CEREBRAL ASYMMETRY AND LANGUAGE IN AUTISM

该子项目是利用 由NIH/NCRR资助的中心赠款提供的资源。子项目和 研究者（PI）可能从另一个NIH来源获得主要资金， 因此可以在其他CRISP条目中表示。列出的机构是 中心，不一定是研究者的机构。 这项建议的主要目标是评估是否左半球颞平面（PT）的体积减少，评估磁共振成像（MRI）数据的形态分析，是目前在自闭症儿童的父母。 这样的发现将支持我们的假设，即PT体积减少代表了自闭症患者中常见的语言延迟和异常的家族危险因素。 来自我们实验室的初步证据表明，在患有自闭症的成人和儿童中，颞平面体积的改变。 颞平面（PT）是大脑左半球的一个听觉加工区，在正常发育过程中与语言加工密切相关。 测量未受影响的家庭成员的PT将使我们能够评估自闭症的PT改变是否是家族性的，这是确定PT体积变化是否是一种有效的内在表型的下一个合乎逻辑的步骤。 我们建议在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的个人或家族史的成年人中测量PT体积和表面积。 我们假设，与对照组相比，父母组的左PT体积将显著较小，并且成年自闭症组的PT体积将低于父母组（与自闭症组中并非所有父母都携带风险因素的观点一致）。 我们还将测量语言功能，并评估这三组成年人的语言发展家族史。 接受性和表达性语言，以及语音学和语用学的措施，将获得在所有的成年人和相关的MRI结果。

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.