Silani Giorgia, Bird Geoffrey, Brindley Rachel, Singer Tania, Frith Chris, Frith Uta
University College London, London, UK.
Soc Neurosci. 2008;3(2):97-112. doi: 10.1080/17470910701577020.
Autism is associated with an inability to identify and distinguish one's own feelings. We assessed this inability using alexithymia and empathy questionnaires, and used fMRI to investigate brain activity while introspecting on emotion. Individuals with high functioning autism/Asperger syndrome (HFA/AS) were compared with matched controls. Participants rated stimuli from the International Affective Picture System twice, once according to the degree of un/pleasantness that the pictures induced, and once according to their color balance. The groups differed significantly on both alexithymia and empathy questionnaires. Alexithymia and lack of empathy were correlated, indicating a link between understanding one's own and others' emotions. For both groups a strong relationship between questionnaire scores and brain activity was found in the anterior insula (AI), when participants were required to assess their feelings to unpleasant pictures. Regardless of self-reported degree of emotional awareness, individuals with HFA/AS differed from controls when required to introspect on their feelings by showing reduced activation in self-reflection/mentalizing regions. Thus, we conclude that difficulties in emotional awareness are related to hypoactivity in AI in both individuals with HFA/AS and controls, and that the particular difficulties in emotional awareness in individuals with HFA/AS are not related to their impairments in self-reflection/mentalizing.
自闭症与无法识别和区分自己的情感有关。我们使用述情障碍和共情问卷评估了这种能力缺失，并使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来研究在反思情感时的大脑活动。将高功能自闭症/阿斯伯格综合征（HFA/AS）患者与匹配的对照组进行比较。参与者对国际情感图片系统中的刺激物进行了两次评分，一次根据图片引发的不愉快程度，另一次根据其颜色平衡。两组在述情障碍和共情问卷上存在显著差异。述情障碍与缺乏共情相关，表明理解自己和他人情感之间存在联系。当要求参与者评估他们对不愉快图片的感受时，两组在问卷得分与前脑岛（AI）的大脑活动之间均发现了很强的关系。无论自我报告的情感意识程度如何，当要求HFA/AS患者反思自己的感受时，他们与对照组不同，表现为自我反思/心理化区域的激活减少。因此，我们得出结论，情感意识方面的困难与HFA/AS患者和对照组的前脑岛活动不足有关，并且HFA/AS患者在情感意识方面的特殊困难与他们在自我反思/心理化方面的损伤无关。
