Department of Diagnostic Imaging, The Hospital for Sick Children , Toronto, ON , Canada ; Neurosciences & Mental Health Program, The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute , Toronto, ON , Canada ; Department of Medical Imaging, University of Toronto , Toronto, ON , Canada ; Department of Psychology, University of Toronto , Toronto, ON , Canada.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2013 Nov 14;7:785. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00785. eCollection 2013.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a characterized by deficits in social cognition and executive function. An area of particular difficulty for children with ASD is cognitive flexibility, such as the ability to shift between attentional or response sets. The biological basis of such deficits remains poorly understood, although atypical development of structural and functional brain connectivity have been reported in ASD, suggesting that disruptions of normal patterns of inter-regional communication may contribute to cognitive problems in this group. The present magnetoencephalography study measured inter-regional phase synchronization while children with ASD and typically developing matched controls (6-14 years of age) performed a set-shifting task. Reduced theta-band phase synchronization was observed in children with ASD during extradimensional set-shifting. This reduction in task-dependent inter-regional connectivity encompassed numerous areas including multiple frontal lobe regions, and indicates that problems with communication among brain areas may contribute to difficulties with executive function in ASD.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的特征是社会认知和执行功能缺陷。自闭症儿童特别困难的一个领域是认知灵活性，例如在注意力或反应定势之间转换的能力。尽管在 ASD 中已经报道了结构和功能连通性的异常发育，但这种缺陷的生物学基础仍知之甚少，这表明正常的区域间通讯模式的中断可能导致该群体的认知问题。本脑磁图研究测量了自闭症儿童和发育正常的匹配对照组（6-14 岁）在进行定势转移任务时的区域间相位同步。在 ASD 儿童进行跨维度定势转移时，观察到θ波段相位同步减少。这种与任务相关的区域间连通性的减少包括许多区域，包括多个额叶区域，表明大脑区域之间的通信问题可能导致 ASD 中执行功能的困难。
