Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a term associated with a group of neurodevelopmental disorders. The etiology of ASD is not yet completely understood; however, a disorder in the gut-brain axis is emerging as a prominent factor leading to autism. To identify the taxonomic composition and markers associated with ASD, we compared the fecal microbiota of 30 ASD children diagnosed using Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) score, DSM-5 approved AIIMS-modified INCLEN Diagnostic Tool for Autism Spectrum Disorder (INDT-ASD), and Indian Scale for Assessment of Autism (ISAA) tool, with family-matched 24 healthy children from Indian population using next-generation sequencing (NGS) of 16S rRNA gene amplicon. Our study showed prominent dysbiosis in the gut microbiome of ASD children, with higher relative abundances of families Lactobacillaceae, Bifidobacteraceae, and Veillonellaceae, whereas the gut microbiome of healthy children was dominated by the family Prevotellaceae. Comparative meta-analysis with a publicly available dataset from the US population consisting of 20 ASD and 20 healthy control samples from children of similar age, revealed a significantly high abundance of genus Lactobacillus in ASD children from both the populations. The results reveal the microbial dysbiosis and an association of selected Lactobacillus species with the gut microbiome of ASD children.

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The present study is an attempt to examine the relationship between cognitive emotion regulation strategies and anxiety and depression among adults. The rising prevalence of mental illness in today’s world is mainly due to stress, tension or negative life experiences in our day to day life. In this regard, the way in which one’s response to stress and negative life events may be more directly connected to mental health and psychopathology than the nature of stressful experience itself. A representative sample of 30 males and 30 females from Kottayam and Thrissur Districts of Kerala, of 20 – 40 years of age were selected. Cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire was administered to find out the cognitive emotion regulation strategies that participants use in response to the experience of stressful events. The inventory of Beck Depression Inventory -11 was distributed to find out the different symptoms of depression and State – Trait Anxiety Test was used to measure their state and trait anxiety levels. The results of Student t- test showed that, both males and females show significant differences in certain cognitive emotion regulation dimensions like positive appraisal, putting into perspective and other – blame and in depressive symptoms and in one of the anxietal symptom called Tension. And Co–efficient Correlation revealed that, self blame, catastrophizing, rumination and other blame were related with high level of depression and anxiety and subscales like acceptance, positive appraisal and putting into perspective were related with low levels of depression and anxiety. So the study concluded that there is relationship between cognitive emotion regulation strategies and anxiety and depression among adults. And also Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) has fit psychometric properties and could be used for clinical and investigative purposes.

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