Cortical Underconnectivity Coupled with Preserved Visuospatial Cognition in Autism: Evidence from an fMRI Study of an Embedded Figures Task

被引:117
作者
Damarla, Saudamini Roy [1 ]
Keller, Timothy A. [1 ]
Kana, Rajesh K. [1 ,2 ]
Cherkassky, Vladimir L. [1 ]
Williams, Diane L. [1 ,3 ]
Minshew, Nancy J. [4 ,5 ]
Just, Marcel Adam [1 ]
机构
[1] Carnegie Mellon Univ, Dept Psychol, Ctr Cognit Brain Imaging, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA
[2] Univ Alabama, Dept Psychol, Birmingham, AL 35294 USA
[3] Duquesne Univ, Dept Speech Language Pathol, Pittsburgh, PA 15219 USA
[4] Univ Pittsburgh, Sch Med, Dept Psychiat, Pittsburgh, PA USA
[5] Univ Pittsburgh, Sch Med, Dept Neurol, Pittsburgh, PA 15261 USA
关键词
embedded figures task; functional connectivity; corpus callosum; functional MRI; HIGH-FUNCTIONING AUTISM; CORPUS-CALLOSUM; DISEMBEDDING PERFORMANCE; SENTENCE COMPREHENSION; ASPERGER-SYNDROME; CONNECTIVITY; INDIVIDUALS; CHILDREN; SPECTRUM; MEMORY;
D O I
10.1002/aur.153
中图分类号
B84 [心理学]; C [社会科学总论]; Q98 [人类学];
学科分类号
03 ; 0303 ; 030303 ; 04 ; 0402 ;
摘要
Individuals with high-functioning autism sometimes exhibit intact or superior performance on visuospatial tasks, in contrast to impaired functioning in other domains such as language comprehension, executive tasks, and social functions. The goal of the current study was to investigate the neural bases of preserved visuospatial processing in high-functioning autism from the perspective of the cortical underconnectivity theory. We used a combination of behavioral, functional magnetic resonance imaging, functional connectivity, and corpus callosum morphometric methodological tools. Thirteen participants with high-functioning autism and 13 controls (age-, IQ-, and gender-matched) were scanned while performing an Embedded Figures Task. Despite the ability of the autism group to attain behavioral performance comparable to the control group, the brain imaging results revealed several group differences consistent with the cortical underconnectivity account of autism. First, relative to controls, the autism group showed less activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal and inferior parietal areas and more activation in visuospatial (bilateral superior parietal extending to inferior parietal and right occipital) areas. Second, the autism group demonstrated lower functional connectivity between higher-order working memory/executive areas and visuospatial regions (between frontal and parietal-occipital). Third, the size of the corpus callosum (an index of anatomical connectivity) was positively correlated with frontal posterior (parietal and occipital) functional connectivity in the autism group. Thus, even in the visuospatial domain, where preserved performance among people with autism is observed, the neuroimaging signatures of cortical underconnectivity persist.
引用
收藏
页码:273 / 279
页数:7
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