Department of Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
Neuropsychologia. 2010 Oct;48(12):3665-70. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.07.022. Epub 2010 Jul 22.
Difficulty interpreting facial expressions has been reported in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and is thought to be associated with amygdala abnormalities. To further explore the neural basis of abnormal emotional face processing in ASD, we conducted an fMRI study of emotional face matching in high-functioning adults with ASD and age, IQ, and gender matched controls. In addition, we investigated whether there was a relationship between self-reported social anxiety and fMRI activation. During fMRI scanning, study participants were instructed to match facial expressions depicting fear or anger. The control condition was a comparable shape-matching task. The control group evidenced significantly increased left prefrontal activation and decreased activation in the occipital lobes compared to the ASD group during emotional face matching. Further, within the ASD group, greater social anxiety was associated with increased activation in right amygdala and left middle temporal gyrus, and decreased activation in the fusiform face area. These results indicate that level of social anxiety mediates the neural response to emotional face perception in ASD.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者存在面部表情识别困难，被认为与杏仁核异常有关。为了进一步探究 ASD 患者异常情绪面孔加工的神经基础，我们对高功能 ASD 成人和年龄、智商和性别匹配的对照组进行了 fMRI 情绪面孔匹配研究。此外，我们还研究了社交焦虑自评与 fMRI 激活之间是否存在关系。在 fMRI 扫描期间，研究参与者被要求匹配恐惧或愤怒表情的面孔。对照组为类似的形状匹配任务。与 ASD 组相比，对照组在进行情绪面孔匹配时，左侧前额叶激活增加，枕叶激活减少。此外，在 ASD 组中，社交焦虑程度越高，右侧杏仁核和左侧颞中回的激活程度越高，梭状回面孔区的激活程度越低。这些结果表明，社交焦虑程度调节了 ASD 患者对面孔情绪知觉的神经反应。
