Attwood, A. S. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2019

Feedback training can increase detection of happiness in ambiguous facial expressions in children and adults with autism spectrum disorders

Recognition of subtle emotional facial expressions is challenging for some individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Training that targets recognition of low intensity emotional expressions may therefore be effective as an intervention to improve social-emotional skills. This paper reports the results of two randomised controlled experiments looking at the effect of a training methodology designed to increase the recognition of happy emotion in low intensity happy facial expressions. The first study implements this training with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD, N = 14) and the second study implements this training with adults with ASD (N = 27). The training paradigm used images from a morph sequence that mixed a happy expression with a mixed-emotion norm expression to create a sequence of varying intensity happy expressions. Participants were asked to say whether or not individual faces from the sequence were happy, to measure their happiness detection threshold. Participants that received active training were given biased feedback to shift their detection threshold, while participants that received control training were given feedback consistent with their baseline threshold. There was some statistical evidence that thresholds in the active training group shifted more than in the control group. This suggests training was successful in increasing the number of expressions that individuals identified as happy. However, there was no evidence that training increased facial expression recognition accuracy, as measured by the Reading the Mind in the Eyes task completed after training (Study 2).

clinical trials↗

bioRxiv2018

Effects of varenicline and cognitive bias modification on neural response to smoking-related cues: a randomised control trial

Drug-related cognitive biases have been positively associated with drug-craving and increased likelihood of relapse. Cognitive bias modification paradigms have been developed to attenuate cognitive biases but there have been few studies that examined neural responses to these paradigms. This study compared neural responses following CBM and explored whether CBM effects were potentiated by varenicline administration. This was a double-blind placebo-controlled study with two between subject factors of drug (varenicline, placebo) and CBM (attend towards smoking cues, train away from smoking cues, control training) that recruited daily ([≥] 10 cigarettes per day) non-treatment seeking smokers. Participants (n = 67, 53% female) were randomised to one-week of drug administration (varenicline or placebo) before attending a study session at which they were randomised to CBM condition, and underwent an fMRI scan were they were presented with smoking and neutral cues. Neural response to smoking (vs. neutral) cues, cognitive bias, craving and mood were assessed. There was no evidence of CBM effects on any outcomes. There was evidence of effects of varenicline on craving, with greater reductions in craving in the week preceding the study session in the varencline group (p = 0.04,{eta} p2 = .06). There was also evidence of a drug by CBM interaction for neural responses (z = 3.78, p <0.001). Compared to placebo, varenicline was associated with greater activation in the right temporal middle gyrus in the CBM control condition, compared to an opposite effect in the CBM \"attend towards\" condition. These data suggest that CBM does not modify cognitive bias, subjective craving and mood, or neural response to smoking cues. There was also no evidence that CBM effects were potentiated by varenicline.

clinical trials↗