimp while the human researcher looked away to avoid any further communication.

Almost all of the 16 chimpanzees observed showed a level of active communication with the robot, such as gestures and expressions.

Dr Davila-Ross said that the research paves the way for further study using robots to interact with primates and discover more about their social behaviour in a controlled setting, such as how they make friends.

Studying the social side of carnivores

The part of the brain that makes humans and primates social creatures may play a similar role in carnivores, according to a growing body of research by a Michigan State University neuroscientist.

In studying spotted hyenas, lions and, most recently, the raccoon family, Sharleen Sakai has found a correlation between the size of the animals’ frontal cortex and their social nature.

In her latest study, Sakai examined the digitally recreated brains of three species in the Procyonid family – the raccoon, the coatimundi and the kinkajou – and found the coatimundi had the largest frontal cortex. The frontal cortex is thought to regulate social interaction, and the coatimundi is by far the most social of the three animals, often living in bands of 20 or more.

The study, funded by the National Science Foundation, is published in the research journal Brain, Behavior and Evolution.

“Most neuroscience research that looks at how brains evolve has focused primarily on primates, so nobody really knows what the frontal cortex in a carnivore does,” said Sakai, professor of psychology. “These findings suggest the frontal cortex is processing social information in carnivores perhaps similar to what we’ve seen in monkeys and humans.”

Sakai did the most recent study in her neuroscience lab with Bradley Arsznov, a former MSU doctoral student who’s now an assistant professor of psychology at Minnesota State University. Sakai is one of myriad MSU faculty members who help make the university’s brain research portfolio one of the most diverse in the nation.

Her latest study was based on the findings from 45 adult Procyonid skulls acquired from university museum collections (17 coatimundis, 14 raccoons and 14 kinkajous). The researchers used computed tomography, or CT scans, and sophisticated software to digitally “fill in” the areas where the brains would have been.

When they analyzed into the findings, they discovered the female coatimundi had the largest anterior cerebrum volume consisting mainly of the frontal cortex, which regulates social activity in primates. This makes sense, Sakai said, since the female coatimundi is highly social while the male coatimundi, once grown, typically lives on its own or with another male. Also known as the Brazilian aardvark, the coatimundi – or coati – is native to Central and South America.

Raccoons, the most solitary of the three animals, had the smallest frontal cortex. However, raccoons had the largest posterior cerebrum, which contains the sensory area related to forepaw sensation and dexterity – and the raccoon’s forepaws are extremely dexterous and highly sensitive.

The rainforest-dwelling kinkajou had the largest cerebellum and brain stem, areas that regulate motor coordination. This skill is crucial for animals like the kinkajou that live in trees.

Brain size variations in this small family of carnivores appear to be related to differences in behavior including social interaction, Sakai said.