Vision, spatial cognition and intellectual disability

Effects of Aquatic Exercise and Floor Curling on Balance Ability and Lower Limb Muscle Strength in Children with Intellectual Disabilities: A Pilot Study in China

Children with intellectual disabilities often face challenges in balance ability and lower limb muscle strength, which negatively impact their daily lives and motor function. Therefore, it is crucial to enhance the balance ability and lower limb muscle strength of children with intellectual disabilities. This study aimed to investigate the effects of a 12-week aquatic exercise and floor curling intervention on the balance ability and lower limb muscle strength of children with intellectual disabilities. Forty-two participants were randomly assigned to the aquatic exercise group, floor curling group, and control group. The aquatic exercise and floor curling groups received a 12-week intervention, while the control group engaged in supervised free activities. The participants' balance ability and lower limb muscle strength were assessed using the Berg Balance Scale and a muscle strength testing device before and after the intervention. The results showed significant improvements in balance ability and lower limb muscle strength for both the aquatic exercise group and the floor curling group after the intervention. The aquatic exercise group demonstrated an average improvement of 10.84% in balance ability and an overall average improvement of 16.28% in lower limb muscle strength. The floor curling group showed an average improvement of 9.04% in balance ability and an overall average improvement of 15.67% in lower limb muscle strength. These improvement results were statistically significant (p < 0.05) and ranged from medium to large effect sizes (d = 0.5~0.8). The findings of this study validate the positive effects of aquatic exercise and floor curling on the balance ability and lower limb muscle strength of children with intellectual disabilities. These interventions can be considered effective approaches for functional rehabilitation in children with intellectual disabilities.

Pleiotropic predisposition to Alzheimer's disease and educational attainment: insights from the summary statistics analysis

Epidemiological studies report beneficial associations of higher educational attainment (EDU) with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Prior genome-wide association studies (GWAS) also reported variants associated with AD and EDU separately. The analysis of pleiotropic associations with these phenotypes may shed light on EDU-related protection against AD. We performed pleiotropic meta-analyses using Fisher's method and omnibus test applied to summary statistics for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with AD and EDU in large-scale univariate GWAS at suggestive-effect (5 × 10-8 < p < 0.1) and genome-wide (p ≤ 5 × 10-8) significance levels. We report 53 SNPs that attained p ≤ 5 × 10-8 at least in one of the pleiotropic meta-analyses and were reported in the univariate GWAS at 5 × 10-8 < p < 0.1. Of them, there were 46 pleiotropic SNPs according to Fisher's method. Additionally, Fisher's method identified 25 of 206 SNPs with pleiotropic effects, which attained p ≤ 5 × 10-8 in the univariate GWAS. We showed that a large fraction of the pleiotropic associations was affected by a counterintuitive phenomenon of antagonistic genetic heterogeneity, which explains the increase, rather than decrease, of the significance of the pleiotropic associations in the omnibus test. Functional enrichment analysis showed that apart from cancers, gene set harboring the non-pleiotropic SNPs was characterized by late-onset AD and neurodevelopmental disorders. The pleiotropic gene set was characterized by a broad spectrum of progressive neurological and neuromuscular diseases and immune-mediated conditions, including progressive motor neuropathy, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, and severe AD. Our results suggest that disentangling genes harboring variants with and without pleiotropic associations with AD and EDU is promising for dissecting heterogeneity in biological mechanisms of AD.

Complexity and Cognitive Engagement in the Rorschach Task: An Eye-Tracking Study

This study investigated whether complexity and the other related Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS) variables in the engagement and cognitive processing domain would associate with eye-tracking measures reflecting increased cognitive engagement and effort while visually scanning the Rorschach inkblots. A nonclinical sample of 71 adult volunteers were administered the Rorschach task while their eye movements were recorded using an eye tracker. Then, the average duration of fixations, the average number of fixations, the average amplitude of saccades, and the average maximum pupil size recorded during the response phase (RP) of the Rorschach administration were correlated with protocol-level, R-PAS variables located in the engagement and cognitive processing. As expected, complexity correlated, with a large effect size (r = .526, p < .01), with the number of fixations occurring during the RP of Rorschach administration. Some other variables related to complexity (e.g., Synthesis, Sy) also produced similar associations. The other eye-tracking variables under examination, however, produced weak or nonsignificant correlations.

Gestural praxis in young adults with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities

BACKGROUND

Praxis functioning in the population with intellectual disabilities (ID) has been poorly studied. The goal of this research was to look for a starting point to study the praxic functioning in young adults with mild to moderate ID.

METHOD

Thirty young adults with ID and 30 young adults without ID, between the ages of 18 and 35 years, participated in this study. All participants completed tests that assessed gestural praxis.

RESULTS

It was possible to observe similar praxis behaviour in the group with ID in almost all domains studied, albeit showing statistical values lower than those of the group without ID.

DISCUSSIONS

Despite the high number of errors committed, the sample of participants with ID was able to reach the goal of praxic tasks performed; such errors may be associated with a deficit in the development of various brain functions and not only with praxis functioning, mainly related to a lower yield in terms of planning, monitoring and correcting intentional movement.