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Developmental Social Neuroscience and the Autism Spectrum of Disorders
Published in Christopher J. Nicholls, Neurodevelopmental Disorders in Children and Adolescents, 2018
The most rapidly growing diagnosis in developmental neuroscience is that of the autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Individuals with autistic-like features and behaviors have existed throughout history and certainly before the term “autism” was formally adopted. In the late 1700s, a 12-year-old child who had grown up in the woods of the south of France, apparently having been without human contact for many years, was found and described as having an absence of speech, peculiar food preferences, and numerous scars on his body. It appeared that he had lived in the wilds for most of his life and was quite content to have done so. Initial efforts to civilize the boy, who became known as Victor, ultimately resulted in his being adopted by a young medical student, John Marc Gaspard Itard. Itard believed that two features separate humans from animals: the capacity to use language and the capacity for empathy (Itard, 1802). Itard attempted to teach Victor to use language and to communicate human emotions; however, he was minimally successful. Ultimately, Victor’s story became dramatized in François Truffaut’s 1970 film L’Enfant Sauvage (The Wild Child).
Turning the Tables
Published in Elizabeth B. Torres, Caroline Whyatt, Autism, 2017
Large bodies of scientific evidence from the fields of developmental neuroscience are not being actively utilized in the ABA model, a model that is based on the psychological construct that behavior—to be socially acceptable—must look a certain way. Without physically measuring the consequences of intervening in a coping nervous system with complex evolving physiology, this type of practice—necessarily skewed by one’s interpretation and opinion of the observed responses of the child and blind to the nervous systems’ physiological responses—can have very uncertain outcomes and unknown consequences in the long run. What is rather certain is that such practices are bound to target a very narrow aspect of the individual’s existence and, as such, be severely incomplete.
Neurological development
Published in Allan Hobson, Psychodynamic Neurology, 2014
This example showcases the usefulness of informed speculation. From the psychology, I can make educated and testable hypotheses regarding the underlying brain physiology. Unfortunately, many of the psychological aspects of my protoconsciousness and virtual reality models are untestable; immature animals including preverbal humans are difficult or impossible to study but the emerging physiological tenets could be useful to the growing field of developmental neuroscience, especially as that field begins to deal with the complex functions of late fetal and early postnatal life. To show how this might evolve, I now introduce the protoconsciousness hypothesis.
The moderating role of positive peers in reducing substance use in college students
Published in Journal of American College Health, 2022
Sarah Jean Beard, Jennifer Michelle Wolff
Beyond main effects, it is crucial to understand positive peers in the context of individual difference variables. Additionally, typical neurobiological development is key, as young adulthood is a period where the link between brain development and risk-taking is strong. Externalizing pathology, including substance use, has a genetic basis,22 such that individuals may inherit a broader externalizing theme from parents, which is then “activated” by access and opportunities to use substances in the environment, including the social environment of peer groups. While not tested, to our knowledge, one possible mediator of genetic origins of externalizing pathology and outward expression through substance use could be neural structure and function. Regarding brain function, the present study is among the first to consider the moderating role of positive peers on risk-taking; and although this study does not involve neuroimaging, our hypotheses were informed by developmental neuroscience theory. Young adulthood is a period of continued neural development and maturation23–25; and a comprehensive understanding includes the interplay of peer contexts and individual differences that relate to neurobiological functioning.
Neuroethics in the Shadow of a Pandemic
Published in AJOB Neuroscience, 2020
Adina L. Roskies, Ashley Walton
There is significant work in social and developmental neuroscience regarding the effects of loss of control. The phenomenon of learned helplessness has been studied in rats and extended to people (Maier and Seligman 2016); it is more severe in cases of loss of control (Yao et al. 2019). Those who have gotten sick have often reported experiencing severe anxiety; many of those who are vulnerable or who have loved ones sick or at risk have as well. Loss of control, and the feelings of anxiety it provokes, lead to an upsurge in stress hormones (Maier and Seligman 2016). The extended nature of this crisis has led to protracted periods of stress for many, and chronic stress has been shown to have a constellation of negative effects, including neural changes, depression and suicidal ideation, obesity, and immune suppression (McEwen 2017).
Exploring Cannabis and Alcohol Co-Use in Adolescents: A Narrative Review of the Evidence
Published in Journal of Dual Diagnosis, 2020
Hollis C. Karoly, J. Megan Ross, Jarrod M. Ellingson, Sarah W. Feldstein Ewing
Importantly, one path toward disaggregating the causal stream of adolescent cannabis use and its intersection with other substance use is through large-scale longitudinal studies, including The National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (N-CANDA), the Imagen Consortium, and the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) project (Brown et al., 2015; Jernigan, Brown, & ABCD Consortium Coordinators, 2018; Whelan et al., 2012). These studies have large sample sizes and the ABCD study explicitly incorporates a twin design to better assess the nature and progression of substance use onset and its intersection with genetic, familial, peer, and other environmental factors. These projects are promising in terms of truly advancing the field of developmental neuroscience from one that has been largely cross-sectional (Feldstein Ewing et al., 2014) and complicated by small sample sizes to one that can empirically interrogate data over time to answer causal questions (Bjork, 2018).