Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of the RWTH Aachen, Neuenhofer Weg 21, Germany.
Neuroimage. 2010 Jan 1;49(1):1055-65. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.07.057. Epub 2009 Jul 30.
A deficit in empathy has been repeatedly described in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and also, albeit less markedly, in their unaffected relatives. Here, we aimed to investigate the neural mechanisms of empathy in ASD, and to explore familial contributions to empathy correlates. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, 15 boys with ASD, 11 fathers of adolescents with ASD, and two control groups comparable for age and IQ (n=15 typically developing boys and their fathers (n=9)) were investigated during an empathy task. Emotional faces were presented and participants were either asked to infer the emotional state from the face (other-task) or to judge their own emotional response to the face (self-task). When attributing emotions to self and other, the ASD group showed diminished fusiform gyrus activation compared to controls. Neural activity in the fusiform gyrus was inversely related to social deficits in ASD subjects. Moreover, when ASD subjects inferred their own emotional response to faces, they showed less congruent reactions and inferior frontal gyrus activity was decreased. Although fathers of ASD children scored higher on a self-rating scale for autistic symptoms compared to control fathers, their task performance was unimpaired. However, neurally, fathers of affected children also showed reduced fusiform gyrus activation when inferring others' emotions. Shared abnormalities in fusiform gyrus activation in affected adolescents and first-degree relatives suggest that this dysfunction constitutes a fundamental deviation in ASD. Moreover, the findings provide evidence that both aberrant neural face and mirroring mechanisms are implicated in empathy impairments in ASD.
在自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者中，同理心缺陷已被反复描述，在其未受影响的亲属中也存在同理心缺陷，尽管程度较轻。在这里，我们旨在研究 ASD 中的同理心神经机制，并探讨同理心相关性的家族贡献。使用功能磁共振成像，我们研究了 15 名患有 ASD 的男孩、11 名患有 ASD 的青少年的父亲，以及两个年龄和智商相当的对照组（n=15 名典型发育的男孩及其父亲（n=9）），他们在同理心任务中接受了测试。呈现情绪面孔，参与者被要求从面部推断情绪状态（他人任务）或判断自己对面孔的情绪反应（自我任务）。当将情绪归因于自我和他人时，与对照组相比，ASD 组的梭状回激活减少。ASD 受试者的梭状回神经活动与 ASD 受试者的社交缺陷呈负相关。此外，当 ASD 受试者推断自己对面孔的情绪反应时，他们表现出不一致的反应，额下回活动减少。尽管 ASD 儿童的父亲在自闭症症状自评量表上的得分高于对照组的父亲，但他们的任务表现并未受损。然而，从神经学上看，受影响儿童的父亲在推断他人的情绪时，梭状回的激活也减少了。受影响的青少年和一级亲属的梭状回激活的共同异常表明，这种功能障碍是 ASD 的基本偏差。此外，这些发现提供了证据，表明异常的神经面部和镜像机制都与 ASD 中的同理心缺陷有关。
