Emotion-Modulated Psychophysiology of Autism Spectrum Disorders

自闭症谱系障碍的情绪调节心理生理学

• 批准号: 7915263
• 负责人: STEPHEN D BENNING
• 金额: $ 15.68万
• 依托单位: UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-08-14 至 2012-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7915263
• 关键词: Address; Affective; Animal Model; Attention; Autistic Disorder; Behavior; Behavior Therapy; Behavioral; Biological; Biological Assay; Biological Markers; Blinking; Characteristics; Child Development; Clinical; Cognitive deficits; Collaborations; Development; Developmental Disabilities; Diagnostic; Disease; Drug abuse; Emotional; Emotions; Face; Functional disorder; Future; Goals; Human; Image; Impairment; Individual; Intervention; Learning; Major Depressive Disorder; Measures; Mediating; Motivation; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; Neurobiology; Neurotransmitters; North Carolina; Painless; Persons; Phenotype; Process; Psychophysiology; Reaction; Reflex action; Relative (related person); Research; Schizophrenia; Severities; Social Environment; Stimulus; Structure; Symptoms; System; Universities; Withdrawal; affective modulation of startle; autism spectrum disorder; base; effective therapy; emotional stimulus; endophenotype; interest; member; mental representation; neurobiological mechanism; novel; novel strategies; psychobiologic; psychopharmacologic; public health relevance; response; social; treatment response

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The framework of this proposal is that the classic autism symptoms of social-cognitive deficits and restricted repetitive behaviors may both be characterized by dysregulated goal-directed responses to affective stimuli. Thus, we hypothesize that dysregulated neurobiological mechanisms mediating approach and withdrawal motivation may underlie these two seemingly disparate symptom domains. It has been argued that poorly modulated motivational responses are core features of other disorders, a conceptualization that has been fruitful because the neurobiological basis of goal-directed behaviors has been extensively studied in animal models, in human nonclinical contexts, and in human pathophysiological states. Additionally, because of established linkages between dysregulated motivational states and aberrant functioning of specific neurotransmitter systems, these lines of research have been successful in suggesting novel and effective treatment approaches in other disorders. We propose to leverage well-established psychophysiological measures of motivational states to assess the priming of neurobiologically-based defensive and appetitive systems in response to affective stimuli relevant to the autism behavioral phenotype. Specifically, we propose to measure affective modulation of psychophysiological responses to: (1) normative affective stimuli; (2) social stimuli, and (3) restricted interest stimuli in individuals with autism. Of prime relevance will be affective modulation of the startle eyeblink and postauricular reflex responses because, on theoretical grounds, they are ideally suited for assessing the response characteristics to social and restricted interest stimuli that are core features of autism. The project also represents an initial collaboration between two new members of NICHD Developmental Disabilities Research Centers (co-PI's Dr. Dichter at the University of North Carolina and Dr. Benning at Vanderbilt University) and brings together experts in the autism behavioral phenotype, psychophysiology, and child development to investigate a novel approach to characterizing the autism endophenotype. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This project seeks to better understand the pathophysiology of autism using painless and noninvasive psychophysiological measures. The information learned from this study would allow for future research that investigates whether these psychophysiological measures may have diagnostic utility and whether they may serve as biomarkers of treatment response.

描述（由申请人提供）：该建议的框架是，社会认知缺陷和限制性重复行为的经典自闭症症状可能都以对情感刺激的目标导向反应失调为特征。因此，我们推测，调节的神经生物学机制介导的方法和撤退的动机可能是这两个看似不同的症状域的基础。有人认为，调制不良的动机反应是其他疾病的核心特征，这一概念已经取得了丰硕的成果，因为目标导向行为的神经生物学基础已经在动物模型中进行了广泛的研究，在人类非临床背景下，在人类的病理生理状态。此外，由于在失调的动机状态和特定神经递质系统的异常功能之间建立了联系，这些研究已经成功地提出了其他疾病的新的和有效的治疗方法。我们建议利用完善的心理生理学措施的动机状态，以评估启动的神经生物学为基础的防御和食欲系统在响应情感刺激相关的自闭症行为表型。具体来说，我们建议测量情感调制的心理生理反应：（1）规范性情感刺激，（2）社会刺激，（3）限制性兴趣刺激自闭症患者。最重要的相关性将是惊吓眨眼和眼动反射反应的情感调节，因为从理论上讲，它们非常适合评估对社会和限制兴趣刺激的反应特征，这些刺激是自闭症的核心特征。该项目还代表了NICHD发育障碍研究中心的两名新成员（北卡罗来纳州大学的共同PI Dichter博士和范德比尔特大学的Benning博士）之间的初步合作，并汇集了自闭症行为表型，心理生理学和儿童发育方面的专家，以研究表征自闭症内在表型的新方法。公共卫生相关性：该项目旨在通过无痛和非侵入性的心理生理学措施更好地了解自闭症的病理生理学。从这项研究中了解到的信息将允许未来的研究，调查这些心理生理措施是否可能有诊断效用，以及它们是否可以作为治疗反应的生物标志物。