Decreased Interhemispheric Functional Connectivity in Autism
Decreased Interhemispheric Functional Connectivity in Autism
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DOI：
10.1093/cercor/bhq190
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发表时间：
2011-05-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Lainhart, Janet E.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Anderson, Jeffrey S.;Druzgal, T. Jason;Lainhart, Janet E.
皮质连接不足理论认为，减少的长程功能连接可能有助于自闭症的神经机制。我们研究了53名高功能自闭症男性和39名从儿童晚期到成年早期的典型发育男性的静息态血氧水平依赖性半球间相关性。通过构建每个半球中同源体素之间的相关性的空间图，我们发现与自闭症功能相关的区域的半球间相关性显著降低：感觉运动皮层、前额叶、梭状回、上级颞回和上级顶叶上小叶。观察到的大脑半球间连接的差异，更好地解释诊断自闭症比潜在的混淆神经心理学指标的语言，智商，或利手。虽然这两个胼胝体体积和灰质半球间的连接显着减少自闭症，没有直接的关系，它们之间观察到，这表明结构和功能指标衡量不同方面的半球间的连接。在对照组而非自闭症组中，大脑半球间的相关性随着年龄的增长而降低。在大脑的更多的横向区域，半球间相关性的差异更大。这些研究结果表明，自闭症的长程连接异常是空间异质性的，跨胼胝体连接减少最多的功能与自闭症的行为异常的地区。自闭症受试者在进入成年早期时仍表现出大脑半球间连接的发育差异。
The cortical underconnectivity theory asserts that reduced long-range functional connectivity might contribute to a neural mechanism for autism. We examined resting-state blood oxygen level-dependent interhemispheric correlation in 53 males with high-functioning autism and 39 typically developing males from late childhood through early adulthood. By constructing spatial maps of correlation between homologous voxels in each hemisphere, we found significantly reduced interhemispheric correlation specific to regions with functional relevance to autism: sensorimotor cortex, anterior insula, fusiform gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, and superior parietal lobule. Observed interhemispheric connectivity differences were better explained by diagnosis of autism than by potentially confounding neuropsychological metrics of language, IQ, or handedness. Although both corpus callosal volume and gray matter interhemispheric connectivity were significantly reduced in autism, no direct relationship was observed between them, suggesting that structural and functional metrics measure different aspects of interhemispheric connectivity. In the control but not the autism sample, there was decreasing interhemispheric correlation with subject age. Greater differences in interhemispheric correlation were seen for more lateral regions in the brain. These findings suggest that long-range connectivity abnormalities in autism are spatially heterogeneous and that transcallosal connectivity is decreased most in regions with functions associated with behavioral abnormalities in autism. Autism subjects continue to show developmental differences in interhemispheric connectivity into early adulthood.