Eyeblink conditioning in school-aged children with ASD

描述（由申请人提供）：我们的项目旨在应用大脑功能的客观行为测量，可以识别自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的神经功能障碍部位。我们的范式将是一个强大的测量联想学习-巴甫洛夫眨眼条件反射（EBC）-评估如何更高的大脑功能的基本构建块可能会在学龄儿童自闭症。受试者将是99名10岁儿童，他们目前正在参加两项纵向研究之一：1）早期行为干预对ASD儿童认知发育的影响; 2）发展ASD的神经化学和神经结构风险因素。值得注意的是，我们所有的受试者都在24个月大时进行了神经化学和结构成像沿着目前正在进行的纵向临床和行为评估。该项目建立在强有力的初步数据的基础上，证明ASD的严重程度和EBC的性能缺陷是相关的。我们的目标是将EBC应用于一组控制良好的儿童，这些儿童的ASD病史已被广泛记录，以确定EBC是否有助于了解长期发育结果。由于这些儿童在大约24个月大时进行了高分辨率的脑解剖扫描和神经化学成像，我们现在可以将EBC表现的变化与早期脑形态和代谢的改变联系起来。EBC的一个优点是它不需要语言，社会互动或积极参与。 因此，EBC可以同等地应用于高功能儿童和非常低功能的ASD儿童，对于他们来说，难以获得行为发展的定量测量。该项目将产生以下影响：1）它将解决ASD发育过程和结果的长期结果研究的关键需求; 2）它将有助于确定ASD的潜在神经机制; 3）它可以指向在早期实施EBC以评估ASD风险。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Our project seeks to apply an objective behavioral measure of brain function that may identify sites of neural dysfunction in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Our paradigm will be a robust measure of associative learning - Pavlovian eyeblink conditioning (EBC) - to assess how fundamental building-blocks of higher brain function may be disrupted in school-aged children with ASD. The subjects will be 99 10-year-old children that are currently participating in one of two longitudinal studies examining: 1) the effet of an early behavioral intervention on the cognitive development of children with ASD; and 2) the neurochemical and neurostructural risk factors for developing ASD. Of note is that all of our subjects have had neurochemical and structural imaging at 24 months of age along with ongoing longitudinal clinical and behavioral assessments up to the current time. The project builds upon strong preliminary data demonstrating that ASD severity and EBC performance deficits are related. Our goal is to apply EBC in a well-controlled group of children whose ASD history has been extensively documented to determine whether EBC can aid in understanding long-term developmental outcome. Because the children had high-resolution anatomical brain scans and neurochemical imaging at approximately 24 months of age, we can now relate variability in EBC performance to alterations in early brain morphology and metabolism. An advantage of EBC is that it does not require language, social interaction, or active participation. Thus, EBC can be applied equally to high-functioning children and very low- functioning children with ASD for whom quantitative measures of behavioral development are difficult to obtain. The project will have the following impact: 1) it will address a crucial need for long-term outcome studies of developmental processes and outcomes in ASD; 2) it will help to identify the underlying neural mechanisms of ASD; 3) it could point to implementing EBC at earlier ages to assess ASD risk.