Objective: We primarily aimed to investigate the attention network function among parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using the Attention Network Test (ANT). The secondary objective was to observe whether the three attention networks of all participants were related to each other. Methods: We included 28 parents of children with ASD and 28 well-matched parents of typically developing children. All participants underwent the neuropsychological assessment and ANT test. The three distinct attention networks, including alerting, orienting, and executive control, were also measured. Results: Compared with controls, parents of children with ASD showed less-efficient alerting and executive control network (all p<0.05), but not orienting network (p=0.74). No significant correlation was found between the alerting, orienting, and executive control network for either group. Conclusion Our findings showed that parents of children with ASD had deficits in alerting and executive control attention functions. The deficits are indications of a broad autism phenotype.

Total mesorectal excision (TME) has become the basic principle of surgical treat-ment for middle and low rectal cancer. Some of patients with ultra-low rectal cancer require under-going intersphincteric resection (ISR). Due to the limitation of the narrow pelvis, TME and ISR put forward higher requirements for the precise separation of the anatomical level and the protection of neurological function during the operation. At present, evaluation of the difficulty of surgery for middle and low rectal cancer is mainly based on the subjective judgment of chief surgeon, and there is no unified and objective scoring system or prediction model that can classify the difficulty of surgery for middle and low rectal cancer before surgery. The authors review relevant literatures and summarize the existing studies related to pelvic measurement for predicting the difficulty of surgery for middle and low rectal cancer, in order to provide significant guidance for the selection of surgical approach for patients with middle and low rectal cancer.