View clinical trials related to Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Filter by:The primary objective of this work will first to characterize in typical childhood, visual exploratory behavior and pupillary response associated with salience of human social stimuli (faces and body movements), and then to evaluate these markers in children with autism. The second objective of this work will be to achieve in a population of children with autism a longitudinal evaluation of these markers during development and therapeutics.
In the proposed study, the investigators would like to investigate the emotion regulation (ER) strategies children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) demonstrate, and the influence parents have on their children's ER. More specifically, the investigators would like to examine what are the ER mechanisms that parents use, what mechanisms of self regulation children with autism internalize, and how parents support and improve the ER capabilities of their child with ASD. These will be studied in a behavioral level, using micro-analysis of parent-child interaction, and in a physiological level, using indexes of stress control and affiliation. In addition, in order for parental ER support to be effective, it is important to consider more innate neuro-developmental difficulties children with ASD demonstrate that strongly affect their ability to regulate themselves. These include sensory regulation difficulties, temperament, attention disorders and poor executive functioning. Hypotheses: 1. ER strategies used by children with ASD will be more poorly developed and less effective, compared to those of children in the control groups. 2. Difficult temperament and sensory regulation difficulties will hamper ER in children with ASD. 3. ER strategies of parents of children with ASD will be more poorly developed and less effective than those of parents in the control groups. 4. Good parental self-ER and parental attunement to the child will be predictive of improved ER in children with ASD, and in parent-child synchrony, both in the behavioral and in the physiological levels.
This research is being done to determine whether transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can improve certain mental abilities, such as speech, language and other efforts at communication in individuals with autism. In this research, battery powered device is used to deliver very weak electrical current to the surface of the scalp while participants are involved in tasks aimed at training or measuring communicative efforts, speech, language or related cognitive functions. Our aim is to find out whether tDCS will improve these mental abilities.
The purpose of this randomized withdrawal study is to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of memantine compared with placebo in pediatric patients with autism, Asperger's Disorder, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS).
The investigators will conduct a randomized controlled trial comparing a telephone based intervention (TCM) to usual care (UC). TCM will feature a registered nurse providing a series of phone calls to assist caregivers in learning and modifying behavioral strategies that may help young children with autism to sleep better. Objective (activity monitors) and subjective (rating scales) data will be collected by an independent research assistant at the end of the project. The investigators hypothesize that TCM improves sleep duration and decreases sleep problems relative to a usual care control condition (UC).
The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of genes and genetic variation on brain structure and function. Investigators at Harvard plan to explore the relationship between candidate genes that affect cognitive performance and brain structure/function. Since brain phenotypes reflect more proximal sequelae of gene activity, neuroimaging measures may show greater sensitivity than cognitive performance to measure gene effects.
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is a highly hereditary neuropsychiatric disorder. In children and adolescents worldwide, the prevalence of ASD is estimated at 0.6%. Understanding the biological mechanism of this disorder could potentially facilitate prompt, accurate and personalized therapy. The dysfunction of fronto-temporal circuitry may explain language impairment in ASD. In addition, pieces of evidence suggest that the abnormality of the cortico-striato-thalamic circuitry might be related to social deficits. However, very little is known how changes in these two circuitries are related to variation in genotypes. Previous reports on ASD using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have demonstrated alteration of brain structure. Recent advance in neuroimaging has shown that structural connectivity of a specific circuitry is superior to regional analysis in terms of higher penetrance of genetic effects and better account for behavioral variance. Therefore, it is plausible that connectivity imaging may serve as effective endophenotypes that link clinical manifestation (phenotypes) and the biological variables (genotypes). In the past five years, our lab has established world leading diffusion spectrum imaging techniques, and applied the techniques to clinical studies on ASD, schizophrenia, stroke and epilepsy. The clinical experience and technical strengths provide a strong basis for us to extend to imaging genetics, aiming to determine effective endophenotypes of ASD. Therefore, the goal of this project is to validate structural connectivity of fronto-temporal and cortico-striato-thalamic circuitries as effective imaging endophenotypes of ASD. Specifically, the investigators will achieve the goal through a series of validation. First, the investigators will demonstrate that structural connectivities in the two targeted circuitries are indeed different among groups of patients with ASD, unaffected siblings, and neurotypicals. Second, the investigators will demonstrate in neurotypicals and unaffected siblings that the altered structural connectivities related to social and language impairments are indeed different in carriers of risk genes, i.e. CNTNAP2 and SLC25A12, respectively. Last, the investigators will demonstrate in all participants that the altered structural connectivities are associated with the corresponding behavioral variances in social and language function. This two-year project is a cohort study consisting of three groups, namely patient, unaffected siblings, and control groups matched in age, gender and handedness. The patient and sibling groups consist of 20 boys each, age 10-15 years old, and the control group consists of 40 boys. The examination includes behavior assessment (IQ test, neuropsychological and clinical assessment), MRI study (structure MRI and diffusion spectrum imaging for structural connectivity) and genome scan(specifically candidate genes related to language function, i.e. SLC25A12, and to social function, i.e. CNTNAP2). In conclusion, this is the first cohort project on imaging genetics in Taiwan. The success of this project will facilitate the progress of translational neuroscience in Taiwan. The methodology of validating endophenotype will be readily extended to other psychiatric diseases.
The purpose of this research is to better understand the genetic, biochemical, cognitive and behavioral symptom abnormalities that contribute to autism spectrum disorders. The investigators anticipate recruiting at least 100 participants with autism spectrum disorder and large head size, at least 100 participants with autism spectrum disorder without large head size and at least 40 healthy siblings. Biological parents are expected to be recruited only as genetic changes are identified in individuals with autism spectrum disorders to better understand the nature of these genetic changes. Participants are asked to complete cognitive testing, a blood draw, urine collection and measurement of his/her height, weight and head circumference. Parents or caregivers may be asked to complete a diagnostic evaluation and will complete questionnaires that examine the participant's medical and family history as well as his/her current symptoms, functioning, and quality of life. A brief report simply listing and giving a basic description of any behavioral diagnostic information, autism symptoms, adaptive functioning, and a listing of results from cognitive testing will be provided as part of this study.
This study will evaluate the effects of a cysteine-rich whey protein isolate supplement (Immunocal®) on autistic behavior in pre-school children with autism.
The primary objective of this study is to conduct magnetic resonance spectroscopic (MRS) and imaging (MRI) scans to assess the structural and neurochemical profile of the brain in 20 children and adolescents, 6-17 years old with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). For comparison, MRS and MRI will also be obtained from 10 healthy control subjects, matched to the 20 subjects with ASD in age, sex, dexterity, and IQ. All eligible subjects will be administered a detailed assessment battery consisting of cognitive assessments (neuropsychological battery including subsets of the DANVA2 and the CANTAB) and measures of psychosocial functioning (SAICA and M-FES). The study includes 1-3 visits for the screening period at Massachusetts General Hospital (approximately 4 hours of assessments) and one scanning visit at McLean Hospital (approximately 1.5 hours). The investigators hypothesize that youth with ASD versus controls will exhibit increased glutamate concentrations, reflecting glutamatergic overactivity, and increased Cho concentrations, suggesting neuronal abnormality. Furthermore, the investigators hypothesize that compared to neurotypical controls, the structural integrity of white mater tracts will be disrupted in ASD.