AUTISM--BRAIN MORPHOMETRY AND COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

自闭症——大脑形态测量和认知神经科学

• 批准号: 6604741
• 负责人: MARTHA R. HERBERT
• 金额: $ 13万
• 依托单位: MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-07-05 至 2004-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6604741
• 关键词: autism; bioimaging /biomedical imaging; brain imaging /visualization /scanning; brain mapping; child (0-11); clinical research; cognition; developmental neurobiology; human data; human subject; image processing; language disorders; magnetic resonance imaging; mathematical model; neuropathology; pathologic process

Autism is a behavioral syndrome characterized by impairments in social interactions and communication and by repetitive, stereotyped behavior. To date there is no clear and consistently replicated neuroanatomic correlate. While specific, focal core neuroanatomic or cognitive deficits have been sought, this study will examine the syndrome's more pervasive features. The purpose of this study is to understand these pervasive abnormalities at the levels of brain structure and of structure-function relationships. The finding of large brains in autism suggest a pervasive abnormality of the brain and abnormal regulation of brain development whose distributed consequences cannot be fully characterized by focal studies. Moreover, the higher-level cognitive functions disordered in autism are likely to have distributed rather than strictly localized or modular neuroanatomical correlates. By using a novel, detailed neuroanatomically-based whole-brain morphometric method, we will be able for the first time to characterize pervasive, distributed brain volumetric abnormalities. The study will be performed on subjects from two NIH-funded projects, the Autism and Language Disorders Nosology Project, NINDS 20489; and the Language in Autism: Clinical and Basic Studies Project, NIDCD PO1 DC 03610. The Specific Aims will be 1) to test the morphometric hypothesis that dysregulated brain development in autism will manifest in abnormalities in morphometric quantifiers of size, scaling, and profiles of variance, and 2) to test the developmental cognitive neuroscience hypothesis that key abnormal cognitive and linguistic functions in autism will correlate better with distributed morphometric abnormalities such as deviations in neuroanatomic scaling and profiles of variance than with localized deviations in size of neuroanatomic modular units. The system-oriented whole brain morphometric profiles should provide new classes of neuroanatomical correlates that are more appropriate for the widespread higher-level cognitive functions disordered in autism. The nature of developmental dysregulation and neural systems abnormalities in this disorder should thus become clearer.

自闭症是一种行为综合症，其特征是社会互动和交流中的损害以及重复性，刻板印象的行为。 迄今为止，尚无明确且一致地复制的神经解剖学相关性。 尽管已经寻求具体的焦点神经解剖学或认知缺陷，但本研究将研究该综合征更普遍的特征。 这项研究的目的是了解大脑结构和结构功能关系水平上的这些普遍异常。 自闭症中大脑的发现表明，大脑普遍存在的异常和对大脑发育的异常调节，其分布式后果不能通过局灶性研究充分表征。 此外，自闭症中患有自闭症中的高级认知功能障碍可能是分布的，而不是严格局部或模块化的神经解剖学相关性。 通过使用一种新颖的，详细的神经解剖学的全脑形态学方法，我们将首次能够表征普遍的，分布的脑大量异常。该研究将对来自NIH资助的两个项目的受试者进行，即自闭症和语言障碍项目，NINDS 20489；以及自闭症中的语言：临床和基础研究项目，NIDCD PO1 DC 03610。具体目的是1）测试形态计量的假设，即自闭症中脑发育失调的大脑发育失调将在异常中表现出异常的大小，规模和规模的变异性和2）的形态量表，并测试了变异性启动性启动性启动性启动性启动性均匀效果。在自闭症中，与分布式形态学异常（例如神经解剖学量表的偏差和方差的偏差）相比，与神经解剖学模块化单元的大小相比，差异的相关性更好。 面向系统的整个脑形态学轮廓应提供新的神经解剖学相关性，这些相关性更适合于自闭症中广泛的高级认知功能。因此，这种疾病中发育失调和神经系统异常的性质应变得更加清晰。