Sandy K. Magee

ABA versus TEACCH: the case for defining and validating comprehensive treatment models in autism.

The authors analyzed the results of a social validation survey to determine if autism service providers including special education teachers, parents, and administrators demonstrate a preference for the intervention components of Applied Behavior Analysis or Training and Education of Autistic and other Communication Handicapped Children. They also investigated the comprehensiveness of these treatment models for use in public school programs. The findings indicate no clear preference for either model, but a significantly higher level of social validity for components inherent in both approaches. The authors discuss the need for research to define what is meant by comprehensive programming in autism.

Human avoidance and approach learning: Evidence for overlapping neural systems and experiential avoidance modulation of avoidance neurocircuitry

Adaptive functioning is thought to reflect a balance between approach and avoidance neural systems with imbalances often producing pathological forms of avoidance. Yet little evidence is available in healthy adults demonstrating a balance between approach and avoidance neural systems and modulation in avoidance neurocircuitry by vulnerability factors for avoidance. Consequently, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare changes in brain activation associated with human avoidance and approach learning and modulation of avoidance neurocircuitry by experiential avoidance. fMRI tracked trial-by-trial increases in activation while adults learned through trial and error an avoidance response that prevented money loss and an approach response that produced money gain. Avoidance and approach cues elicited similar experience-dependent increases in activation in a fronto-limbic-striatal network. Positive and negative reinforcing outcomes (i.e., money gain and avoidance of loss) also elicited similar increases in activation in frontal and striatal regions. Finally, increased experiential avoidance and self-punishment coping was associated with decreased activation in medial/superior frontal regions, anterior cingulate, amygdala and hippocampus. These findings suggest avoidance and approach learning recruit a similar fronto-limbic-striatal network in healthy adults. Increased experiential avoidance also appears to be associated with reduced frontal and limbic reactivity in avoidance, establishing an important link between maladaptive avoidance coping and altered responses in avoidance neurocircuitry.

Neuroimaging the temporal dynamics of human avoidance to sustained threat

Many forms of human psychopathology are characterized by sustained negative emotional responses to threat and chronic behavioral avoidance, implicating avoidance as a potential transdiagnostic factor. Evidence from both nonhuman neurophysiological and human neuroimaging studies suggests a distributed frontal-limbic-striatal brain network supports avoidance. However, our understanding of the temporal dynamics of the network to sustained threat that prompts sustained avoidance is limited. To address this issue, 17 adults were given extensive training on a modified free-operant avoidance task in which button pressing avoided money loss during a sustained threat period. Subsequently, subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while completing the avoidance task. In our regions of interest, we observed phasic, rather than sustained, activation during sustained threat in dorsolateral and inferior frontal regions, anterior and dorsal cingulate, ventral striatum and regions associated with emotion, including the amygdala, insula, substantia nigra and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis complex. Moreover, trait levels of experiential avoidance were negatively correlated with insula, hippocampal and amygdala activation. These findings suggest knowledge that one can consistently avoid aversive outcomes is not associated with decreased threat-related responses and that individuals with greater experiential avoidance exhibit reduced reactivity to initial threat. Implications for understanding brain mechanisms supporting human avoidance and psychological theories of avoidance are discussed.

The tipping point: Value differences and parallel dorsal-ventral frontal circuits gating human approach-avoidance behavior

Excessive avoidance and diminished approach behavior are both prominent features of anxiety, trauma and stress related disorders. Despite this, little is known about the neuronal mechanisms supporting gating of human approach-avoidance behavior. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to track dorsal anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal (dACC/dmPFC) activation along an approach-avoidance continuum to assess sensitivity to competing appetitive and aversive contingencies and correspondence with behavior change. Behavioral and fMRI experiments were conducted using a novel approach-avoidance task where a monetary reward appeared in the presence of a conditioned stimulus (CS), or threat, that signaled increasing probability of unconditioned stimulus (US) delivery. Approach produced the reward or probabilistic US, while avoidance prevented US delivery, and across trials, reward remained fixed while the CS threat level varied unpredictably. Increasing the CS threat level (i.e., US probability) produced the desired approach-avoidance transition and inverted U-shaped changes in decision times, electrodermal activity and activation in pregenual ACC, dACC/dmPFC, striatum, anterior insula and inferior frontal regions. Conversely, U-shaped changes in activation were observed in dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex and bimodal changes in the orbitofrontal and ventral hippocampus. These new results show parallel dorsal-ventral frontal circuits support gating of human approach-avoidance behavior where dACC/dmPFC signals inversely correlate with value differences between approach and avoidance contingencies while ventral frontal signals correlate with the value of predictable outcomes. Our findings provide an important bridge between basic research on brain mechanisms of value-guided decision-making and value-focused clinical theories of anxiety and related interventions.

Not so bad: avoidance and aversive discounting modulate threat appraisal in anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex

The dorsal anterior cingulate (adACC) and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) play a central role in the discrimination and appraisal of threatening stimuli. Yet, little is known about what specific features of threatening situations recruit these regions and how avoidance may modulate appraisal and activation through prevention of aversive events. In this investigation, 30 healthy adults underwent functional neuroimaging while completing an avoidance task in which responses to an Avoidable CS+ threat prevented delivery of an aversive stimulus, but not to an Unavoidable CS+ threat. Extinction testing was also completed where CSs were presented without aversive stimulus delivery and an opportunity to avoid. The Avoidable CS+ relative to the Unavoidable CS+ was associated with reductions in ratings of negative valence, fear, and US expectancy and activation. Greater regional activation was consistently observed to the Unavoidable CS+ during avoidance, which declined during extinction. Individuals exhibiting greater aversive discounting—that is, those more avoidant of immediate monetary loss compared to a larger delayed loss—also displayed greater activation to the Unavoidable CS+, highlighting aversive discounting as a significant individual difference variable. These are the first results linking adACC/dmPFC reactivity to avoidance-based reductions of aversive events and modulation of activation by individual differences in aversive discounting.

The functional analysis of problematic verbal behavior

This study describes procedures and outcomes in a functional analysis of problem behavior of 2 public school students. For a 13-year-old honors student, bizarre tacts (labeled as psychotic speech by school staff) were maintained by attention. For a 15-year-old with autism, the functional analysis revealed that perseverative mands for toileting were controlled by attention; mands for edible items were controlled by access to any food item; and mands for nonedible items were maintained by access to the specific item manded. The “problematic” aspects of the verbal behavior differed—the bizarre speech was problematic based on its content, but the perseverative verbalizations resulted in high response cost for classroom staff. Research in the area of problematic verbal behavior is sparse and warrants further attention from behavior analysts who work in public school settings. This research demonstrates the applicability and relevance of functionally analyzing problematic verbal behavior in public school settings.

Contingencies, Macrocontingencies, and Metacontingencies in Current Educational Practices: No Child Left Behind?

Using Glenn’s framework (1985, 1986, 1988, 1991, 2004), this paper describes the public school system as an entity comprised of interrelated cultural units ranging from federal and state agencies to local school districts, schools and individual classrooms. At each of these levels the interlocking behavioral contingencies (IBCs) resulting from implementation of Public Law 107–110, No Child Left Behind, are described. This paper identifies potentially problematic educational practices (selected by social consequences) and the cumulative effects of these practices.

Dynamic brain mapping of behavior change: tracking response initiation and inhibition to changes in reinforcement rate.

Adaptive behavior change is supported by executive control processes distributed throughout a prefrontal-striatal-parietal network. Yet, the temporal dynamics of regions in the network have not been characterized. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we tracked changes brain activation while subjects initiated and inhibited responding in accordance with changes in reinforcement rate. During imaging, subjects completed a free-operant task that involved repeated transitions between fixed-ratio reinforcement and extinction (RF:EXT), where reinforcement rate decreased and responding was inhibited, and between extinction and fixed-ratio reinforcement (EXT:RF), where reinforcement rate increased and responding was initiated. Our whole-brain temporal assessment revealed that transitions which required initiating and inhibiting responding prompted positive phasic responses in a prefrontal-parietal network, the insula and thalamus. However, response initiation prompted by an increase in reinforcement rate during the EXT:RF transition elicited positive phasic responses in reward-sensitive striatal regions. Furthermore, response inhibition prompted by a decrease in reinforcement rate during the RF:EXT transition elicited negative phasic responses in ventral frontal regions sensitive to value and contingency. Our findings highlight the temporal dynamics of a brain network that supports behavioral changes (initiation and inhibition) resulting from changes in local reinforcement rates.