Brain-Body Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612, USA.
Int J Psychophysiol. 2013 Jun;88(3):261-70. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2012.11.009. Epub 2012 Nov 29.
The current study evaluated processes underlying two common symptoms (i.e., state regulation problems and deficits in auditory processing) associated with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders. Although these symptoms have been treated in the literature as unrelated, when informed by the Polyvagal Theory, these symptoms may be viewed as the predictable consequences of depressed neural regulation of an integrated social engagement system, in which there is down regulation of neural influences to the heart (i.e., via the vagus) and to the middle ear muscles (i.e., via the facial and trigeminal cranial nerves). Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and heart period were monitored to evaluate state regulation during a baseline and two auditory processing tasks (i.e., the SCAN tests for Filtered Words and Competing Words), which were used to evaluate auditory processing performance. Children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) were contrasted with aged matched typically developing children. The current study identified three features that distinguished the ASD group from a group of typically developing children: 1) baseline RSA, 2) direction of RSA reactivity, and 3) auditory processing performance. In the ASD group, the pattern of change in RSA during the attention demanding SCAN tests moderated the relation between performance on the Competing Words test and IQ. In addition, in a subset of ASD participants, auditory processing performance improved and RSA increased following an intervention designed to improve auditory processing.
本研究评估了与自闭症谱系障碍诊断相关的两种常见症状（即状态调节问题和听觉处理缺陷）的潜在过程。尽管这些症状在文献中被视为不相关，但根据多系统理论，这些症状可能被视为受压抑的神经调节综合社交参与系统的可预测后果，其中对心脏的神经影响（即通过迷走神经）和中耳肌肉的神经影响（即通过面部和三叉神经）受到抑制。呼吸窦性心律失常（RSA）和心率被监测以评估基线和两个听觉处理任务（即用于评估过滤词和竞争词的 SCAN 测试）期间的状态调节，这些任务用于评估听觉处理性能。自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童与年龄匹配的典型发育儿童进行对比。本研究确定了三个特征，可以将 ASD 组与典型发育组区分开来：1）基线 RSA，2）RSA 反应的方向，以及 3）听觉处理性能。在 ASD 组中，在注意力要求高的 SCAN 测试中 RSA 变化的模式调节了竞争词测试表现与智商之间的关系。此外，在 ASD 参与者的亚组中，听觉处理性能提高，RSA 增加，这是由于设计用于改善听觉处理的干预措施。
