Amygdala volume and nonverbal social impairment in adolescent and adult males with autism
Amygdala volume and nonverbal social impairment in adolescent and adult males with autism
复制标题
DOI：
10.1001/archpsyc.63.12.1417
复制
发表时间：
2006-12-01
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Davidson, Richard J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Nacewicz, Brendon M.;Dalton, Kim M.;Davidson, Richard J.
背景：自闭症是一种原因不明的综合征，以社会行为的异常发展为特征。杏仁核在情绪处理中起关键作用，试图将杏仁核的病理特征与自闭症联系起来，但几乎没有达成共识。目的：评估自闭症谱系障碍患者的杏仁核体积及其与社会行为实验室测量的关系，以检查杏仁核结构的变化是否与症状严重程度有关。设计：我们对杏仁核体积进行了2项横断面研究，在高分辨率解剖磁共振图像上盲测诊断。参与者是54名年龄在8岁到25岁之间的男性，其中23人患有自闭症，5人患有阿斯伯格综合征或广泛性发育障碍，他们是在发育障碍学术中心招募并进行评估的，以及26名年龄和性别匹配的社区志愿者。修订后的自闭症诊断访谈用于确认诊断，并验证与社会功能实验室测量的关系。主要观察测量：杏仁核体积、面部表情判断和眼球跟踪。结果：在研究1中，杏仁核较小的自闭症患者辨别情绪和中性表情的速度最慢(P=0.02)，对眼睛区域的注视最少(P=0.04)。根据自闭症诊断访谈-修订版的报告，这些人在儿童早期受到的社交损害最严重(P
Background: Autism is a syndrome of unknown cause, marked by abnormal development of social behavior. Attempts to link pathological features of the amygdala, which plays a key role in emotional processing, to autism have shown little consensus.Objective: To evaluate amygdala volume in individuals with autism spectrum disorders and its relationship to laboratory measures of social behavior to examine whether variations in amygdala structure relate to symptom severity.Design: We conducted 2 cross-sectional studies of amygdala volume, measured blind to diagnosis on high-resolution, anatomical magnetic resonance images. Participants were 54 males aged 8 to 25 years, including 23 with autism and 5 with Asperger syndrome or pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified, recruited and evaluated at an academic center for developmental disabilities and 26 age- and sex-matched community volunteers. The Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised was used to confirm diagnoses and to validate relationships with laboratory measures of social function.Main Outcome Measures: Amygdala volume, judgment of facial expressions, and eye tracking. Results: In study 1, individuals with autism who had small amygdalae were slowest to distinguish emotional from neutral expressions (P=.02) and showed least fixation of eye regions (P=.04). These same individuals were most socially impaired in early childhood, as reported on the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (P