Sleep and Activity Patterns in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a highly heritable and heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interactions, repetitive behaviors, and a wide range of comorbidities. Between 44-83% of autistic individuals report sleep disturbances, which may share an underlying neurodevelopmental basis with ASD. Methods: We recruited 382 ASD individuals and 223 of their family members to obtain quantitative ASD-related traits and wearable device-based accelerometer data spanning three consecutive weeks. An unbiased approach identifying traits associated with ASD was achieved by applying the elastic net machine learning algorithm with five-fold cross-validation on 6,878 days of data. The relationship between sleep and physical activity traits was examined through linear mixed-effects regressions using each night of data. Results: This analysis yielded 59 out of 242 actimetry measures associated with ASD status in the training set, which were validated in a test set (AUC: 0.777). For several of these traits (e.g. total light physical activity), the day-to-day variability, in addition to the mean, was associated with ASD. Individuals with ASD were found to have a stronger correlation between physical activity and sleep, where less physical activity decreased their sleep more significantly than that of their non-ASD relatives. Conclusions: The average duration of sleep/physical activity and the variation in the average duration of sleep/physical activity strongly predict ASD status. Physical activity measures were correlated with sleep quality, traits, and regularity, with ASD individuals having stronger correlations. Interventional studies are warranted to investigate whether improvements in both sleep and increased physical activity may improve the core symptoms of ASD.

Investigating the relationships between resilience, autism-related quantitative traits, and mental health outcomes among adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Resilience is a dynamic process through which people adjust to adversity and buffer anxiety and depression. The COVID-19 global pandemic has introduced a shared source of adversity for people across the world, with detrimental implications for mental health. Despite the pronounced vulnerability of autistic adults to anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic, relationships among autism-related quantitative traits, resilience, and mental health outcomes have not been examined. As such, we aimed to describe the relationships between these traits in a sample enriched in autism spectrum-related quantitative traits during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also aimed to investigate the impact of demographic and social factors on these relationships. Across three independent samples of adults, we assessed resilience factors, autism-related quantitative traits, anxiety symptoms, and depression symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. One sample (recruited via the Autism Spectrum Program of Excellence, n = 201) was enriched for autism traits while the other two (recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk, n = 624 and Facebook, n = 929) drew from the general population. We found resilience factors and quantitative autism-related traits to be inversely related, regardless of the resilience measure used. Additionally, we found that resilience factors moderate the relationship between autism-related quantitative traits and depression symptoms such that resilience appears to be protective. Across the neurodiversity spectrum, resilience factors may be targets to improve mental health outcomes. This approach may be especially important during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and in its aftermath.

Influence of methyl jasmonate and salicylic acid on Rhamnetin production in adventitious root cultures of Baccharoides anthelmintica (L.) Moench.

We developed adventitious roots from the leaf explants of Baccharoides anthelmintica (L.) Moench (syn. Vernonia anthelmintica) cultured on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium. We tested MS and White's media fortified with different Indole Butyric Acid concentrations for their effect on root biomass production. MS medium supplemented with 1 mg L-1 IBA produced the highest biomass of adventitious roots compared to White's medium. HPLC and LC-Q-TOF analyses confirmed the ability of the adventitious roots of B. anthelmintica to produce rhamnetin. When the 15-day old root cultures were treated with 0.6 mM methyl jasmonate, on the 6th-day, rhamnetin content was enhanced to 0.443 mg g-1DW, which was 1.5 folds compared to untreated roots. Similarly, Salicylic acid also improved rhamnetin production to 0.36 mg g-1 DW, which was 1.2 folds increment compared to untreated roots. Rhamnetin content in the roots of field-grown plants was 0.112 mg g-1DW.

Enhancement of rhamnetin production in Vernonia anthelmintica (L.) Willd. cell suspension cultures by eliciting with methyl jasmonate and salicylic acid.

Vernonia anthelmintica (L.) Willd. belongs to the family Asteraceae and has anthelmintic, anti-diabetic, diuretic and anti-asthmatic properties. Present study describes the production of rhamnetin: an O-methylated flavonol with anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory activities; in cell suspension cultures of V. anthelmintica. Suspension cultures were established from cream coloured friable calli initiated from leaf explants and cultured in liquid MS medium supplemented with combinations of IAA (1.5 mg L-1) and BAP (1.5 mg L-1). After 20 days of cell suspension culture, the initial inoculum size of 0.5 g was increased to 1.05 g 100 mL-1 dry weight at exponential phase. When the culture was treated with 0.8 mM methyl jasmonate for 6 days; 2.2 fold accumulation of rhamnetin production was obtained on a dry weight basis compared to unelicited control. Likewise, the elicitation with salicylic acid 1 mM for 6 days brought about 2.7 fold rhamnetin production compared to unelicited control. The rhamnetin content in dried leaf tissue of field grown plants was found to be 0.143 mg g-1. Elicitation with methyl jasmonate and salicylic acid brought about 7.7 and 9.4 fold increments in rhamnetin production, compared to leaf tissue of field grown plants on a dry weight basis.