lYoung children's meltdowns leave clear evidence, such as food spilled on the floor or walls, or, say, toys scattered around the room. Now scientists say they can watch meltdowns unfold in some children's brains. This discovery could pave the way for future treatments for children with severe behavioral and emotional reactions to certain stimuli.
This is known as sensory oversensitivity, or SOR, and is the most common form of a condition called sensory processing disorder that is not considered an official medical diagnosis. Specifically, SOR describes discomfort from normally innocuous irritants, including flashing lights, vacuum cleaners, and certain food textures. This can lead to behaviors such as relapses and withdrawal symptoms. ODS appears to be particularly common among children with autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but an estimated 5 to 12 percent of children in the United States have problems processing sensory information.
Studying SOR may help scientists better understand how the two types of critical brain networks differ in neurodiverse children, the researchers say. paper recently published in Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Outwardly oriented exogenous systems are associated with functions such as sensation and motor skills, whereas inwardly oriented endogenous systems are associated with functions such as impulse control and cognition. The brain activity of children with SOP can provide valuable information on this issue, since both of these systems are involved in this disorder.
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To this end, a group of American researchers scanned the brains of 83 neurodivergent children aged 8 to 12 years. According to the results of the sensory processing assessment, about half were particularly sensitive to certain types of light, noise or tactile sensations, while the other half were not. The team studied the brains of these children using functional MRI, which measures brain activity by changes in blood oxygenation levels while they looked at an object on a screen. Ultimately, scans of the two groups showed clear differences.
In overreactive children, activity in brain networks associated with external functioning was relatively low. But there was increased activity in brain networks associated with intrinsic functions. These results were reversed in less sensitive children.
“We think that when you're overstimulated by sensory information, you compensate by activating your brain's inward-facing networks to gain self-control. You also dampen your outward-facing networks to minimize sensory information,” study author Pratik Mukherjee, a neuroradiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, said in the study. statement. “Children who are not emotionally overloaded with information, and some do not even respond to it, do the opposite.”
Treatment for children with sensory overreactivity typically involves “gradually exposing them to sensory information over time so they learn tolerance,” the statement notes. Mukherjee now believes doctors could personalize and enhance these treatments “if we know the structure of an individual child's brain and how that translates into emotions and behavior.”
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