Differential effects of developmental cerebellar abnormality on cognitive and motor functions in the cerebellum: An fMRI study of autism
Differential effects of developmental cerebellar abnormality on cognitive and motor functions in the cerebellum: An fMRI study of autism
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DOI：
10.1176/appi.ajp.160.2.262
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发表时间：
2003-02-01
影响因子：
17.7
通讯作者：
Courchesne, E
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Allen, G;Courchesne, E
目的：近年来，关于小脑功能的观点发生了变革。新的研究结果表明，小脑在多个功能领域发挥作用：认知、情感、感觉以及运动。这些发现意味着小脑发育性病理可能在某些非运动功能缺陷中起作用，因此需要更广泛地研究小脑病理的功能后果。自闭症提供了一个有用的模型，因为在尸检中检查的超过90%的自闭症小脑都显示出明确的小脑解剖异常。本研究的目的是检查这种病理最终如何影响小脑内的认知和运动功能。
方法：对8名自闭症患者（年龄14 - 38岁）和8名匹配的健康对照受试者在执行运动和注意力任务时，在解剖学上定义的小脑感兴趣区域内的功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）激活模式进行了检查。对于运动任务，受试者以舒适的速度按下按钮，并将激活情况与休息状态进行比较。对于注意力任务，视觉刺激一次一个地呈现在注视点上，受试者对每个目标按下按钮。将激活情况与被动视觉刺激进行比较。
结果：在执行这些任务时，自闭症个体显示出小脑运动激活显著增强，而小脑注意力激活显著减弱。
结论：这些发现为小脑在自闭症注意力缺陷中的作用提供了新的线索，并表明小脑发育异常对认知和运动系统具有不同的功能影响。
Objective: Recent years have seen a revolution in views regarding cerebellar function. New findings suggest that the cerebellum plays a role in multiple functional domains: cognitive, affective, and sensory as well as motor. These findings imply that developmental cerebellar pathology could play a role in certain nonmotor functional deficits, thereby calling for a broader investigation of the functional consequences of cerebellar pathology. Autism provides a useful model, since over 90% of autistic cerebella examined at autopsy have shown well-defined cerebellar anatomic abnormalities. The aim of the present study was to examine how such pathology ultimately impacts cognitive and motor function within the cerebellum.Method: Patterns of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activation within anatomically defined cerebellar regions of interest were examined in eight autistic patients (ages 14-38 years) and eight matched healthy comparison subjects performing motor and attention tasks. For the motor task, subjects pressed a button at a comfortable pace, and activation was compared with a rest condition. For the attention task, visual stimuli were presented one at a time at fixation, and subjects pressed a button to every target. Activation was compared with passive. visual stimulation.Results: While performing these tasks, autistic individuals showed significantly greater cerebellar motor activation and significantly less cerebellar attention activation.Conclusions: These findings shed new light on the cerebellar role in attention deficits in autism and suggest that developmental cerebellar abnormality has differential functional implications for cognitive and motor systems.