The symptoms of autism spectrum disorder(ASD) have been hypothesized to be caused by changes in brain connectivity. From the clinical perspective, the‘‘disconnectivity'' hypothesis has been used to explain chara...The symptoms of autism spectrum disorder(ASD) have been hypothesized to be caused by changes in brain connectivity. From the clinical perspective, the‘‘disconnectivity'' hypothesis has been used to explain characteristic impairments in ‘‘socio-emotional'' function.Therefore, in this study we compared the facial emotional recognition(FER) feature and the integrity of socialemotional-related white-matter tracts between children and adolescents with high-functioning ASD(HFA) and their typically developing(TD) counterparts. The correlation between the two factors was explored to find out if impairment of the white-matter tracts is the neural basis of social-emotional disorders. Compared with the TD group,FER was significantly impaired and the fractional anisotropy value of the right cingulate fasciculus was increased in the HFA group(P / 0.01). In conclusion, the FER function of children and adolescents with HFA was impaired and the microstructure of the cingulate fasciculus had abnormalities.展开更多
基金supported by The National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFC1306200)the National Natural Science Foundation of China (91132750)+1 种基金Major Projects of the National Social Science Foundation of China (14ZDB161)the Key Research and Development Program of Jiangsu Province, China (BE2016616)
文摘The symptoms of autism spectrum disorder(ASD) have been hypothesized to be caused by changes in brain connectivity. From the clinical perspective, the‘‘disconnectivity'' hypothesis has been used to explain characteristic impairments in ‘‘socio-emotional'' function.Therefore, in this study we compared the facial emotional recognition(FER) feature and the integrity of socialemotional-related white-matter tracts between children and adolescents with high-functioning ASD(HFA) and their typically developing(TD) counterparts. The correlation between the two factors was explored to find out if impairment of the white-matter tracts is the neural basis of social-emotional disorders. Compared with the TD group,FER was significantly impaired and the fractional anisotropy value of the right cingulate fasciculus was increased in the HFA group(P / 0.01). In conclusion, the FER function of children and adolescents with HFA was impaired and the microstructure of the cingulate fasciculus had abnormalities.