Development and Initial Validation of the Russian Version of the RAADS-14: A Self-Report Questionnaire to Assess Autistic Traits

Autism is a relatively common neurodevelopmental condition that affects social communication and behavior, affecting the overall quality of life. The prevalence of autism is constantly increasing, but timely diagnosis allows for effective treatment. The aim of our research was to construct a Russian version of the RAADS-14, a brief self-report questionnaire originally designed for autism screening, and to perform its initial validation to provide a reference point in developing autism self-assessment tools for the Russian-speaking population. Psychometric properties of the RAADS-14 Rus were evaluated on a sample of 1724 participants, including a general sample of non-psychiatric young adults (n = 794) and adults with clinically established ASD (n = 49); a brief Russian inventory assessing Big Five personality traits (FFQ) was administered to a part of the sample (n = 364) to provide the first assessment of criterion validity. Confirmatory factor analysis of the RAADS-14 Rus confirmed the factor structure of the original Swedish version yielding acceptable fit indices. The discriminating properties were substantially worse than in the original study. The correlations between the RAADS-14 Rus domain scores and the Big Five factors were similar to previously obtained findings. Overall, the results suggest that the RAADS-14 Rus can be used as a screening tool for ASD in adults with proper caution and considering its discriminating properties.

Patients With Better Outcome Have Higher ERP Response to Emotional Auditory Stimuli

PURPOSE

Accuracy of outcome prognosis is one of the most important tasks of coma arousal therapy. Reactions toward sensory stimuli are the most significant predictor of conscience and cognitive functions restoration after a brain injury. A paradigm that includes ERP registration has the advantage of detailed stimuli processing visualization. The authors aimed to investigate perception and distinguishing of emotionally significant sounds (crying and laughter) in coma patients with different consciousness restoration prognosis.

METHODS

EEG was recorded in 24 comatose patients with different outcomes (scored with Glasgow Outcome Scale-Extended) and 32 healthy volunteers. The authors presented sounds of crying and laughter. ERPs for sound stimulation were calculated.

RESULTS

An analysis of the correlation of ERP components and Glasgow Outcome Scale-Extended score was performed. P200 (r = 0.6, P = 0.0014) and N200 amplitudes (r = -0.56, P = 0.0037) for emotional sounds correlated with the Glasgow Outcome Scale-Extended score. The significant differences of P300 and N400 amplitudes corresponded to differences of response between sounds of crying and laughter in subjects of the control group. Unlike the control group, comatose participants with good outcome produced similar electrical activity toward pleasant and unpleasant emotional stimuli.

CONCLUSIONS

Comatose patients with good outcome produced more prominent ERP for emotional sounds. Even the good outcome participants were unable to distinguish emotional sounds of different moods, which indicate the preservation of solely robust mechanisms of sound processing. N200 and P200 amplitudes for emotional stimuli correlated significantly with outcome prognosis in coma patients.

The Levels of Auditory Processing during Emotional Perception in Children with Autism

BACKGROUND

The perception of basic emotional sounds, such as crying and laughter is associated with effective interpersonal communication. Difficulties with the perception and analysis of sounds that complicate understanding emotions at an early development age may contribute to communication deficits.

METHODS

This study focused on auditory nonverbal emotional perception including emotional vocalizations with opposite valences (crying and laughter) and neutral sound (phoneme "Pᴂ"). We conducted event-related potential analysis and compared peak alpha frequencies (PAFs) for different conditions in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing (TD) children aged 4 to 6 years old (N = 25 for each group).

RESULTS

Children with ASD had a higher amplitude of P100 and lower amplitude of N200 for all types of sounds and higher P270 in response to neutral phoneme. During the perception of emotional sounds, children with ASD demonstrated a single P270 electroencephalography (EEG) component instead of a P200-P300 complex specific to TD children. However, the most significant differences were associated with a response to emotional valences of stimuli. The EEG differences between crying and laughter were expressed as a lower amplitude of N400 and higher PAF for crying compared to laughter and were found only in TD children.

CONCLUSIONS

Children with ASD have shown not just abnormal acoustical perception but altered emotional analysis of affective sounds as well.

Salivary Oxytocin and Antioxidative Response to Robotic Touch in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Individuals with ASD are known to have a tendency to have tactile sensory processing issues that could be associated with their impairment as regards social communication. The alterations in tactile processing in autistic subjects are usually accompanied by hypersensitivity and other unpleasant emotions induced by tactile contact. In our study, we investigated the impact of the velocity and the force of a tactile stroke received impersonally by a custom-built robotic device. A total of 21 adults with ASD and 22 adults from a control group participated in our study. The participants' responses were assessed according to subjective scales, EEG changes, and the dynamics of saliva antioxidants and oxytocin. It was found that the oxytocin level was significantly lower in subjects with ASD but increased after tactile stimulation. However, contrary to expectations, the increase in the oxytocin level in the target group negatively correlated with the subjective pleasantness of tactile stimulation and was probably associated with a stress-induced effect. The basic levels of antioxidants did not differ between the TD and ASD groups; however, these had significantly increased in individuals with ASD by the end of the study. The EEG findings, which revealed enhanced antioxidant levels, contributed to the relief of the cognitive control during the study.

Perceived pleasantness of gentle touch in healthy individuals is related to salivary oxytocin response and EEG markers of arousal

Affective touch plays an important role in human social bonding, affiliative behavior, and in general emotional well-being. A system of unmyelinated low-threshold mechanosensitive C-type afferents innervating hairy skin (C-tactile or CT system) is postulated to provide the neurophysiological background of affective touch perception. C-tactile afferents respond optimally to soft and slow strokes, and this response correlates positively with pleasure ratings of tactile stimuli. As gentle touch is consistently associated with oxytocin release further promoting prosocial behavior, it has been suggested that this effect is mediated by the response of C-tactile afferents. This study assesses a possible link between CT-optimal touch, its subjective pleasantness, EEG indices of cortical arousal, and peripheral oxytocin response. EEG was recorded in 28 healthy volunteers during resting state and tactile stimulation[gentle slow brush strokes on forearm (CT-targeted touch) and palm (non-CT-targeted touch)]. Saliva samples were collected before and after the touch stimulation. Oxytocin concentration increase was significantly associated with greater subjective ratings of CT-targeted touch but not of non-CT-targeted touch, and with lower peak alpha frequency values indicating decreased cortical arousal. The findings suggest that CT-targeted stimulation triggers oxytocin release but only when the touch is perceived at an individual level as having clearly positive affective salience. This corresponds to previous studies reporting that oxytocin response to touch can be related to different personality factors, and bears important implications for planning touch-based interventions in social and medical care.