Multimodel Assessment of Social Process Systems across Neurodevelopmental Disorders

 描述(由申请人提供)：社会过程系统的中断是多种神经发育障碍的标志，导致受影响个人严重的功能障碍和巨额的公共卫生成本。该项目建议通过多个层次的分析，包括自我报告、行为和生理，考察社交表现和面部沟通接受之间的关系(RDoC社交过程领域的社交沟通结构中的一个子结构)。面孔、情绪知觉和社会沟通功能的维度测量将从三个招募渠道中每一个来源的50名成年人的跨诊断样本中收集：(1)耶鲁儿童研究中心发展障碍诊所和自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)研究计划；(2)耶鲁精神病学系针对早期精神病(STEP)临床和持续精神分裂症谱系障碍(SZS)研究计划；(3)社区对照，呈现在社交方面没有临床障碍。虽然目前按不同的诊断分类进行分类，但ASD和SZS在自我报告的社会特征(例如，社会动机和参与度)、行为(例如，对人脸的扫描模式、面孔识别和情绪表达缺陷)和生理(例如，面部和情绪感知的电生理指数)方面表现出共同的社会功能障碍和重叠的非典型性。这些发现表明在这些障碍中受影响的潜在神经过程的共性，并强调了通过组织跨越传统诊断类别的维度来研究社会功能障碍的重要性。这项研究利用了一种新的实验范式，将高速眼球跟踪(ET；测量一个人在计算机屏幕上的位置)和脑电记录(EEG；测量大脑反应)相结合，通过使屏幕上对参与者眼睛注视做出反应的面部动画来模拟社会互动。我们使用动态的、计算机生成的、高度逼真的面孔，通过“回头看”或做出面部表情来回应参与者的凝视。通过实验，我们将社交能力的连续指数与ET和EEG测量的可变性联系起来。初步数据证明了这种创新方法的可行性，并揭示了凝视模式和对互动面孔的神经反应都与临床和非临床范围的社会功能有关。我们的创新方法将通过在自然的、互动的背景下研究社会知觉，促进对神经发育障碍中社会功能障碍的大脑基础的理解。这项研究将导致基于可观察到的行为和神经生物学测量的维度对精神障碍进行分类的新方法。它提供了显著的临床翻译益处，包括识别治疗靶点，开发基于生物学的治疗反应预测因子，创造新的治疗方法，以及探索新的标记物来解析异质性并更有效地概念化神经发育障碍中受影响的社会过程。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Disruption of social process systems is a hallmark of multiple neurodevelopmental disorders, resulting in significant functional impairment for affected individuals and substantial public health costs. This project proposes to examine the relationship between social performance and Reception of Facial Communication (a subconstruct within the Social Communication construct of the RDoC Social Processes domain) across multiple levels of analysis, spanning self-report, behavior, and physiology. Dimensional measures of face and emotion perception and social communicative function will be collected in a transdiagnostic sample of 50 adults from each of three recruitment streams: (1) the Yale Child Study Center Developmental Disabilities Clinic and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Research Program; (2) the Yale Psychiatry Department Specialized Treatment for Early Psychosis (STEP) Clinic and ongoing schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SZS) research program; (3) community controls presenting without clinical impairment in social communication. Though currently classified by separate diagnostic taxonomies, ASD and SZS exhibit shared social dysfunction and overlapping atypicalities in self-reported social characteristics (e.g., social motivation and engagement), behavior (e.g., scanning patterns to human faces, face recognition, and emotional expression deficits), and physiology (e.g., electrophysiological indices of face and emotion perception ). These findings suggest commonalities in the underlying neural processes affected in these disorders and emphasize the import of studying social dysfunction by organizing dimensions that cut across traditional diagnostic categories. This research utilizes a novel experimental paradigm that combines high-speed eye-tracking (ET; to measure where a person looks on a computer screen) and electroencephalographic recording (EEG; to measure brain response) to enable simulation of social interactions by animating on-screen faces that respond to the participant's eye gaze. We use dynamic, computer-generated, highly realistic faces that respond to the gaze of participants by "looking back" or making a facial expression. Across experiments, we relate continuous indices of social ability to variability in ET and EEG measures. Preliminary data demonstrate the viability of this innovative approach and reveal that both gaze patterns and neural response to interactive faces are associated with social functioning across the clinical and non-clinical range. Our innovative approach will advance understanding of the brain basis of social dysfunction in neurodevelopmental disorders by studying social perception in a naturalistic, interactive context. This research will lead to new ways of classifying mental disorders based on dimensions of observable behavior and neurobiological measures. It offers significant clinical translational benefits, including identifyng therapeutic targets, developing biologically-based predictors of treatment response, creating new treatment approaches, and exploring new markers to parse heterogeneity and more effectively conceptualize social processes affected across neurodevelopmental disorders.