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Query: UMLS:C0004352 (autism)
 32,579 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

It is well established that we have to consider 3 patterns of psychotic symptoms: positive (hallucinations, delusion...), negative (affective flatness, autism...) symptoms and disorganization (ambivalence, incoherence...). In the past, ECT (electroconvulsivotherapy) was the first effective treatment in psychiatry. Conventionnal neuroleptics have been determinant in the significant evolution of care to psychotic patients. ECT use is now better defined in terms of practise and indications. Assessment of new antipsychotic medications is mainly focused on efficacy on positive symptoms. Atypical antipsychotics brought improvement in treating psychotic syndromes: they are better tolerated and more effective on the whole spectrum of psychotic syndromes including emotional symptoms than conventional neuroleptics. Atypical antipsychotics have raised questions about metabolic and cardiac risks. Compliance remains a cause of failure of many antipsychotic treatments. Treating a psychotic syndrome requires complementary strategies to medications: conditions of assistance and rehabilitation, choice of psychotherapy. Research program are currently orientated towards: - identification of prepsychotic symptoms and endophenotypes which can be treatment targets; - assessment of putative therapeutical means such a brain stimulation.
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PMID:[Treating a psychotic syndrome in 2007]. 1871 8

Biographers have largely dismissed Nikolaas 'Niko' Tinbergen's late research into the causes and treatment of autism, describing it as a deviation from his previous work, influenced by his personal desires.They have pointed to the incoherence of Tinbergen's assertions about best practices for treating autism, his lack of experience with children with autism, and his apparent embracing of psychogenic theories that the medical research community had largely abandoned. While these critiques have value, it is significant that Tinbergen himself saw his research as a logical extension of his seminal findings in the field of ethology, the science of animal behaviour. The reception of his theories, both positive and negative, was due less to their strengths or faults than to the fact that Tinbergen had inserted himself into a pre-existing and acrimonious debate in the autism research community. Debates about the relative role of environmental and hereditary factors in the aetiology of autism, and the implications of both for the efficacy of different treatments, had political and material significance for the success of parent organizations' lobbying efforts and financial support for research programmes. Tinbergen's approach was welcomed and even championed by a significant minority, who saw no problem with his ideas or methods.
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PMID:'Birdwatching and baby-watching': Niko and Elisabeth Tinbergen's ethological approach to autism. 2187 71

We study the background to problems of functional connectivity in autism spectrum disorders within the neurocognitive framework of the global workspace model. This we proceed to do by observing network irregularities detracting from that of a well-formed small world network architecture. This is discussed in terms of pathologies in functional connectivity and lack of central coherence disrupting inter-network communication thus impairing effective cognitive action. A typical coherence-connectivity measure as a by-product of various neuroimaging results is considered. This is related to a model of feedback control in which a coherence function in the frequency domain is modified by an environmentally determined interaction parameter. With respect to the latter, we discuss the stability question that in theory may counterbalance inessential metabolic costs and incoherence of processing. We suggest that factors such as local overconnectivity and global underconnectivity, along with acute over-expenditure of metabolic costs give rise to instability within the connective core of the workspace.
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PMID:Pathologies in functional connectivity, feedback control and robustness: a global workspace perspective on autism spectrum disorders. 2532 71

Expressive incoherence can be implicated in socio-emotional communicative problems in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study examined expressive incoherence in 37 children with ASD and 41 typically developing (TD) children aged 3-13 years old during a frustration task. The role of alexithymia in expressive incoherence was also assessed. Compared to TD children, children with ASD had higher expressive incoherence, such as more neutral and positive emotion expressions during negative behaviors, but not in the expression of negative emotions during positive behaviors. Further analyses revealed that alexithymia moderated the expressions of positive emotions during negative behaviors. These results suggest that children with ASD may benefit from interventions targeting alexithymia to increase emotional coherence, which may improve socio-emotional communication.
J Autism Dev Disord 2017 06
PMID:Expressive Incoherence and Alexithymia in Autism Spectrum Disorder. 2826 96

Several potential explanations may be dependent on the dynamics of prenatal and postnatal testosterone in males and females, and to be consistent with Baron-Cohen's concept of extreme male brain. This paper explores the evidence that male and female autistic subjects differ on the average in that they have had different exposures to the causes of autism, females bearing higher genetic burdens for ASD (autistic spectrum disorder), and males having a greater exposure to high intrauterine levels of testosterone (T). The high levels of intrauterine (and possibly postnatal) testosterone to which ASD cases have been exposed, cause a less masculinized physical habitus (including facial features) in exposed males, and a more masculinized physical habitus in exposed females. ASD genes (as opposed to intrauterine testosterone) are mainly responsible for a low mean IQ in ASD (especially female cases). Exposure to high intrauterine T increases the probability that foetuses will be male, thus potentially explaining the high sex ratio (proportion male) of cases of ASD. The Gender Incoherence Model seems to be based on facts unrelated directly to autism. The shifts towards the other sex are argued to be consequent on sex-different reactions to prenatal exposure to high T, not on the pathology itself. The suspected underdiagnosis of female cases is partially dependent on the different proportions of environmental and genetic causes to which male and female cases are hypothesized to have been exposed, and the consequent 'more normal' behaviour of female cases.
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PMID:Potential explanations of behavioural and other differences and similarities between males and females with autism spectrum disorder. 3149 28

The 3q29 microduplication syndrome is usually associated with an intellectual disability or global developmental delay and mild dysmorphisms. Other comorbid presentations reported in the literature include psychiatric disorders such as behavioral disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders, elimination disorders, and autism spectrum disorders. The current case is of an adolescent girl with the 3q29 microduplication syndrome who had a diverse psychiatric presentation. The patient was a 14-year-old girl in institutional care, with a moderate intellectual developmental disorder, major behavioral problems, with auto- and hetero-aggressions and a suspicious trait, who presented with frequent episodes of emotional dysregulation, disorganized speech with derailment, incoherence, perseveration and grossly disorganized behavior. Auditory hallucinations were suspected sometimes but were difficult to evaluate. In our assessment, we were not able to determine a diagnosis because the symptoms do not seem to be defined by any classification. Major pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions were needed to manage this case.
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PMID:An Unusual Psychiatric Presentation of the 3q29 Microduplication Syndrome. 3226 82