Multisensory Integration of Speech and Gesture in the Normal and Autistic Brain

描述（由申请人提供）：进行面对面交流涉及到演讲者整个身体所显示的共同发生的听觉和视觉线索的整合。这项拟议中的研究将检验大脑如何在正常发育的儿童、正常成年人和患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的儿童的自然社交交流中整合这两种线索——语言和节拍手势（手势的一个重要子类，代表语言韵律）。首先，典型发育大脑的规范模式、发育终点和语言和节拍手势的多感觉整合位点将被表征。正常发育的儿童和正常成人将接受功能性磁共振成像（fMRI），同时观看视频录音的摘录，其中语音伴随着自然发生的打拍子手势，语音中随机无意义的动作以及语音中静止的身体。比较观看这三种视听组合时大脑的活动，将揭示当语音伴随着自然发生的打拍子手势时，大脑对语音的反应更显著的区域，以及与语音相关的视听信息的多感官整合的神经区域。其次，患有自闭症谱系障碍的儿童和典型的发育匹配的对照组将在观看相同的手势刺激时接受功能磁共振成像。这些群体之间的比较将使我们能够评估自闭症儿童——他们在社会沟通和产生自然语言韵律方面有充分的证据——是否利用异常的网络和/或在整合语言和节拍手势时表现出显著的激活差异。作为第一个fMRI研究自然语言伴随节拍手势，拟议的研究将对公共卫生具有重要意义。这些发现不仅有助于更好地理解自闭症谱系障碍的神经基础，也将为自闭症谱系障碍的发育干预提供信息。此外，这些发现将影响各种语言和交流障碍的语言治疗技术。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Engaging in face-to-face communication involves the integration of co-occurring auditory and visual cues displayed by the entire bodies of speakers. The proposed research will examine how the brain integrates two of these cues-speech and beat gesture (an important subcategory of hand gesture that represents speech prosody)-during natural social communication in typically developing children, normal adults, and children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). First, normative patterns in the typically developing brain, developmental endpoints, and multisensory integration sites of speech and beat gesture will be characterized. Typically developing children and normal adults will undergo functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while viewing extracts of a video recording where speech is accompanied by naturally-occurring beat gesture, random meaningless movements with speech, and a still body with speech. Comparing brain activation in response to viewing these three audiovisual combinations will reveal the brain areas that respond more significantly to speech when it is accompanied by naturally-occurring beat gesture as well as the neural areas underlying multisensory integration of speech-related audio and visual information. Second, children with ASD and typically developing matched controls will undergo fMRI while viewing the same gesture stimuli. Comparisons between these groups will allow us to assess whether children with ASD-who have well-documented deficits in social communication and production of naturalistic speech prosody-utilize abnormal networks and/or demonstrate significant differences in activation when integrating speech and beat gesture. As the first fMRI studies of natural speech-accompanying beat gesture, the proposed research will have important implications for public health. These findings will not only lead to a better understanding of the neural foundations of ASD but will also inform developmental interventions for ASD. In addition, the findings will impact speech therapy techniques for a variety of language and communication disorders.