孤独症谱系障碍社会脑神经网络基础及其研究进展

孤独症谱系障碍(ASD)的核心诊断特征是社会交流障碍以及受限和重复的行为和兴趣,症状常在生命的最初几年出现。过去的二十年内,神经成像揭示了许多“社会性”大脑的非典型活动和异常连通性的发现,包括梭状回对面部和凝视的分析、杏仁核的情绪处理、默认模式网络的心智化以及镜像神经元相关区域对他人行为的模仿和理解,但对于社交功能缺陷潜在的神经生理机制还未达成一致。除了方法学上的挑战以及聚焦于单个大脑网络的连通性研究以外,更深层次的问题是ASD的极强异质性。这种不一致的发现,可能是由于诊断标准的变化以及学龄前期的ASD患儿存在非典型的神经发育轨迹,因此,有必要进行孤独症亚型的队列研究和大样本的纵向队列研究。

Research progress of neural network basis on social brain in autism spectrum disorder

Autism spectrum disorder(ASD) is a heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairments in social communication and restricted and repetitive behaviors and interests,with symptom onset during the first few years of life. Over the past two decades,neuroimaging has revealed numerous findings of atypical activity and abnormal connectivity of "social brain" networks,including analysis of faces and gaze by the fusiform face area(FFA),emotional processing in the amygdala,mentalizing in the default mode network(DMN) and imitation and understanding of others′ actions by the regions associated with the mirror neuron system(MNS),yet no consensus view on crucial developmental causes of social communications deficits has emerged. Aside from methodological challenges and studies on the connectivity of individual brain networks,the deeper problem concerns the strong heterogeneity of ASD. This inconsistent finding may be due to changes in diagnostic criteria and the atypical neurodevelopment trajectories of autism at preschool period. Therefore,cohort studies on subtypes of autism and of longitudinal cohort with a large sample are warranted.