Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Division of Developmental Medicine, Children's Hospital Boston, 1 Autumn Street, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
Brain Topogr. 2011 Oct;24(3-4):220-8. doi: 10.1007/s10548-011-0176-z. Epub 2011 Mar 26.
Examining the neural correlates associated with processing social stimuli offers a viable option to the challenge of studying early social processing in infants at risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). The present investigation included 32 12-month olds at high risk for ASD and 24 low-risk control infants, defined on the basis of family history. Infants were presented with familiar and unfamiliar faces, and three components of interest were explored for amplitude and latency differences. The anticipated developmental effects of emerging hemispheric asymmetry for face-sensitive components (the N290 and P400) were observed, as were familiarity effects for a component related to attention (the Nc). Although there were no striking group differences in the neural response to faces, there was some evidence for a developmental lag in an attentional component for the high-risk group. The infant ASD endophenotype, though elusive, may be better defined through expanding the age of study and addressing change over time in response to varied stimuli.
研究与处理社会刺激相关的神经关联为研究自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）高危婴儿的早期社会处理提供了一种可行的选择。本研究包括 32 名 12 个月大的高 ASD 风险婴儿和 24 名低风险对照婴儿，这些婴儿是根据家族史定义的。给婴儿呈现熟悉和不熟悉的面孔，并探索了三个感兴趣的成分，以研究振幅和潜伏期的差异。观察到与面孔敏感成分（N290 和 P400）相关的新兴半球不对称的预期发育效应，以及与注意力相关的成分（Nc）的熟悉效应。尽管在面对面孔时，两组婴儿的神经反应没有明显差异，但高危组的注意力成分存在发育滞后的迹象。虽然婴儿自闭症的表现型难以捉摸，但通过扩大研究年龄并针对不同刺激的反应随时间变化进行研究，可能会更好地定义它。
