Multisensory Integration of Speech and Gesture in the Normal and Autistic Brain

描述（由申请人提供）：参与面对面的交流涉及到整合的共同发生的听觉和视觉线索显示的整个身体的发言者。拟议的研究将研究大脑如何整合其中两个线索-语音和节拍手势（手势的一个重要子类别，代表语音韵律）-在典型发育中的儿童，正常成人和自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童的自然社会交往中。首先，规范模式的典型发展中的大脑，发展终点，和多感官的整合网站的语音和节拍手势的特点。通常，发育中的儿童和正常成人将在观看视频记录的摘录时进行功能性磁共振成像（fMRI），其中语音伴随着自然发生的节拍手势，语音随机无意义的运动，以及语音静止的身体。比较观看这三种视听组合时的大脑激活，将揭示当语音伴随自然发生的节拍手势时，大脑区域对语音的反应更显着，以及与语音相关的音频和视觉信息的多感官整合的神经区域。第二，患有ASD的儿童和通常发育匹配的对照组将在观看相同的手势刺激时进行fMRI。这些群体之间的比较将使我们能够评估自闭症儿童是否有充分的记录赤字的社会沟通和生产的自然语音韵律利用异常的网络和/或表现出显着的差异，在激活时，整合语音和节拍手势。作为第一个对自然语音伴随节拍手势的功能磁共振成像研究，该研究将对公共卫生产生重要影响。这些发现不仅可以更好地了解ASD的神经基础，还可以为ASD的发展干预提供信息。此外，这些发现将影响各种语言和沟通障碍的语言治疗技术。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Engaging in face-to-face communication involves the integration of co-occurring auditory and visual cues displayed by the entire bodies of speakers. The proposed research will examine how the brain integrates two of these cues-speech and beat gesture (an important subcategory of hand gesture that represents speech prosody)-during natural social communication in typically developing children, normal adults, and children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). First, normative patterns in the typically developing brain, developmental endpoints, and multisensory integration sites of speech and beat gesture will be characterized. Typically developing children and normal adults will undergo functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while viewing extracts of a video recording where speech is accompanied by naturally-occurring beat gesture, random meaningless movements with speech, and a still body with speech. Comparing brain activation in response to viewing these three audiovisual combinations will reveal the brain areas that respond more significantly to speech when it is accompanied by naturally-occurring beat gesture as well as the neural areas underlying multisensory integration of speech-related audio and visual information. Second, children with ASD and typically developing matched controls will undergo fMRI while viewing the same gesture stimuli. Comparisons between these groups will allow us to assess whether children with ASD-who have well-documented deficits in social communication and production of naturalistic speech prosody-utilize abnormal networks and/or demonstrate significant differences in activation when integrating speech and beat gesture. As the first fMRI studies of natural speech-accompanying beat gesture, the proposed research will have important implications for public health. These findings will not only lead to a better understanding of the neural foundations of ASD but will also inform developmental interventions for ASD. In addition, the findings will impact speech therapy techniques for a variety of language and communication disorders.