FUNCTIONAL MRI OF EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING IN AUTISM

自闭症患者情绪理解的功能 MRI

• 批准号: 2793732
• 负责人: NORMAN H KIM
• 金额: $ 1.68万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-03-29 至
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/2793732
• 关键词: autism; behavioral /social science research tag; clinical research; cognition; emotions; functional magnetic resonance imaging; human subject; limbic system; mood disorders; neural information processing; neuroanatomy; neuropathology

The proposed research is designed to extend our understanding of the neuropathology underlying one of the core behavioral characteristics of autism, deficits in emotional understanding. Autism is a severe and pervasive developmental disorder characterized by marked impairments in social relatedness and understanding, an integral component of which is emotional understanding and responsiveness. Although this has been well characterized behaviorally, previous empirical research on neurobiological substrate of these deficits has been limited by the available methodologies. Recent advances in functional imaging technology, however, allow for a more direct examination of the neural systems implicated in processing emotion, systems which are presumably damaged in individuals with autism. fMRI will be used to measure in vivo, neural activity while participants watch film clips judged to depict examples of positive and negative emotions. These measurements will be obtained from 30 adolescents and adults with high-functioning autism and 30 matched, non-autistic controls. It is hypothesized that (1) in the non-autistic sample, emotional stimuli will elicit distinct patterns of neural activation, involving the limbic association cortex, and (2) positive, approach-related emotions will elicit activation distinct from negative, withdrawal-related emotions, involving hemispheric asymmetries. It is further hypothesized that (3) autistic participants will exhibit a pattern of neural activation distinct from non-autistics when presented with emotional stimuli, and (4) that autistic subjects will have particular difficulty with more complex, cognitively mediated emotions, such as embarrassment, than non-autistic subjects. This research is designed to add to our understanding of the underlying pathophysiology of autism, and to provide a possible extension to neurological models of the understanding and processing of emotion in normal development.

这项拟议的研究旨在扩大我们对 神经病理学的核心行为特征之一， 自闭症情感理解缺陷自闭症是一种严重的， 广泛性发育障碍，特征是 社会关系和理解，其中一个组成部分是 情感理解和反应能力。 虽然这已经很好了 以前的实证研究表明， 这些缺陷的神经生物学底物受到限制， 可用的方法。 功能影像学研究进展 然而，技术允许对神经系统进行更直接的检查， 与处理情绪有关的系统， 在自闭症患者中受损。 fMRI将用于测量 当参与者观看电影片段时， 描绘积极和消极情绪的例子。 这些测量 将从30名青少年和成人中获得高功能 自闭症和30个匹配的非自闭症对照组。它是假设 (1)在非自闭症的样本中，情绪刺激会引起明显的 神经激活的模式，包括边缘联合皮层， （2）积极的、与接近相关的情绪会引起激活 与消极的、与退缩有关的情绪不同， 半球不对称进一步假设（3）自闭症 参与者会表现出一种不同于 非自闭症患者在受到情绪刺激时，以及（4） 孤独症受试者将特别难以处理更复杂的， 认知介导的情绪，如尴尬，比非自闭症 科目 这项研究旨在增加我们对 自闭症的潜在病理生理学，并提供一个可能的 扩展到神经模型的理解和处理 正常发展的情绪。