CEREBRAL ASYMMETRY AND LANGUAGE IN AUTISM

这个子项目是许多研究子项目中利用 资源由NIH/NCRR资助的中心拨款提供。子项目和 调查员(PI)可能从NIH的另一个来源获得了主要资金， 并因此可以在其他清晰的条目中表示。列出的机构是 该中心不一定是调查人员的机构。 这项建议的主要目的是评估通过磁共振成像(MRI)数据的形态计量分析评估的左半球颞叶平面(PT)体积减少是否存在于自闭症儿童的父母中。这样的发现将支持我们的假设，即PT音量减少是自闭症患者中常见的语言延迟和偏离的家族风险因素。我们实验室的初步证据表明，无论是成人还是儿童，自闭症患者的颞叶平面体积都发生了变化。颞叶平面(PT)是发育正常的左脑中与语言加工密切相关的听觉加工脑区。测量未受影响的家庭成员的PT将使我们能够评估自闭症患者的PT改变是否是家族性的，这是确定PT体积变化是否为生产性内表型的下一个合乎逻辑的步骤。我们建议测量20名自闭症儿童的父母、20名年龄匹配的自闭症成年人和20名没有自闭症或其他发育障碍个人或家族史的成年人的PT体积和表面积。我们假设父母组的左侧PT的体积将显著小于对照组，成人自闭症组的PT体积将低于父母组(与并非自闭症组中的所有父母都携带有相关危险因素的观点一致)。我们还将在相同的三组成年人中测量语言功能并评估语言发展的家族史。将在所有成年人中获得接受性和表现性语言的测量，以及语音和语用方面的测量，并将其与MRI结果相关联。

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The main goal of this proposal is to evaluate whether left hemisphere planum temporale (PT) volume reduction, assessed by morphometric analysis of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data, is present in the parents of children with autism. Such a finding would bolster support our hypothesis that PT volume reduction represents a familial risk factor for language delay and deviance often seen in individuals with autistic disorder. Preliminary evidence from our laboratory suggests that alteration in the volume of the planum temporale in both adults and children with autism. The planum temporale (PT) is an auditory processing brain region intimately associated with language processing in the left hemisphere in normal development. Measuring the PT in non-affected family members will allow us to assess whether the PT alteration in autism is familial, the next logical step in determining if PT volume change will be a productive endophenotype. We are proposing to measure PT volume and surface area in 20 parents of children with autism, 20 age-matched adults with autism and 20 adults with no personal or familial history of autism or other developmental disorders. We hypothesize that the volume of the left PT will be significantly smaller in the parent group compared to the controls, and that the PT volume in the adult autism group will be lower than that for the parent group (consistent with the view that not all of the parents in the autism group will carry the risk factor in question). We will also measure language function and assess the family history of language development in the same three groups of adults. Measures of receptive and expressive language, as well as phonology and pragmatics, will be obtained in all of the adults and correlated to the MRI findings.