Neural correlates of moral reasoning in autism spectrum disorder.
Neural correlates of moral reasoning in autism spectrum disorder.
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DOI：
10.1093/scan/nss051
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发表时间：
2013-08
影响因子：
4.2
通讯作者：
K. Schneider;K. Pauly;A. Gossen;Lea Mevissen;T. Michel;R. Gur;F. Schneider;U. Habel
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
K. Schneider;K. Pauly;A. Gossen;Lea Mevissen;T. Michel;R. Gur;F. Schneider;U. Habel
在我们的研究中，我们试图澄清自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)患者是否表现出与健康受试者不同的道德决定模式，以及ASD患者常见的社交困难是否反映在道德推理不同方面的大脑激活变化中。28名高功能ASD患者和28名性别、年龄和教育程度匹配的健康受试者参加了一项与事件相关的功能磁共振成像研究。与会者面临文本两难的情况，随后提出了他们可以同意或不同意的解决办法。在神经水平上，两组的道德决策都与前额内侧区域、颞顶交界处和楔前脑区的激活有关。然而，虽然患者和健康对照组没有表现出显著的行为差异，但在道德推理过程中，ASD患者边缘区域，特别是杏仁核的激活减少，而扣带回前部和后部的激活增加。因此，患者大脑活动的改变可能表明同理心存在特定的损害。然而，与默认模式网络和自我参照认知相关的大脑区域的激活增加，也为患者基于社会信息做出决策的大脑处理方式的改变提供了证据。
In our study, we tried to clarify whether patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) reveal different moral decision patterns as compared to healthy subjects and whether common social interaction difficulties in ASD are reflected in altered brain activation during different aspects of moral reasoning. 28 patients with high-functioning ASD and 28 healthy subjects matched for gender, age and education took part in an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Participants were confronted with textual dilemma situations followed by proposed solutions to which they could agree or disagree. On a neural level, moral decision making was associated with activation in anterior medial prefrontal regions, the temporo-parietal junction and the precuneus for both groups. However, while patients and healthy controls did not exhibit significant behavioral differences, ASD patients showed decreased activation in limbic regions, particularly the amygdala, as well as increased activation in the anterior and the posterior cingulate gyrus during moral reasoning. Alterations of brain activation in patients might thus indicate specific impairments in empathy. However, activation increases in brain regions associated with the 'default mode network' and self-referential cognition also provide evidence for an altered way of patients' cerebral processing with regard to decision making based on social information.