انتشارات

اسماعیل شیری, حمیدرضا پوراعتماد, جلیل فتح آبادی, محمد نریمانی

فصلنامه خانواده پژوهی، پیاپی ۵۸ (تابستان ۱۳۹۸)

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Barfi, C. Narges, H. Pouretemad, V. Pourtahmasebi, M. Nouruzi, M. Farahmand, Y. Yahyapour, S. Ghorbani, L. Ghalihi, H. Ofoghi, S. Jazayeri, “Measurement of serum hepatitis B surface antibody (HBs- Ab) levels in Iranian autistic children and evaluation of immunological memory after booster dose injection in comparison with controls” , JOURNAL OF MEDICAL VIROLOGY, Vol.91, pp.1-7, 2019

Abstract

Background: Responsiveness to hepatitis B vaccine among patients with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has not been evaluated worldwide. We aimed to determine the anti-HBs antibody duration in autistic and healthy children few years after primary vaccination and evaluate their immunological memory against hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine with booster dose administration.

Methods: One hundred seven and 147 HBsAg-negative children from ASD and normal population were recruited, respectively. HBV seromarkers (HBc-Ab, HBsAg, and HBs-Ab) were assessed and subsequently, molecular tests were used on all the subjects. A booster dose of vaccine was injected for those who showed low levels (<10 mIU/mL) of anti-HBs and their antibody levels was measured 4 weeks later.

Results: The mean ages of ASD and control groups were 7.14 ± ۲.۴۲ and 8.68 ± ۱.۹۶, respectively. Seven (6.5%) of the ASD group were positive for anti-HBc and one child was positive for occult hepatitis B infection (HBsAg negative, HBV DNA positive). In ASD, 54 (50.4%) and 53 (49.6%) had adequate (>10 mIU/mL) and low anti-HBs levels, respectively. Among control group, 74 (50.4%) and 73 (49.6%) had sufficient and low antibody levels, respectively. After injection of a booster dose for all children with low antibody, 100% of ASD and 92% (59 of 64) of control pupils contained >10 mIU/mL of antibody, respectively. In both the groups, the HBs-Ab titer increased similarly in response to the booster injection (P < 0.05).

Conclusion: Despite previous investigations regarding immune impairment in individuals with autism, the immune system of these individuals was able to manage the hepatitis B vaccine challenge.

Mansouri, M., Pouretemad, H., Roghani, M., Wegener, G., & Ardalan, M. (2019). Environmental Enrichment Ameliorates Repetitive Behaviors in a Rat Model of Autism. Journal of Neurodevelopmental Cognition.

Abstract

Adverse environmental experiences during early life identified as potential concerns for neurodevelopmental disorders including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with 1% prevalence among populations. Maternal separation (MS) is an animal model that is widely used to study long-term behavioral abnormality. To date, a great deal of studies is focused on the potential therapeutic role of environmental enrichment (EE) for the early life stress consequences inducing anxiety, depression and learning deficits. However, the influence of sex on the effect of environmental enrichment for the autistic-like behaviors induced by maternal separation has not been studied. The focus of the current study is to investigate the therapeutic effect of environmental enrichment on the behavioral deficits related to ASD in female Wistar rats. Pups were separated from the mothers for 3 hours daily from PND1 to PND14. After weaning time (PND21), the rats were subjected to environmental enrichment until behavioral tests day. On PND42-PND50 autism-related behaviors such as social interaction, stereotype behaviors, anxiety behavior, and locomotion were tested. The results showed that EE reduced stereotype behaviors in maternal separation rat model of autism but increased anxiety behavior (p< 0.05). Social behavior and locomotion decreased by maternal separation (p< 0.05) but EE had no significant effect on these behavioral abnormalities (p> ۰.۰۵). Current study demonstrates that repetitive behaviors induced by maternal separation can be treated by EE but the anxiety exacerbation may occur which needs more exploration.

S Saniee, H. R. Pouretemad & S. A. Zardkhaneh.(2019). Developing set‐shifting improvement tasks (SSIT) for children with high‐functioning autism.Journal of Intellectual Disability Research.DOI: 10.1111/jir.126331

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Mehdizadehfar, V., Ghassemi, F., Fallah, A., & Pouretemad, H. (2020). EEG study of facial emotion recognition in the fathers of autistic children. Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, 56, 101721.

Abstract

Problems in recognizing facial expressions have been observed in children and adults diagnosed withAutism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and provided deficits in social interactions. Mild autistic traits havebeen also detected in first-degree relatives of children with autism, so in this study, difficulty in facialemotion recognition in the fathers of children with autism is investigated using EEG signals. Fifteen bio-logical fathers of children with a diagnosis of autism and fifteen fathers of typically developing childrenwith no personal or family history of autism participated in this study. Recognition of the emotional facialexpression task was evaluated using a set of photos from Cohn-Kanade (ck+) consisting of 6 categories(mild and extreme anger, happiness, and sadness). Group Independent Component Analysis (gICA), powerspectra and wavelet power were used to analyze the participants’ EEG signals. Using ANOVA for groupcomparisons showed significant differences (P-value < 0.01) in the relative power and wavelet power ofgroup independent components in two frequency ranges (theta and beta). Post-hoc comparisons showedthat the central, right occipital and parietal power of group-ICs differentiated the two groups in recog-nition of emotions and also, more power differences were detected in recognition of the lower intensitylevel of emotions in beta frequency (P-value < 0.01). According to the obtained results, ASD fathers haddifficulty in identifying facial expressions, in particular, mild expressions, suggesting that ASD fathersmay have impaired recognition of emotions as do autistic children.