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Courbois Y, Blades M, Hudson KD, Sockeel P, Farran EK. Spatial exploration and navigation in Down syndrome and Williams syndrome. Cortex 2024; 178:32-50. [PMID: 38964151 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.06.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2023] [Revised: 10/10/2023] [Accepted: 06/03/2024] [Indexed: 07/06/2024]
Abstract
We know little about the ability to explore and navigate large-scale space for people with intellectual disability (ID). In this cross-syndrome study, individuals with Down syndrome (DS), individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) and typically developing children (TD; aged 5-11 years) explored virtual environments with the goal of learning where everything was within the environment (Experiment 1) or to find six stars (Experiment 2). There was little difference between the WS and DS groups when the goal was simply to learn about the environment with no specific destination to be reached (Experiment 1); both groups performed at a level akin to a subset of TD children of a similar level of non-verbal ability. The difference became evident when the goal of the task was to locate targets in the environment (Experiment 2). The DS group showed the weakest performance, performing at or below the level of a subset of TD children at a similar level of non-verbal ability, whilst the WS group performed at the level of the TD subset group. The DS, WS and TD group also demonstrated different patterns of exploration behavior. Exploration behaviour in DS was weak and did not improve across trials. In WS, exploration behavior changed across trials but was atypical (the number of revisits increased with repeated trials). Moreover, transdiagnostic individual difference analysis (Latent Profile Analysis) revealed five profiles of exploration and navigation variables, none of which were uniquely specific to DS or to WS. Only the most extreme profile of very poor navigators was specific to participants with DS and WS. Interestingly, all other profiles contained at least one individual with DS and at least one individual with WS. This highlights the importance of investigating heterogeneity in the performance of individuals with intellectual disability and the usefulness of a data-driven transdiagnostic approach to identifying behavioral profiles.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yannick Courbois
- Univ. Lille, ULR 4072 - PSITEC - Psychologie: Interactions Temps Émotions Cognition, Lille, France.
| | - Mark Blades
- Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK
| | - Kerry D Hudson
- Department of Psychology and Human Development, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK
| | - Pascal Sockeel
- Univ. Lille, ULR 4072 - PSITEC - Psychologie: Interactions Temps Émotions Cognition, Lille, France
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Bochud-Fragnière E, Lonchampt G, Bittolo P, Ehrensperger G, Circelli AR, Antonicelli N, Costanzo F, Menghini D, Vicari S, Banta Lavenex P, Lavenex P. Why do individuals with Williams syndrome or Down syndrome fail the Weather Prediction Task? Dev Psychobiol 2024; 66:e22503. [PMID: 38807263 DOI: 10.1002/dev.22503] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2023] [Revised: 04/16/2024] [Accepted: 05/07/2024] [Indexed: 05/30/2024]
Abstract
Williams syndrome (WS) and Down syndrome (DS) are two neurodevelopmental disorders with distinct genetic origins characterized by mild to moderate intellectual disability. Individuals with WS or DS exhibit impaired hippocampus-dependent place learning and enhanced striatum-dependent spatial response learning. Here, we used the Weather Prediction Task (WPT), which can be solved using hippocampus- or striatum-dependent learning strategies, to determine whether individuals with WS or DS exhibit similar profiles outside the spatial domain. Only 10% of individuals with WS or DS solved the WPT. We further assessed whether a concurrent memory task could promote reliance on procedural learning to solve the WPT in individuals with WS but found that the concurrent task did not improve performance. To understand how the probabilistic cue-outcome associations influences WPT performance, and whether individuals with WS or DS can ignore distractors, we assessed performance using a visual learning task with differing reward contingencies, and a modified WPT with unpredictive cues. Both probabilistic feedback and distractors negatively impacted the performance of individuals with WS or DS. These findings are consistent with deficits in hippocampus-dependent learning and executive functions, and reveal the importance of congruent feedback and the minimization of distractors to optimize learning in these two populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emilie Bochud-Fragnière
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Development, Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Gianni Lonchampt
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Development, Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Paola Bittolo
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Development, Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Giada Ehrensperger
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Development, Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | | | - Nicole Antonicelli
- Department of Neuroscience, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Rome, Italy
| | - Floriana Costanzo
- Department of Neuroscience, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Rome, Italy
| | - Deny Menghini
- Department of Neuroscience, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Rome, Italy
| | - Stefano Vicari
- Department of Neuroscience, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Rome, Italy
- Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, Catholic University, Rome, Italy
| | - Pamela Banta Lavenex
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Development, Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
- Faculty of Psychology, UniDistance Suisse, Brig, Switzerland
| | - Pierre Lavenex
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Development, Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
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Peng M, Lovos A, Bottrill K, Hughes K, Sampsel M, Lee NR, Abbeduto L, Thurman AJ, Edgin J. Extended trajectory of spatial memory errors in typical and atypical development: The role of binding and precision. Hippocampus 2023; 33:1171-1188. [PMID: 37706613 PMCID: PMC10638674 DOI: 10.1002/hipo.23576] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/01/2022] [Revised: 08/06/2023] [Accepted: 08/23/2023] [Indexed: 09/15/2023]
Abstract
Spatial reconstruction, a method for evaluating how individuals remember the placement of objects, has traditionally been evaluated through the aggregate estimation of placement errors. However, this approach may obscure the nature of task errors. Specifically, recent data has suggested the importance of examining the precision of responses, as well as absolute performance on item-context bindings. In contrast to traditional analysis approaches based on the distance between the target and the reconstructed item, in this study we further explored three types of errors (swap error, global error, and local distance) that may all contribute to the distance, with particular emphasis on swap errors and local distance due to their associations with item-context bindings and memory precision, respectively. We examined these errors in children aged 3-18 years, making comparisons between children with typical development (TD) and children with Down syndrome (DS), a population with known memory challenges. As expected, older children outperformed younger children in terms of overall memory accuracy. Of importance is that we measured uneven maturational trajectories of memory abilities across the various error types. Specifically, both remembered locations (irrespective of object identity) and swap errors (object-location binding errors) align with the overall memory accuracy. Memory precision, as measured by local distance in simpler set size 2 trials, mirrored overall memory accuracy. However, for more complex set size 3 trials, local distance remained stable before age 8 and showed age-related change thereafter. The group with DS showed reduced precision compared to a TD matched group, and measures of precision, and to a lesser extent binding errors, correlated with standard neuropsychological outcomes. Overall, our study contributed to a fine-grained understanding of developing spatial memory ability in a large sample of typical developing children and a memory impaired population. These findings contribute to a growing body of research examining precision as a key factor in memory performance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maomiao Peng
- Department of Psychology, The University of Arizona, Tucson, USA
| | - Annalysa Lovos
- Department of Psychology, The University of Arizona, Tucson, USA
| | - Kenneth Bottrill
- Department of Psychology, The University of Arizona, Tucson, USA
| | - Katharine Hughes
- Department of Psychology, The University of Arizona, Tucson, USA
| | - Miranda Sampsel
- Department of Psychology, The University of Arizona, Tucson, USA
| | - Nancy Raitano Lee
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA
| | - Leonard Abbeduto
- MIND Institute, University of California Davis Health, Sacramento, USA
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California Davis Health, Sacramento, USA
| | - Angela John Thurman
- MIND Institute, University of California Davis Health, Sacramento, USA
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California Davis Health, Sacramento, USA
| | - Jamie Edgin
- Department of Psychology, The University of Arizona, Tucson, USA
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Farran EK, Hudson KD, Bennett A, Ameen A, Misheva I, Bechlem B, Blades M, Courbois Y. Anxiety and Spatial Navigation in Williams Syndrome and Down Syndrome. Dev Neuropsychol 2022; 47:136-157. [PMID: 35282728 DOI: 10.1080/87565641.2022.2047685] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
Individuals with Down Syndrome (DS) and individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) present with poor navigation and elevated anxiety. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between these two characteristics. Parent report questionnaires measured navigation abilities and anxiety in WS (N = 55) and DS (N = 42) as follows. Anxiety: Spence Children's Anxiety Scale and a novel measure of navigation anxiety. Navigation: Santa Barbara Sense of Direction Scale (SBSOD) and a novel measure of navigation competence. Most individuals were not permitted to travel independently. A relationship between navigation anxiety and SBSOD scores (but not navigation competence) was observed for both groups.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily K Farran
- Department of Psychological Science, School of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
| | - Kerry D Hudson
- Department of Psychology and Human Development, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, London, UK
| | - Amelia Bennett
- Department of Psychological Science, School of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
| | - Aan Ameen
- Department of Psychological Science, School of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
| | - Iliana Misheva
- Department of Psychological Science, School of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
| | - Badri Bechlem
- Department of Psychology and Human Development, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, London, UK
| | - Mark Blades
- Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
| | - Yannick Courbois
- Univ. Lille, ULR 4072 - PSITEC - Psychologie: Interactions Temps Émotions Cognition, Lille, France
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Minter R, Gardiner KJ. Trisomy of Human Chromosome 21 Orthologs Mapping to Mouse Chromosome 10 Cause Age and Sex-Specific Learning Differences: Relevance to Down Syndrome. Genes (Basel) 2021; 12:1697. [PMID: 34828303 PMCID: PMC8618694 DOI: 10.3390/genes12111697] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/04/2021] [Revised: 10/22/2021] [Accepted: 10/25/2021] [Indexed: 02/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Down syndrome (DS), trisomy of human chromosome 21 (Hsa21), is the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability. The Dp10(1)Yey (Dp10) is a mouse model of DS that is trisomic for orthologs of 25% of the Hsa21 protein-coding genes, the entirety of the Hsa21 syntenic region on mouse chromosome 10. Trisomic genes include several involved in brain development and function, two that modify and regulate the activities of sex hormones, and two that produce sex-specific phenotypes as null mutants. These last four are the only Hsa21 genes with known sexually dimorphic properties. Relatively little is known about the potential contributions to the DS phenotype of segmental trisomy of Mmu10 orthologs. Here, we have tested separate cohorts of female and male Dp10 mice, at 3 and 9 months of age, in an open field elevated zero maze, rotarod, and balance beam, plus the learning and memory tasks, spontaneous alternation, puzzle box, double-H maze, context fear conditioning, and acoustic startle/prepulse inhibition, that depend upon the function of the prefrontal cortex, striatum, hippocampus, and cerebellum. We show that there are age and sex-specific differences in strengths and weaknesses, suggesting that genes within the telomere proximal region of Hsa21 influence the DS phenotype.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ross Minter
- Linda Crnic Institute for Down Syndrome, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO 80045, USA;
| | - Katheleen J. Gardiner
- Linda Crnic Institute for Down Syndrome, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO 80045, USA;
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO 80045, USA
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