Angelina Paolozza - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Angelina Paolozza

, J. N. (2013). Altered accuracy of saccadic eye movements in children with fetal alcohol spectru... more , J. N. (2013). Altered accuracy of saccadic eye movements in children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

Frontiers in Neurology, 2019

Conclusions: We developed a high-capacity, low-cost screening procedure under constrains, with hi... more Conclusions: We developed a high-capacity, low-cost screening procedure under constrains, with high expected monetary benefit, substantial impact of the referral and diagnostic process, and expected maximized long-term benefits to the tested individuals and to society. This annual screening procedure for children/youth at risk of FASD can be easily and widely deployed for early identification, potentially leading to earlier intervention and treatment. This is crucial for neurodevelopmental disorders, to mitigate the severity of the disorder and/or frequency of secondary comorbidities.

American Journal of Neuroradiology, 2017

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Individuals born from pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia have an ele... more BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Individuals born from pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia have an elevated risk for cognitive impairment. Deviations in maternal plasma angiokines occur for prolonged intervals before clinical signs of preeclampsia. We hypothesized that fetal brain vascular and nervous tissue development become deviated during maternal progression toward preeclampsia and that such deviations would be detectable by MR imaging. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this pilot study, 10 matched (gestational and current ages) pairs (5 boys/5 girls, 7-10 years of age) from preeclampsia or control pregnancies were examined by using diffusion tensor MR imaging. An unbiased voxel-based analysis was conducted on fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity parametric maps. Six brain ROIs were identified for subsequent analysis by tractography (middle occipital gyrus, caudate nucleus and precuneus, cerebellum, superior longitudinal fasciculus, and cingulate gyrus). RESULTS: Statistical differences were present between groups for fractional anisotropy in the caudate nucleus (offspring from preeclamptic gestation Ͼ controls), volume of the tract for the superior longitudinal fasciculus (offspring from preeclamptic gestation Ͼ controls) and the caudate nucleus (offspring from preeclamptic gestation Ͼ controls), and for parallel diffusivity of the cingulate gyrus (offspring from preeclamptic gestation Ͼ controls). CONCLUSIONS: These novel preliminary results along with previous results from the same children that identified altered cerebral vessel calibers and increased regional brain volumes justify fully powered MR imaging studies to address the impact of preeclampsia on human fetal brain development. ABBREVIATIONS: FA ϭ fractional anisotropy; MD ϭ mean diffusivity; PE ϭ preeclampsia; PE-F1 ϭ offspring from preeclamptic gestation; PGF ϭ placental growth factor H ypertensive disorders during human pregnancy include acute-onset emergency preeclampsia (PE), seen at a frequency of 2%-8% of all gestations. 1 PE is a systemic vascular inflammatory syndrome occurring between midpregnancy and term and is the leading cause of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. Up to 12% of annual maternal deaths 2 and up to 25% of annual fetal and neonatal deaths globally 3 are PE-associated.

Pregnancy Hypertension, 2017

Offspring whose mothers developed preeclampsia (PE-F1s) show developmental effects that are now b... more Offspring whose mothers developed preeclampsia (PE-F1s) show developmental effects that are now being identified, such as cognitive, behavioural, and mood differences compared to offspring from non-complicated pregnancies. We hypothesize that the progressive angiokine dysregulation associated with development of preeclampsia (PE) reflects gene dysregulation in pre-implantation conceptuses, and manifests in all developing fetal tissues rather than exclusively to the placenta. This hypothesis predicts that fetal cerebrovascular and brain development are deviated by fetal-intrinsic, brain-based mechanisms during what is currently considered a placentally-induced maternal disease. Due to our initial results from brain-imaging and cognitive screening in a child pilot PE-F1 cohort, we developed this systematic review to answer the question of whether any consistent neurological measurements have been found to discriminate between brain functions in offspring of mothers who experienced a hypertensive pregnancy vs. offspring of mothers that did not. Relevant studies were searched systematically up to June 2017 in MEDLINE, PsycINFO, EMBASE and the grey literature. Following predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria, our search identified 27 out of 464 studies reporting on neurological function in offspring born to preeclamptic and hypertensive mothers. The current literature strongly supports the conclusion of the behavioural and cognitive deviations in PE-F1s. However, only three studies associated their findings with brain measurements via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in both healthy and at-risk pediatric populations. PE-F1s should be identified as an at-risk pediatric population during brain development and studied further as a defined group, perhaps stratified by maternal plasma angiokine levels.

International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience, 2015

s / Int. J. Devl Neuroscience 47 (2015) 1–131 57

Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics : CQ : the international journal of healthcare ethics committees, 2016

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is increasingly recognized as a growing public health issu... more Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is increasingly recognized as a growing public health issue worldwide. Although more research is needed on both the diagnosis and treatment of FASD, and a broader and more culturally diverse range of services are needed to support those who suffer from FASD and their families, both research and practice for FASD raise significant ethical issues. In response, from the point of view of both research and clinical neuroethics, we provide a framework that emphasizes the need to maximize benefits and minimize harm, promote justice, and foster respect for persons within a global context.

Behavioural brain research, Jan 16, 2016

Preeclampsia (PE) is a significant clinical disorder occurring in 3-5% of all human pregnancies. ... more Preeclampsia (PE) is a significant clinical disorder occurring in 3-5% of all human pregnancies. Offspring of PE pregnancies (PE-F1s) are reported to exhibit greater cognitive impairment than offspring from uncomplicated pregnancies. Previous studies of PE-F1 cognitive ability used tests with bias that do not assess specific cognitive domains. To improve cognitive impairment classification in PE-F1s we used standardized clinical psychometric testing and eye tracking studies of saccadic eye movements. PE-F1s (n=10) and sex/age matched control participants (n=41 for psychometrics; n=59 for eye-tracking) were recruited from the PE-NET study or extracted from the NeuroDevNet study databases. Participants completed a selected array of psychometric tests which assessed executive function, working memory, attention, inhibition, visuospatial processing, reading, and math skills. Eye-tracking studies included the prosaccade, antisaccade, and memory-guided tasks. Psychometric testing revealed...

International journal of developmental neuroscience : the official journal of the International Society for Developmental Neuroscience, 2015

Individuals with ASD often demonstrate difficulties with behavioural inhibition (Adams and Jarrol... more Individuals with ASD often demonstrate difficulties with behavioural inhibition (Adams and Jarrold, 2012). This can cause individuals with ASD to exhibit socially inappropriate behaviour that may make them an “easy target” for victimization. The current study investigated the hypothesis that inhibition mediates the relation between diagnosis (ASD, TD) and victimization. Methods: Fifty-one male participants were recruited (Mage = 14.39, range = 11.57–18.59). Thirty-two participants did not have an ASD diagnosis and 19 participants met criteria for ASD. Victimization experiences were evaluated using the WHO bullying and victimization questionnaire. Parent’s indicated the victimization their children experienced in the past 3 months. Inhibition was measured using the Behavioural Rating Inventory for Executive Functioning (Gioia et al., 2000). Results: A mediation analysis was run using Hayes’s (2013) PROCESS macro. Consistent with the hypothesis, inhibition fully mediated the relation between diagnosis (ASD, TD) and victimization. A bias-corrected bootstrap confidence interval for the indirect effect (b = .8452) based on 10,000 bootstrap samples was above zero (.3035 to 1.54) indicating the indirect effect was significant. Consistent with previous research, diagnosis was significantly related to victimization, b = 1.2155, t(49) = 3.67, p < .001; however, diagnosis was no longer significantly related to victimization controlling for inhibition b = .37, t(48) = .95, p = .35. Discussions: Results suggest that diagnostic differences in victimization are fully accounted for by differences in inhibition. Implications for bullying intervention and prevention programs are discussed.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2013

Computational models of visual attention have attracted strong interest by accurately predicting ... more Computational models of visual attention have attracted strong interest by accurately predicting how humans deploy attention. However, little research has utilized these models to detect clinical populations whose attention control has been affected by neurological disorders. We designed a framework to decypher disorders from the joint analysis of video and patients' natural eye movement behaviors (watch television for 5 minutes). We employ convolutional deep neural networks to extract visual features in real-time at the point of gaze, followed by SVM and Adaboost to classify typically developing children vs. children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), who exhibit impaired attentional control. The classifier achieved 74.1% accuracy (ROC: 0.82). Our results demonstrate that there is substantial information about attentional control in even very short recordings of natural viewing behavior. Our new method could lead to high-throughput, low-cost screening tools for identifying individuals with deficits in attentional control.

Pregnancy hypertension, Jan 7, 2018

Individuals (PE-F1s) born from preeclampsia (PE)-complicated pregnancies have elevated risks for ... more Individuals (PE-F1s) born from preeclampsia (PE)-complicated pregnancies have elevated risks for cognitive impairment. Intervals of disturbed maternal plasma angiokines precede clinical signs of PE. We hypothesized pan-blastocyst dysregulation of angiokines underlies altered PE-F1 brain vascular and neurological development. This could alter brain functional connectivity (FC) patterns at rest. Resting-state functional MRI datasets of ten, matched child pairs (5 boys and 5 girls aged 7-10 years of age) from PE or control pregnancies were available for study. Seed-based analysis and independent component analysis (ICA) methodologies were used to assess whether differences in resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) were present between PE-F1s and controls. Bilateral amygdala, bilateral hippocampus, and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) were selected as regions of interest (ROI) for the seed-based analysis based on previous imaging differences that we reported in this set of childre...

Cognition

Three studies examined young infants' ability to distinguish between expected and unexpec... more Three studies examined young infants' ability to distinguish between expected and unexpected motion of objects based on their shape. Using a preferential-looking paradigm, 8- and 12-month-old infants' looking time towards expected and unexpected motion displays of familiar, everyday objects (e.g., balls and cubes) was examined. Experiment 1 demonstrated that two factors drive infants' preferential fixations of object motion displays. Both 8- and 12-month-olds displayed a tendency to look at rotating information over non-rotating, stationary visual information. In contrast, only 12-month-olds showed a tendency to look at object motions that were inconsistent or "unexpected" based on shape. After controlling for the preference for more complex (rolling) by adding rolling motion to both displays (Experiment 2), 12-month-olds' ability to distinguish between expected and unexpected motion displays was facilitated. Experiment 3 provided a control by demonstrating that the preference for the unexpected object motion was not due to any other motion properties of the objects. Overall, these results indicate that 12-month-old infants have the ability to recognize the role that object shape plays in constraining object motion, which has important theoretical implications for the development of object perception.

Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Children and adolescents with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) experience significant impai... more Children and adolescents with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) experience significant impairments in cognitive functioning, though substantial within-group heterogeneity is often observed. The purpose of this study was to characterize the cognitive profile of children and adolescents with FASD with a special focus on examining moderators of functioning and cognitive strengths. Children and adolescents with FASD (n = 87) and controls (n = 110), ages 5 to 18 years completed a cognitive test battery. MANOVAwas used to evaluate betweengroup cognitive differences, as well as the role of age and gender as potential moderators. Relative strengths were evaluated using both within-subject and between-group methods. Participants with FASD were found to show significant impairment on all cognitive tasks relative to controls, with substantial deficits evident on a measure of mathematical skill. Though neither age nor gender emerged as moderators, significant three-way interactions between age, gender, and group were evident on measures of executive functioning (inhibition), verbal memory, and word identification. Tasks measuring higherorder complex attention and visuospatial processing emerged as possible relative strengths in the FASD group. Children and adolescents with FASD had significant cognitive impairment across multiple domains confirming high need for interventions. Differences in the cognitive functioning for boys and girls with FASD at different developmental periods, along with relative strengths, may serve to inform interventions and future longitudinal research.

Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research, Jan 22, 2016

Saccades are rapid eye movements that bring an image of interest onto the retina. Previous resear... more Saccades are rapid eye movements that bring an image of interest onto the retina. Previous research has found that in healthy individuals performing eye movement tasks, the location of a previous visual target can influence performance of the saccade on the next trial. This rapid behavioral adaptation represents a form of immediate neural plasticity within the saccadic circuitry. Our studies have shown that children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) are impaired on multiple saccade measures. We therefore investigated these previous trial effects in typically developing children and children with FASD to measure sensory neural plasticity and how these effects vary with age and pathology. Both typically developing control children (n = 102; mean age = 10.54 ± 3.25; 48 males) and children with FASD (n = 66; mean age = 11.85 ± 3.42; 35 males) were recruited from 5 sites across Canada. Each child performed a visually guided saccade task. Reaction time and saccade amplitude were...

Human brain mapping, Jan 13, 2016

Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) can cause central nervous system dysfunction and widespread struc... more Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) can cause central nervous system dysfunction and widespread structural anomalies as detected by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This study focused on diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of white matter in a large sample of PAE participants that allowed us to examine correlations with behavioral outcomes. Participants were confirmed PAE (n = 69, mean age = 12.5 ± 3.2 years) or typically developing control children (n = 67, mean age = 12.1 ± 3.2 years) who underwent brain MRI, eye movement tasks, and psychometric tests. A semi-automated tractography method extracted fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) values from 15 white matter tracts. The PAE group displayed decreased FA compared with controls in multiple tracts including 3 corpus callosum regions, right corticospinal tract, and 3 left hemisphere tracts connecting to the frontal lobe (cingulum, uncinate fasciculus, and superior longitudinal fasciculus). Significant group by sex interacti...

Pregnancy Hypertension: An International Journal of Women's Cardiovascular Health

Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2015

We examined the accuracy and characteristics of saccadic eye movements in children with fetal alc... more We examined the accuracy and characteristics of saccadic eye movements in children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) compared with typically developing control children. Previous studies have found that children with FASD produce saccades that are quantifiably different from controls. Additionally, animal studies have found sex-based differences for behavioral effects after prenatal alcohol exposure. Therefore, we hypothesized that eye movement measures will show sexually dimorphic results. Children (aged 5-18 years) with FASD (n = 71) and typically developing controls (n = 113) performed a visually-guided saccade task. Saccade metrics and behavior were analyzed for sex and group differences. Female control participants had greater amplitude saccades than control males or females with FASD. Accuracy was significantly poorer in the FASD group, especially in males, which introduced significantly greater variability in the data. Therefore, we conducted additional analyses including only those trials in which the first saccade successfully reached the target within a ± 1° window. In this restricted amplitude dataset, the females with FASD made saccades with significantly lower velocity and longer duration, whereas the males with FASD did not differ from the control group. Additionally, the mean and peak deceleration were selectively decreased in the females with FASD. These data support the hypothesis that children with FASD exhibit specific deficits in eye movement control and sensory-motor integration associated with cerebellar and/or brain stem circuits. Moreover, prenatal alcohol exposure may have a sexually dimorphic impact on eye movement metrics, with males and females exhibiting differential patterns of deficit.

Response inhibition is the ability to suppress irrelevant impulses to enable goal-directed behavi... more Response inhibition is the ability to suppress irrelevant impulses to enable goal-directed behavior. The underlying neural mechanisms of inhibition deficits are not clearly understood, but may be related to white matter connectivity, which can be assessed using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between response inhibition during the performance of saccadic eye movement tasks and DTI measures of the corpus callosum in children with or without Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). Participants included 43 children with an FASD diagnosis (12.3 ± 3.1 years old) and 35 typically developing children (12.5 ± 3.0 years old) both aged 7-18, assessed at three sites across Canada. Response inhibition was measured by direction errors in an antisaccade task and timing errors in a delayed memory-guided saccade task. Manual deterministic tractography was used to delineate six regions of the corpus callosum and calculate fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), parallel diffusivity, and perpendicular diffusivity. Group differences in saccade measures were assessed using t-tests, followed by partial correlations between eye movement inhibition scores and corpus callosum FA and MD, controlling for age. Children with FASD made more saccade direction errors and more timing errors, which indicates a deficit in response inhibition. The only group difference in DTI metrics was significantly higher MD of the splenium in FASD compared to controls. Notably, direction errors in the antisaccade task were correlated negatively to FA and positively to MD of the splenium in the control, but not the FASD group, which suggests that alterations in connectivity between the two hemispheres of the brain may contribute to inhibition deficits in children with FASD.

Behavioural Brain Research, 2014