Active clinical trials for "Autism Spectrum Disorder"

The purpose of the JEMImE project is to create a serious game to help children with Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) develop facial and vocal emotions in context. The objective of this study is to record facial and vocal emotional productions in children with autism and PDD in order to create an algorithm for the recognition of facial emotional expressions implemented in the serious game JEMImE.

Use of the software could allow learning of reading code in subjects with ASD through the design of serious games for educational and therapeutic purposes. This SEMATIC software could improve communication and could be integrated into medical management (speech therapy and neuropsychological). The benefit of an action research will enable training professionals to autism, cognitive characteristics of autism and the use of IT support for this population.

The purpose of the investigators proposed study is twofold: 1) To investigate the role of the affiliative neuropeptide oxytocin in unhealthy interactions in families of patients with schizophrenia and families of patients with autism spectrum disorder, and 2) to investigate whether manipulation of this oxytocinergic system positively influences these family interactions.

This study aims to reduce stress in mothers of children with autism in Saudi Arabia. The researcher has designed a training programme for mothers whose children are young and just in their early stage at the autism organisations they are attending. The programme will include stress reduction tips, behavioural modification strategies for children with autism, and financial resources available to parents (how they can access government funding). The study will have two parts. Part one involves conducting an experiment by dividing the participants into two groups, one group will receive the training and the other group will wait until the end of the study then they will also receive the same training. Both groups will fill questionnaire at the beginning of the study, then after the first group finishes training, and then again 6 weeks later. Part two of the study will involve interviewing mothers of the first group who attended the training session. They will be interviewed by the researcher asking them about their experience with the training programme and their suggestions for future improvements. Mothers will be given a training manual at the beginning of the training. Training involves attending five sessions, one of which is a face to face session at the autism organisation their children are attending and the other four sessions will be through a Smartphone application called whatsapp which is widely used in Saudi Arabia.

The prevalence of autism in Taiwan has been significantly increasing over this decade. Though early intervention program and special and resource education have been applied in helping individuals with autism in Taiwan, studies regarding autism in this country so far focus mostly on the prevalence and demographics in restricted populations, diagnostic category, single case observation, and clinical research. Although the data of needs of care and intervention models in autism emerges in Western countries, there is a lack of such data in Taiwan. Due to the high prevalence, long-term impairing and lack of effective prevention, detection, and treatment for autism, tremendous of the resource is needed to be given to individuals with autism. However, the investigators do not know the gap between the need and provided care in currently. This study aims to understand the current state of needs of care and intervention in autism from different stakeholders to inform and improve the health care policies for autism and to establish a holistic care/intervention model for autism in Taiwan.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder and is characterized by functional impairment in social communication, restricted interests, and repetitive behaviors.The children with ASD has been shown different drug responses from the normal population of children. The children with ASD maybe more prone to elevate anxiety and the difficult of sedation during MRI scanning.The purpose of this investigation was to compare the effectiveness of dexmedetomidine sedation in children with and without ASD undergoing MRI scanning.

There is increasing awareness in the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) research field about the deficit of knowledge with regard to the neurobiological, cognitive, and behavioral changes that occur in adults with ASD across the later portion of the lifespan. Decline in motor skills and cognitive function in typical aging can have devastating impacts on an individual's ability to organize and maintain activities of daily living. While there is an overall lack of research on how these processes unfold across aging specifically in ASD, previous research findings of motor and cognitive deficits in young adults with ASD, localization of these functions to the anterior cerebral cortices, and trajectories of decline in typical aging indicate that motor skills and executive function are particularly at risk in the disorder in later life. In vivo myeloarchitectonic mapping based on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) provides a unique view of gray matter structure and has the potential to elucidate abnormalities of local cortical connectivity. It has shown promise for the identification of biomarkers of disease pathogenesis in clinical studies, and it provides unique information beyond the cortical thickness measurements that have been employed in previous studies of ASD and typical aging. Myelin mapping may also be a more reliable index of neurobiological aging, given some questions about the accuracy of cortical thickness measurements. Given these properties, it may be a particularly informative measure in the context of potential accelerated decline in ASD. Intracortical myelin development and remodeling are protracted across the typical lifespan, with evidence of abnormal cortical myelination in other neuropsychiatric disorders, as well as in age-related mild cognitive impairment and dementia. In young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) myelin content is reduced in white matter and presumably in cortical gray matter as well. However, patterns of intracortical myelination have not yet been examined in ASD at any age leaving an important gap in the current knowledge base. With the added risk of demyelination associated with aging, older adults with ASD may be the most important population to examine as they may be doubly at risk of deficits in cortical myelination. Importantly, this could have knock-on effects on cognitive and motor functions in light of myelin's role in synaptic plasticity and maintenance of intracortical circuits. The proposed fellowship project aims to bridge this gap in knowledge by investigating the age-related trajectory of intracortical myelin in middle aged to older adults with ASD and clarifying the spatial distribution of any abnormalities. Known heterogeneity in the clinical presentation and neurobiological phenotype across the autism spectrum poses a significant challenge in this research field. The proposed project includes innovative statistical approaches to help parse this heterogeneity. Intracortical myelin will be analyzed cross-sectionally using both group-wise and subject-specific approaches and with any findings confirmed with follow-up longitudinal data. This multifaceted approach will allow for a comprehensive characterization of myeloarchitectonics in adults with ASD, and also holds the potential to elucidate important links between brain structure and behavior in the disorder. Specific Aims Aim 1: Determine if intracortical myelin content and rates of age-related change differ between individuals with ASD and age-matched control participants aged 40-65 years. Hypothesis 1: Group-wise analysis will reveal decreased intracortical myelin content in ASD in association cortices of the frontal and parietal lobes. Hypothesis 2: Subject-specific analyses may reveal spatial variability across individuals in the precise brain regions demonstrating abnormalities of intracortical myelination, but with frontal and parietal regions more frequently or more heavily affected. Hypothesis 3: Both cross-sectional approaches will reveal a pattern of accelerated cortical demyelination with greater age in ASD. Aim 2: Relate local myelin content measures to cognitive and behavioral abilities that are at-risk of decline during aging, including motor skills and executive functions. Hypothesis 4: Age-related decline in domain-specific behavioral abilities will correlate with atypical patterns of intracortical myelination from Aim 1.

Parents of children with haemophilia will be invited to complete 3 questionnaires to look for traits present in ASD. With consent teacher will complete a further 2 questionnaires. If all 3 questionnaires are above threshold, then with consent of the family the child will be referred for further investigation. There are already pre-existing children with ASD who will be exempt from the study, but included in the data analysis of prevalence. The results of the 3 questionnaires will be used to identify a profile of social communication in children with haemophilia.

Autism is a broad spectrum neurodevelopmental disease. Some individuals with ADS by high cognitive functions are diagnosed with High Functioning Autism (HFA). In some studies, it has been shown that NEURL1 gene increases learning and memory and RGS14 gene is suppressed them. We aimed to evaluate the differences between the expression levels of these genes between ASD, HFA and healthy controls and the role of these genes in the pathogenesis of ASD. Patients with 20 ASD and 20 HFA, and 20 healthy controls compatible with patient ages were included in this study. Expression of NEURL-1 and RGS14 genes was evaluated by quantitative Real Time PCR (qRT-PCR).

This study will prospectively enroll approximately 880 children, at least 18 months and less than 60 months of age, who have been referred to a pediatric developmental evaluation center. Enrolled children will have blood drawn for RNA gene expression analysis and optionally for metabolite, lipid and DNA analysis and undergo a clinical evaluation to determine the presence or absence of a diagnosis of ASD. The primary objective of this study is: - To develop an algorithm to classify blood RNA gene expression patterns to maximize agreement between the classification and a clinical assessment of presence or absence of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The secondary objectives of this study are: To develop an algorithm to classify plasma metabolite and/or lipid profiles in such a way as to maximize agreement between the classification and a clinical assessment of presence or absence of ASD. To prospectively assess the clinical sensitivity and specificity of the plasma metabolite and/or lipid profile classification algorithm in a separate population consisting of children referred to a developmental evaluation clinic for a possible developmental disorder (DD). To evaluate clinical sensitivity and specificity of various combinations of gene expression signature, metabolite and/or lipid signatures, and presence of ASD-associated genetic variation detected by chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA) or sequencing protein-coding regions of the genome.