Altered power of resting-state neurophysiological activity has been associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which commonly co-occur. We compared resting-state neurophysiological power in children with ASD, ADHD, co-occurring ASD + ADHD, and typically developing controls. Children with ASD…

Stress influences how we remember emotional events and how these events shape future behaviors. However, the impact of stress on memory specificity for emotional events has yet to be examined. To this end, the present study utilized a mnemonic discrimination task that taxes hippocampal pattern separation, the process of distinguishing between…

An important question regards how we use environmental boundaries to anchor spatial representations during navigation. Behavioral and neurophysiological models appear to provide conflicting predictions, and this question has been difficult to answer because of technical challenges with testing navigation in novel, large-scale, realistic spatial…

In a sample of 37 adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 35 typically-developing controls (TDC), we investigated sensory symptoms by clinical measures, and Mismatch Negativity and P3a component at Fz with the frequency and duration oddball paradigms of event-related potentials. Results showed that compared to TDC, ASD…

Congenital amusia is a lifelong disorder characterized by a difficulty in perceiving and producing music despite normal intelligence and hearing. Behavioral data have indicated that it originates from a deficit in fine-grained pitch discrimination, and is expressed by the absence of a P3b event-related brain response for pitch differences smaller…

Recent developments in near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) have enabled non-invasive clarification of brain functions in psychiatric disorders. Functional neuroimaging studies of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have suggested that the frontal cortex and subcortical structures may play a role in the pathophysiology of the disorder.…

Recent years have seen an increase in the use of retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) evaluation as an easy-to-use, reproducible, proxy-measure of brain structural abnormalities. Here, we evaluated RNFL thickness in a group of subjects with high functioning autism (HFA) or with Asperger Syndrome (AS) to its potential as a tool to study autism…

Objective: To examine patterns of early brain growth in young children with fragile X syndrome (FXS) compared with a comparison group (controls) and a group with idiopathic autism. Method: The study included 53 boys 18 to 42 months of age with FXS, 68 boys with idiopathic autism (autism spectrum disorder), and a comparison group of 50 typically…

Background: Genetically Williams syndrome (WS) promises to provide essential insight into the pathophysiology of cortical development because its ~28 deleted genes are crucial for cortical neuronal migration and maturation. Phenotypically, WS is one of the most puzzling childhood neurodevelopmental disorders affecting most intellectual…

Background: This longitudinal electrophysiological study investigated the course of multiple impaired cognitive brain functions in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) from childhood to adulthood by comparing developmental trajectories of individuals with ADHD and typically developing controls. Methods: Subjects with ADHD ("N"…

Background: Error processing is reflected, behaviorally, by slower reaction times (RT) on trials immediately following an error (post-error). Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) fail to show RT slowing and demonstrate increased intra-subject variability (ISV) on post-error trials. The neural correlates of these behavioral…

Objective: Transverse relaxation time (T2) imaging provides the opportunity to examine membrane fluidity, which can affect a number of cellular functions. The objective of the present work was to examine T2 abnormalities in children with unmodified DSM-IV-TR bipolar disorder (BD) in bilateral cingulate-paracingulate (CPC) white matter. Method: A…

Learning disabilities (LD) are one of the most frequent problems for elementary school-aged children. In this paper, event-related EEG oscillations to semantically related and unrelated pairs of words were studied in a group of 18 children with LD not otherwise specified (LD-NOS) and in 16 children with normal academic achievement. We propose that…

With an increasing population living at a high altitude (HA), the impact of HA residence on human cognitive function has raised concerns. We recruited two groups of college students with one group born and grew up at HA until early adulthood and the control group born and grew up at near sea level (SL); the two groups were matched at age, gender…

Background: Physical activity and structural differences in the hippocampus have been linked to educational outcome. We investigated whether a curriculum-based physical activity intervention correlates positively with children's academic achievement, psychological well-being, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), fitness, and structural…