Atypical Functional Connectivity of the Amygdala in Childhood Autism Spectrum Disorders during Spontaneous Attention to Eye-Gaze.
Atypical Functional Connectivity of the Amygdala in Childhood Autism Spectrum Disorders during Spontaneous Attention to Eye-Gaze.
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DOI：
10.1155/2012/652408
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发表时间：
2012-01-01
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Vaidya, Chandan J
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Murphy, Eric R;Foss-Feig, Jennifer;Vaidya, Chandan J
我们研究了患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的青春期前儿童在自发注意到情绪面孔的眼睛注视时杏仁核的功能连接。孩子们对印在愤怒或恐惧的脸上的目标词（“左/右”）做出反应，这些目标词与目标词一致，不一致或中性。尽管与任务无关，凝视方向促进（一致>中性）或干扰（不一致>一致）在两组中的性能。尽管有类似的行为表现，杏仁核连接是非典型的，在自闭症儿童中更普遍。在对照组儿童中，杏仁核与情绪认知控制区（膝下扣带回）在干扰过程中联系更紧密，而在促进过程中，没有区域显示出比ASD儿童更大的杏仁核连接。相比之下，在ASD儿童中，杏仁核在易化过程中与显著性和认知控制区域（后扣带回和背扣带回）的联系更加紧密，在干扰过程中与注视处理区域（上级颞沟）、认知控制区域（额下回）和内脏显著信息处理区域（膝前扣带回、前扣带回和丘脑）的联系更加紧密。这些研究结果显示杏仁核的连接更广泛，扩展了ASD儿童眼睛注视处理的非典型功能解剖学研究结果，并挑战了ASD中普遍连接不足的观点。
We examined functional connectivity of the amygdala in preadolescent children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) during spontaneous attention to eye-gaze in emotional faces. Children responded to a target word ("LEFT/RIGHT") printed on angry or fearful faces looking in a direction that was congruent, incongruent, or neutral with the target word. Despite being irrelevant to the task, gaze-direction facilitated (Congruent > Neutral) or interfered with (Incongruent > Congruent) performance in both groups. Despite similar behavioral performance, amygdala-connectivity was atypical and more widespread in children with ASD. In control children, the amygdala was more strongly connected with an emotional cognitive control region (subgenual cingulate) during interference, while during facilitation, no regions showed greater amygdala connectivity than in ASD children. In contrast, in children with ASD the amygdala was more strongly connected to salience and cognitive control regions (posterior and dorsal cingulate) during facilitation and with regions involved in gaze processing (superior temporal sulcus), cognitive control (inferior frontal gyrus), and processing of viscerally salient information (pregenual cingulate, anterior insula, and thalamus) during interference. These findings showing more widespread connectivity of the amygdala extend past findings of atypical functional anatomy of eye-gaze processing in children with ASD and challenge views of general underconnectivity in ASD.