The Role of the Motor System in Speech and Language in Autism

运动系统在自闭症言语和语言中的作用

• 批准号: 10748131
• 负责人: Amanda O'Brien
• 金额: $ 3.56万
• 依托单位: HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-07-01 至 2025-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10748131
• 关键词: Academia; Address; Adult; Age; American Psychiatric Association; Articulation; Behavior; Behavioral; Brain; Brain region; Child; Clinical; Communication; Development; Diagnosis; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Goals; Heterogeneity; Individual; Knowledge; Language; Literature; Measures; Mentors; Motor; Motor Skills; Movement; Oral; Participant; Persons; Phenotype; Play; Population; Prevalence; Process; Production; Research; Role; Scanning; Speech; Symptoms; System; Testing; Training; Validation; Variant; Vocabulary; Work; Writing; adult with autism spectrum disorder; autism spectrum disorder; autistic; autistic children; base; behavioral phenotyping; behavioral study; brain based; career; design; improved; individuals with autism spectrum disorder; insight; interest; neuroimaging; novel; recruit; repetitive behavior; skills; social communication; social skills; syntax

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition impacting 1 in 44 children that is diagnosed based on social communication challenges and restrictive/repetitive behaviors, including repetitive motor movements. While social communication differences in autistic individuals have been widely researched, motor skills, particularly those related to speech production, remain understudied. This gap in the literature is surprising given the growing evidence that motor differences are some of the earliest to emerge, are a clinically meaningful feature of autism that underlie many core symptoms, and are correlated with both receptive and expressive language skills. A few preliminary studies indicate that there are motor-based brain differences related to speech production and language in autism. These results suggest that the motor act of speech production may play a key role in the communication challenges observed in autism, however the brain and behavioral bases of speech motor profiles are currently poorly characterized. We can advance understanding of the underlying speech production motor differences, and related functional consequences, in autistic individuals through an improved characterization of the speech motor system and speech and language behaviors. Here, I propose to test the hypothesis that speech-motor brain regions are less engaged during speech production tasks in autistic compared to neurotypical (NT) adults, and that this disengagement is related to overall motor, speech, and language skills. I will recruit 30 NT adults and 45 autistic adults with diverse language profiles for an fMRI study paired with deep speech behavioral phenotyping. In Aim 1, I will use a novel functional localizer to identify and characterize the speech production network in each individual participant and compare the networks across groups. In Aim 2, I will use these individual networks as regions of interest in which to examine brain activation during a language- relevant speech production task, nonword repetition. As part of Aim 2, I will conduct deep speech and language phenotyping of the autistic adults, in order to obtain comprehensive profiles of their communication skills. I will then examine the relationship between the speech production activation during nonword repetition and each participant’s speech, language, and motor profiles. These aims will produce a novel localizer to characterize the speech production regions, elucidate speech-motor brain differences between NT and autistic adults, and provide key insights into the relationship between speech production related motor regions and communication in autism. Knowledge gained from this project will lead to a better understanding of role of the motor system in communication in autism across diverse language phenotypes.

项目总结/摘要 自闭症是一种神经发育状况，影响44名儿童中的1名，其诊断基于社交网络。 沟通挑战和限制性/重复性行为，包括重复性运动。而 自闭症个体的社会沟通差异已经得到了广泛的研究，运动技能，特别是 那些与言语产生有关的研究仍然不足。考虑到越来越多的 有证据表明，运动差异是最早出现的，是自闭症的一个临床意义的特征， 这是许多核心症状的基础，并与接受和表达语言技能相关。几 初步研究表明，基于运动的大脑差异与言语产生有关， 自闭症的语言这些结果表明，言语产生的运动行为可能在言语产生中起着关键作用。 在自闭症中观察到的沟通挑战，然而，语言运动特征的大脑和行为基础 目前还不太清楚。我们可以进一步了解潜在的言语产生马达， 差异，以及相关的功能后果，在自闭症患者中，通过改善表征， 言语运动系统以及言语和语言行为。在这里，我建议测试的假设， 与自闭症患者相比， 神经型（NT）成人，这种脱离与整体运动，言语和语言技能有关。我 将招募30名NT成年人和45名具有不同语言特征的自闭症成年人进行fMRI研究， 言语行为表型分析在目标1中，我将使用一种新的功能定位器来识别和表征 每个参与者的语音产生网络，并比较各组之间的网络。在目标2中，我 将使用这些单独的网络作为感兴趣的区域，以检查语言过程中的大脑激活- 相关言语产生任务，非词重复。作为目标2的一部分，我将进行深度演讲和语言 对自闭症成年人进行表型分析，以获得他们沟通技能的全面概况。我会 然后研究非词重复期间言语产生激活与每个 参与者的言语、语言和运动特征。这些目标将产生一个新的定位器，以表征 言语产生区域，阐明NT和自闭症成年人之间的言语运动脑差异， 提供关键的见解之间的关系，言语生产相关的运动区和沟通 孤独症。从这个项目中获得的知识将导致更好地理解运动系统的作用， 自闭症患者在不同语言表型中的交流