31 posts · 33,665 views
An autism research blog
Jon Brock
31 posts
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- November 28, 2011
- 07:36 PM
- 708 views
A case of colour-emotion synaesthesia?
by Jon Brock in Cracking the Enigma
Anger he smiles, towering in shiny metallic purple armour.Queen Jealousy, envy waits behind him, her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground.Blue are the life giving waters taken for granted, they quietly understand.Once happy, turquoise armies lay opposite ready, but wonder why the fight is on.My red is so confident that he flashes trophies of war and ribbons of euphoria.Orange is young, full of daring but very unsteady for the first go round.My yellow in this case is not so mellow, in fac........ Read more »
Ramachandran VS, Miller L, Livingstone MS, & Brang D. (2011) Colored halos around faces and emotion-evoked colors: A new form of synesthesia. Neurocase. PMID: 22115465
- March 29, 2012
- 09:34 AM
- 569 views
Autism and intellectual disability in DSM-5
by Jon Brock in Cracking the Enigma
Earlier this week, I wrote about the recently published study by McPartland, Reichow and Volkmar, looking at the potential impact of the proposed DSM 5 criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder. There were caveats-a-plenty but the data suggested that autism rates may go down considerably as a result of the renegotiation of diagnostic borders. In fact, a new diagnosis, Social Communication Disorder, has been created to capture all the people who won't now make the ASD cut-off.In the comments, an........ Read more »
McPartland, J., Reichow, B., & Volkmar, F. (2012) Sensitivity and Specificity of Proposed DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of the American Academy of Child , 51(4), 368-383. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaac.2012.01.007
- May 2, 2012
- 08:58 AM
- 496 views
Autism and the art of campervan maintenance
by Jon Brock in Cracking the Enigma
Sometimes, it's good to get away. In February, we spent two weeks cruising around the North Island of New Zealand in a campervan, quickly christened Campo by my four-year-old. We saw the giant Kauri trees of Waipoua and the giant sand dunes on 90 mile beach; we went sailing on the Bay of Islands and bathing in the volcanic springs of Hotwater Beach. And it only rained twice. I learnt a little of the art of campervan maintenance [1]. And, while I was under strict instructions not to do any w........ Read more »
Brock J. (2011) Commentary: Complementary approaches to the developmental cognitive neuroscience of autism--reflections on Pelphrey et al. (2011). Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 52(6), 645-6. PMID: 21574994
Pelphrey, K., Shultz, S., Hudac, C., & Vander Wyk, B. (2011) Research Review: Constraining heterogeneity: the social brain and its development in autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 52(6), 631-644. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02349.x
- March 26, 2012
- 12:42 PM
- 481 views
How will DSM 5 affect autism rates? The Yale study
by Jon Brock in Cracking the Enigma
In January, at a meeting of the Icelandic Medical Association, Yale researcher, Dr Fred Volkmar gave a presentation of data from a study looking at the implications of changes to autism diagnostic criteria in DSM 5. His conclusion was that many people who are currently diagnosed with autism, Asperger's, or PDD-NOS would not meet the new proposed criteria for autism spectrum disorder in DSM 5.Volkmar's remarks were picked up by the New York Times, who ran with the lede:"Proposed changes in the de........ Read more »
McPartland, J., Reichow, B., & Volkmar, F. (2012) Sensitivity and Specificity of Proposed DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of the American Academy of Child , 51(4), 368-383. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaac.2012.01.007
- September 7, 2012
- 05:58 PM
- 402 views
The messy science behind The Autism Enigma
by Jon Brock in Cracking the Enigma
Last Monday, the Australian current affairs program Four Corners featured a Canadian documentary entitled The Autism Enigma (it’s still currently available on iView in Australia). The main thrust of the program was that autism is caused by harmful bacteria in the gut. Not surprisingly, the program caused quite a stir, prompting responses from various members of the Australian autism research community. Critics argued that it over-simplified the problem of autism, ignored alternative expla........ Read more »
Finegold SM, Downes J, & Summanen PH. (2012) Microbiology of regressive autism. Anaerobe, 18(2), 260-2. PMID: 22202440
- June 26, 2012
- 06:50 AM
- 364 views
Did Alan Turing have Asperger syndrome?
by Jon Brock in Cracking the Enigma
Alan Turing (Kings College, Cambridge)It’s no exaggeration to say that Alan Turing was one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. Regarded as the father of computer science and artificial intelligence, he also made ground-breaking contributions to the fields of mathematics, chemistry, and biology. Most famously, during World War II, he played a crucial role in cracking the Nazi's Enigma code.He was also, it's argued, a person with Asperger syndrome.There's something of a cottage ........ Read more »
O'Connell, H., & Fitzgerald, M. (2003) Did Alan Turing have Asperger's syndrome?. Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine, 20(1), 28-31. info:/
- July 19, 2012
- 08:03 AM
- 349 views
Why do (some) autistic kids struggle to recognise faces?
by Jon Brock in Cracking the Enigma
This week, a guest post from the wonderful Ellie Wilson. Ellie's now at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, working with Declan Murphy. But she has the honourable distinction of being my first ever PhD student. The post is about the two studies that book-ended her thesis on face recognition in autism. Take it away, Ellie...Faces are essentially very similar: two eyes above a nose and a mouth. Yet most people are really good at noticing subtle differences between faces, and interpre........ Read more »
Wilson CE, Palermo R, & Brock J. (2012) Visual scan paths and recognition of facial identity in autism spectrum disorder and typical development. PloS one, 7(5). PMID: 22666378
- September 14, 2012
- 12:13 PM
- 288 views
A genetic test for autism?
by Jon Brock in Cracking the Enigma
This week's big autism story was a genetic test able to predict with 70% accuracy [1] whether or not a child had autism. Rather than looking for a specific gene that might differentiate autistic from non-autistic people, Stan Skafidis and colleagues developed the test by combining information about many different genetic variations. Critically, having developed the test based on one set of genetic data, they then tested the test on genetic data from a completely new set of people.I don't wa........ Read more »
Skafidas E, Testa R, Zantomio D, Chana G, Everall IP, & Pantelis C. (2012) Predicting the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder using gene pathway analysis. Molecular psychiatry. PMID: 22965006
- October 24, 2012
- 09:19 AM
- 202 views
More DSM-5 confusion
by Jon Brock in Cracking the Enigma
One of the big concerns about forthcoming changes to autism diagnosis in DSM-5 is that the new rules may miss out a sizeable chunk of the autism population, particularly those who, under current diagnostic guidelines, would be considered to have Asperger’s Disorder or PDD-NOS. A number of studies published over the last year or so seemed to confirm those fears, although each of those studies had its limitations.Earlier this month, a study in the American Journal of Psychiatry by Marisela Huert........ Read more »
Huerta M, Bishop SL, Duncan A, Hus V, & Lord C. (2012) Application of DSM-5 Criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder to Three Samples of Children With DSM-IV Diagnoses of Pervasive Developmental Disorders. The American journal of psychiatry, 169(10), 1056-64. PMID: 23032385
- December 7, 2012
- 06:43 PM
- 180 views
DSM-5 field trials leave many questions unanswered
by Jon Brock in Cracking the Enigma
Last weekend, the American Psychiatry Association announced that the DSM-5 has been ratified and that changes to the diagnosis of various “mental disorders” would go ahead as planned early next year. The implications for autism are still unclear. Most of the published studies suggest a reduction in autism rates. However, the argument from the DSM-5 working group responsible for autism has always been that everyone should wait for the official field trials to be published before jumping to ........ Read more »
Clarke DE, Narrow WE, Regier DA, Kuramoto SJ, Kupfer DJ, Kuhl EA, Greiner L, & Kraemer HC. (2012) DSM-5 Field Trials in the United States and Canada, Part I: Study Design, Sampling Strategy, Implementation, and Analytic Approaches. The American journal of psychiatry. PMID: 23111546
Regier DA, Narrow WE, Clarke DE, Kraemer HC, Kuramoto SJ, Kuhl EA, & Kupfer DJ. (2012) DSM-5 Field Trials in the United States and Canada, Part II: Test-Retest Reliability of Selected Categorical Diagnoses. The American journal of psychiatry. PMID: 23111466
- March 5, 2013
- 11:47 PM
- 180 views
Perfect match
by Jon Brock in Cracking the Enigma
I've got a new post over on the SFARI (Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative) blog discussing the use of control groups in autism research.Control groups are an essential part of autism research, providing a benchmark against which to assess those with autism. Finding, for instance, that participants with autism score an average of 68 percent on a test is meaningless if you don’t know how people who don’t have autism do on the same test. A control group can also b........ Read more »
Kover ST, & Atwoo AK. (2013) Establishing equivalence: methodological progress in group-matching design and analysis. American journal on intellectual and developmental disabilities, 118(1), 3-15. PMID: 23301899
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