Behavioral, fMRI, and Anatomical MRI Investigations of Attention in Autism

自闭症注意力的行为、功能磁共振成像和解剖磁共振成像研究

• 批准号: 8394107
• 负责人: Jason T Fischer
• 金额: $ 4.71万
• 依托单位: MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-09-30 至 2015-09-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8394107
• 关键词: Address; Adult; Affect; Anatomy; Architecture; Area; Attention; Attentional deficit; Autistic Disorder; Awareness; Base of the Brain; Behavioral; Brain; Brain Part; Brain region; Child; Cognitive; Complex; Data; Development; Diagnosis; Diagnostic; Diffusion weighted imaging; Employee Strikes; Environment; Fascicle; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Goals; Hearing; Image; Impairment; Individual; Investigation; Learning; Left; Life; Link; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Maintenance; Maps; Measures; Nature; Neurodevelopmental Disorder; Outcome; Parietal; Participant; Pattern; Perception; Phenotype; Play; Process; Psychophysics; Publishing; Pulvinar structure; Relative (related person); Research; Resistance; Response to stimulus physiology; Retina; Role; Scanning; Shadowing (Histology); Side; Social Interaction; Staging; Stimulus; Structure; Study Subject; System; Testing; Therapeutic Intervention; Thick; Time; United States; Visual; Visual attention; Work; autism spectrum disorder; base; behavior measurement; coping; design; distraction; experience; morphometry; relating to nervous system; research study; response; social communication; trial comparing; white matter

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The core diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are deficits in social interactions and communication. Another side to autism, though, is its impact on basic perception: people with ASD see, hear, and feel the world differently. One aspect of perception that poses difficulty for people with ASD is ignoring distractions - when performing visual tasks, increasing (but not all) evidence suggests that subjects with ASD experience more interference from irrelevant information than typical controls, becoming slower and less accurate in the face of distraction. A deficit in attentional selection might not only affect perception, but might further underlie the difficulties that individuals with ASD have in coping with everyday cognitive tasks in complex real-world environments. In the proposed research, we will pinpoint the specific stage(s) of attentional selection that are impaired in ASD using behavioral psychophysics. Further, we will test the involvement of the pulvinar and multiple-demand (MD) network, two brain regions known to support attentional selection, in ASD using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffusion weighted imaging (DWI). The proposed experiments will address three specific questions: 1) Which attentional selection functions are impaired in ASD, and which are spared? 2) Which parts of the brain's attentional network show abnormal responses in ASD? 3) Is the anatomy of attentional areas, including their white matter connections, disrupted in ASD? The answers to these questions will advance our understanding of the cognitive and neural phenotype of ASD, and at the same time inform our understanding of visual attention and its brain basis in typical individuals. The broader objective of the proposed studies is to cultivate new expertise in studying subjects with autism, and in the design, analysis, and interpretation of structural imaging studies (including both morphometry and diffusion- weighted imaging). PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Almost 1 in 100 children born in the United States will be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), making ASD one of the most prevalent neurodevelopmental disorders in the US and worldwide. Autism can have devastating consequences, one of which is a difficulty focusing attention on important items while ignoring distracting ones. The research we propose here is aimed at understanding how visual attention is affected in autism, and what areas of the brain are involved; the outcomes of this work will speak to potential therapeutic interventions for those with autism, as well as advancing our basic understanding of how visual attention operates in ASD and typical individuals.

描述（由申请人提供）：自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的核心诊断标准是社交和沟通方面的缺陷。然而，自闭症的另一面是它对基本感知的影响：ASD患者以不同的方式看待，倾听和感受世界。对ASD患者造成困难的感知的一个方面是忽略分心-在执行视觉任务时，越来越多（但不是全部）的证据表明，ASD受试者比典型的对照组受到更多不相关信息的干扰，在分心面前变得更慢，更不准确。注意力选择的缺陷不仅可能影响感知，而且可能进一步加剧自闭症谱系障碍患者在复杂的现实世界环境中处理日常认知任务时遇到的困难。在拟议的研究中，我们将使用行为心理物理学来查明自闭症谱系障碍中注意力选择受损的具体阶段。此外，我们将使用功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）和弥散加权成像（DWI）来测试ASD中枕和多需求（MD）网络的参与，这两个已知支持注意力选择的大脑区域。这些实验将解决三个具体问题：1）在ASD中，哪些注意力选择功能受损，哪些没有受损？2)ASD患者大脑注意力网络的哪些部分会出现异常反应？3)注意区域的解剖结构，包括它们的白色物质连接，在ASD中是否被破坏？这些问题的答案将促进我们对ASD的认知和神经表型的理解，同时告知我们对典型个体的视觉注意及其大脑基础的理解。拟议研究的更广泛目标是培养研究自闭症受试者以及结构成像研究（包括形态测量和扩散加权成像）的设计、分析和解释方面的新专业知识。 公共卫生相关性：在美国出生的儿童中，每100名中就有1名被诊断患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD），这使得ASD成为美国和全球最普遍的神经发育障碍之一。自闭症可能会产生毁灭性的后果，其中之一是难以将注意力集中在重要的项目上，而忽略分散注意力的项目。我们在这里提出的研究旨在了解视觉注意力如何影响自闭症，以及涉及大脑的哪些区域;这项工作的结果将为自闭症患者提供潜在的治疗干预措施，以及推进我们对视觉注意力如何在ASD和典型个体中运作的基本理解。