Group Publication: Making MRIs extra comfy for autistic folks, long-term potentiation and studying | Spectrum
Illustration by Laurenne Boglio
Hello and welcome to the Community Newsletter! I’m your host, Chelsey B. Coombs, Engagement Editor of Spectrum.
Twitter this week served up some practical tips on how to make magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) more comfortable for autistic people. Strategies in the literature could lead to new training materials for clinicians and researchers, a research team wrote in a recent review.
https://t.co/snkyVSUp34
Our latest work on #autismfriendly #MRI, with gratitude to an amazing team, our reviewers especially Prof @MikleSouth, all key stakeholders, charities and @SCoRMembers for funding. Here’s to learning and hoping we can change #MRI practice.
— Christina Malamateniou (her/her) (@CMalamateniou) December 28, 2021
Loud, cramped MRI machines can be a particularly challenging environment for autistic people, who may have sensory sensitivities, anxiety, or communication problems. Their discomfort can skew the results of a study, and sedation can cause side effects, especially in children.
To enhance the experience, researchers and clinicians can send information about the MRI process in advance and use a person’s preferred communication style, the assessment notes. You can shorten waiting times, create a quiet waiting room with dimmable lights, and offer weighted blankets, headphones, stress balls, movies, or music to autistic people during the scan. Simulated MRI experiences before the procedure may also help reduce anxiety.
Mikle South, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University and director of the Emory Autism Center in Atlanta, Georgia, reviewed the paper before it was published and tweeted that the field should use these tips going forward.
It’s a great review and we all agree that we will do things better in the future! Good work.
— Mikle South (@MikleSouth) December 30, 2021
Neil Woodhouse, clinical manager for MRI at NHS Blackpool Teaching Hospitals in the UK, tweeted that he will be implementing the recommendations in his practice.
Great overview of considerations and adjustments for #MRI of #autistic patients.
Will definitely let our practice know @BlackpoolHosp https://t.co/mKHTuhRZNc
— Neil Woodhouse (@RealNeil71) December 28, 2021
Mary Doherty, anesthesiologist at Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan, Ireland and founder of Autistic Doctors International, tweeted that the assessment shows the importance of consulting with autistic people during research.
A systematic review by a great project team working on accessible MRI, also showing the importance of including autistic people in research @Autistic_Doc @GColleranMD https://t.co/JjiEnUXPh7
— Mary Doherty (@AutisticDoctor) December 28, 2021
Also this week, we’re highlighting a tweet thread by Thomas Sudhof, Nobel Laureate and Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology and Neurosurgery at Stanford University in California.
Check out our latest preprint! We pose a question that textbooks in various fields consider closed: Does learning require long-term potentiation (LTP) of synapses? Read along for a surprise, insights into neural dynamics and highlight coding. https://t.co/qHl4317yfU
— Thomas Südhof Labor (@SudhofThomas) January 6, 2022
“Read along and be amazed,” Südhof wrote of a new preprint from his lab that reverses a popular notion about learning — that it requires long-term potentiation of synapses.
Luke Rowe, a cognitive scientist and lecturer at the Australian Catholic University in Victoria, and others described the work as overwhelming.
This paper blew my mind. It challenges what I thought was a fundamental principle of learning in the brain: that learning invariably manifests itself in LTP of synapses…apparently not! Blocking LTP only partially impairs learning. Read https://t.co/Ib0bg0S57Q for more details
— Luke Rowe, Ph.D. (@LukeIRowe) January 9, 2022
“Last but not least!” tweeted Huda Akil, professor of psychiatry and research professor of molecular neuroscience at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
This is fantastic! Last but not least!
“Contrary to current conceptual frameworks, we found that LTP of the hippocampal CA1 region is not required for accurate representation of space in hippocampal neurons, but rather endows these neurons with reward and novelty-encoding properties.”???? https://t.co/Tzl8HpG77m
— Huda A (@Huda_Akil1) January 8, 2022
The work establishes an “interesting trend in the Südhof lab’s literature: the rewriting of the textbooks,” tweeted Matthew Kraushar, research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, Germany.
interesting trend in the literature of the Südhof laboratory: rewriting the textbooks on intensively studied molecules and mechanisms ?????✍️????
Excellent reminder: Don’t be complacent – ideas aren’t fixed, they’re always evolving!
first glutamate receptors: https://t.co/DXrFIcv9QU
now LTP! ???? https://t.co/QBEWkNZ82p
— Matthew L. Kraushar (@MatthewKraushar) January 7, 2022
Register for the next Spectrum webinar with Lancet Commission Co-Chairs: Tony Charman, Chair of Clinical Child Psychology at King’s College London in the UK, and Catherine Lord, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Education at the University of California, Los Angel. They will discuss the commission’s recommendations and the use of the term “profound autism” to refer to autistic people with intellectual disabilities, limited communication skills, or both.
That’s it for this week’s community newsletter! If you have suggestions for interesting social posts you’ve seen in the field of autism research, email news@spectrumnews.org.
