Sokhadze Estate M, Baruth Joshua M, Sears Lonnie, Sokhadze Guela E, El-Baz Ayman S, Williams Emily, Klapheke Robert, Casanova Manuel F
Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY ; Bioengineering, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY.
J Neurother. 2012;16(1):12-31. doi: 10.1080/10874208.2012.650119. Epub 2012 Mar 2.
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are very common developmental disorders which share some similar symptoms of social, emotional, and attentional deficits. This study is aimed to help understand the differences and similarities of these deficits using analysis of dense-array event-related potentials (ERP) during an illusory figure recognition task. Although ADHD and ASD seem very distinct, they have been shown to share some similarities in their symptoms. Our hypothesis was that children with ASD will show less pronounced differences in ERP responses to target and non-target stimuli as compared to typical children, and to a lesser extent, ADHD. Participants were children with ASD (N=16), ADHD (N=16), and controls (N=16). EEG was collected using a 128 channel EEG system. The task involved the recognition of a specific illusory shape, in this case a square or triangle, created by three or four inducer disks. There were no between group differences in reaction time (RT) to target stimuli, but both ASD and ADHD committed more errors, specifically the ASD group had statistically higher commission error rate than controls. Post-error RT in ASD group was exhibited in a post-error speeding rather than corrective RT slowing typical for the controls. The ASD group also demonstrated an attenuated error-related negativity (ERN) as compared to ADHD and controls. The fronto-central P200, N200, and P300 were enhanced and less differentiated in response to target and non-target figures in the ASD group. The same ERP components were marked by more prolonged latencies in the ADHD group as compared to both ASD and typical controls. The findings are interpreted according to the "minicolumnar" hypothesis proposing existence of neuropathological differences in ASD and ADHD, specifically minicolumnar number/width morphometry spectrum differences. In autism, a model of local hyperconnectivity and long-range hypoconnectivity explains many of the behavioral and cognitive deficits present in the condition, while the inverse arrangement of local hypoconnectivity and long-range hyperconnectivity in ADHD explains some deficits typical for this disorder. The current ERP study supports the proposed suggestion that some between group differences could be manifested in the frontal ERP indices of executive functions during performance on an illusory figure categorization task.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）和注意力缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）是非常常见的发育障碍，它们在社交、情感和注意力缺陷方面有一些相似的症状。本研究旨在通过在虚幻图形识别任务中分析密集阵列事件相关电位（ERP）来帮助理解这些缺陷的异同。尽管ADHD和ASD看起来非常不同，但它们在症状上已被证明有一些相似之处。我们的假设是，与典型儿童相比，ASD儿童在ERP对目标和非目标刺激的反应中表现出的差异不那么明显，而ADHD儿童的差异程度较小。参与者为患有ASD的儿童（N = 16）、ADHD的儿童（N = 16）和对照组儿童（N = 16）。使用128通道脑电图系统收集脑电图。该任务涉及识别由三个或四个诱导盘创建的特定虚幻形状，在本案例中为正方形或三角形。对目标刺激的反应时间（RT）在组间没有差异，但ASD和ADHD儿童都犯了更多错误，具体而言，ASD组的误判错误率在统计学上高于对照组。ASD组的错误后RT表现为错误后加速，而不是对照组典型的纠正性RT减慢。与ADHD组和对照组相比，ASD组还表现出减弱的错误相关负波（ERN）。ASD组对目标和非目标图形的额中央P200、N200和P300增强且区分度降低。与ASD组和典型对照组相比，ADHD组相同的ERP成分潜伏期更长。这些发现根据“微柱”假说进行解释，该假说提出ASD和ADHD存在神经病理学差异，特别是微柱数量/宽度形态计量学谱差异。在自闭症中，局部高连接性和长程低连接性模型解释了该病症中存在的许多行为和认知缺陷，而ADHD中局部低连接性和长程高连接性的相反排列解释了该障碍的一些典型缺陷。当前的ERP研究支持了这样的建议，即在虚幻图形分类任务执行过程中，一些组间差异可能表现在执行功能的额叶ERP指标上。
