Social visual pursuit in non-human primates with mesiofrontal-limbic lesions

描述（由申请人提供）：适当的社会技能的发展需要能够辨别和解释来自同种面孔的社会信号，以及监测他们的社会互动。这些基本技能在自闭症患者中是不正常的，可能是自闭症患者严重的社会缺陷的原因。对青少年和成年自闭症患者的社会视觉追求的研究表明，他们对面孔和自然主义社会情境的视觉扫描都是非典型的模式。与正常受试者相反，自闭症患者更倾向于看嘴部而不是眼睛区域，忽视了关键的社交和交流线索，而优先关注非社交线索。虽然人类和非人类灵长类动物的研究已经开始提供一些信息的关键组成部分的神经网络介导的社会认知，如杏仁核和高度互连的颞中结构和内侧前额叶皮层，许多知识仍然有待收购在这一领域。待检验的总体假设是，成年猴子的近中额边缘结构的病变是否会导致异常的面部处理和视觉社会取向模式，例如在自闭症个体中观察到的模式。本申请的具体目的是比较视觉扫描模式：1）交流灵长类动物的静止图像和录像片段与无生命和有生命物体的图像和录像片段，以及2）在经历近中额叶边缘损伤的完整与手术的成年猴子中，猴子与无生命背景干扰之间的自然主义社会互动的录像片段。这项创新的研究将推进我们对灵长类动物社会认知的神经生物学基础的认识，特别是对社会信号的感知和识别，从而将为自闭症中的神经功能障碍过程提供重要的见解，并为开发新疗法提供重要线索。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The development of proper social skills requires the ability to discern and interpret social signals arising from conspecific faces as well as that to monitor their social interactions. These basic skills are abnormal in individual with autism and may account for the profound social deficits seen in autism. Studies of social visual pursuit in adolescents and adults with autism have shown atypical patterns of visual scanning of both faces and naturalistic social situations. Autistic individuals, as opposed to normal subjects, look preferentially at the mouth than the eye area of faces and neglect crucial social and communicative cues while focusing preferentially on non-social cues. Although human as well as non-human primate studies have begun to provide some information on the key components of the neural network mediating social cognition, such as the amygdala and highly interconnected midtemporal structures and the mesial prefrontal cortex, much knowledge remains to be acquired in this domain. The overall hypothesis to be tested is whether lesion of mesiofrontal-limbic structures in adult monkeys yield to abnormal face processing and visual social orientation patterns, such as those observed in autistic individuals. The specific aims of the present application are to compare visual scanning patterns 1) to still images and videotaped clips effaces of communicating primates versus that of inanimate and animate objects and 2) to videotaped clips of naturalistic social interactions between monkeys versus inanimate background distractions in intact versus operated adult monkeys who underwent mesiofrontal-limbic lesions. This innovative study will advance our knowledge of the neurobiological basis of primate social cognition, particularly perception and identification of social signals, and thus will provide critical insights into the neural dysfunctional processes seen in autism as well as significant clues for the development of new therapies.