JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) cause individuals to have difficulty learning facts, procedures, or social skills. NDD has been linked to several genes, and several animal models have been used to identify potential therapeutic candidates based on specific learning paradigms for long-term and associative memory. In individuals with NDD, however, such testing has not been used so far, resulting in a gap in translating preclinical results to clinical practice.

Objective:

We aim to assess if individuals with NDD could be tested for paired association (PA) learning and long-term memory deficit, as shown in previous animal models.

Methods:

We developed an image-based PA task, which can be performed at different time points using remote online testing, and evaluated its feasibility in children with typical development (TD), as well as NDD. We included 2 tasks: object recognition (R) as a simpler task, and PA. Learning was tested immediately after training and also the next day for long-term memory.

Results:

We found that children of ages 5-14 with TD (N=128) and with NDD of different types (N=57) could complete testing using the Memory Game. Children with NDD showed deficits in both R and PA tasks on the first day of learning, in both 5-9 years old (P<.001 and P=.013, respectively) and 10-14 years old groups (P=.0012 and P<.001, respectively). The reaction times to stimuli showed no significant difference between TD and NDD individuals. Children with NDD exhibited a faster 24-hour memory decay for the R task than TD in the 5-9 years old group. This trend is reversed for the PA task. Interestingly, we found that children with NDD had their retention for recognition improved and matched with typically developing individuals by the ages of 10-14 years old. The NDD group also showed improved retention deficits in the PA task at 10-14 years old compared to the TD group.

Conclusions:

We showed that online learning testing using simple picture association is feasible for children with TD, as well as with NDD. We showed how online testing allows us to train children to learn the association between pictures, as shown in immediate test results and those completed one day after. This is important as many models for learning deficits in NDD target both short and long-term memory for therapeutic intervention. We also demonstrated that despite potential confounding factors, such as self-reported diagnosis bias, technical issues, and varied participation, the Memory Game shows significant differences between typically developing children and those with NDD. Future experiments will leverage this potential of online testing for larger cohorts and cross-validation with other clinical or preclinical cognitive tasks.