Abnormal variability and distribution of functional maps in autism:: An fMRI study of visuomotor learning
Abnormal variability and distribution of functional maps in autism:: An fMRI study of visuomotor learning
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DOI：
10.1176/appi.ajp.160.10.1847
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发表时间：
2003-10-01
影响因子：
17.7
通讯作者：
Courchesne, E
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Müller, RA;Kleinhans, N;Courchesne, E
目的：自闭症是一种以神经为基础的精神障碍，但对于潜在的神经功能异常尚无共识。以前对简单运动的功能磁共振成像(FMRI)研究表明，自闭症患者的大脑功能组织个体可变且分散。作者检验了这种异常是否概括为多模式加工(视觉驱动运动序列学习)。方法：对8名男性自闭症患者和8名与患者在年龄、性别和利手方面匹配的对照受试者进行fMRI检查，同时根据视觉呈现的重复六位数序列提示他们进行手指按压动作。在一个实验中，对六位数序列的血流动力学反应与在一个实验中对个位刺激的反应以及在另一个实验中对常规六位数序列的反应进行统计学比较。结果：在两个实验中，两组患者的双侧运动前、顶上和枕叶皮质都表现出激活。一组一组的任务交互作用显示，自闭症组的顶叶上叶激活不那么明显，而自闭症组的前额叶皮质和更多的顶叶后叶区域比对照组激活得更多。孤独症组个体激活峰与组内激活峰之间的距离大于对照组。结论：本研究结果支持自闭症患者功能图异常变异性和离散性的早期发现。它们与来自其他研究的证据一致，这些证据表明自闭症患者小脑-丘脑-皮质通路的发育存在早发性障碍。
Objective: Autism is a neurally based psychiatric disorder, but there is no consensus regarding the underlying neurofunctional abnormalities. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of simple movement suggested individually variable and scattered functional brain organization in autism. The authors examined whether such abnormalities generalize to multimodal processing (visually driven motor sequence learning).Method: Eight male autistic patients and eight comparison subjects matched with the patients on age, gender, and handedness were examined by using fMRI while they performed finger press movements prompted by visually presented repeating six-digit sequences. Hemodynamic responses to the six-digit sequences were statistically compared to responses to single-digit stimuli in one experiment and to regular six-digit sequences in another experiment.Results: Both groups showed activations in bilateral premotor, superior parietal, and occipital cortices in both experiments. Task-by-group interactions showed that superior parietal activations were less pronounced in the autism group, whereas prefrontal cortex and more posterior parietal loci showed greater activation in the autism group than in the comparison group. The distances between Individual subjects' activation peaks and the group-wise peak were greater in the autism group than in the comparison group.Conclusions: The results support earlier findings of abnormal variability and scatter of functional maps in autism. They are consistent with evidence from other studies suggesting early-onset disturbances in the development of cerebello-thalamo-cortical pathways in autism.