Zalla Tiziana, Sperduti Marco
Institut Jean Nicod, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris, France.
Laboratoire Mémoire et Cognition, Institut de Psychologie, Université Paris Descartes Boulogne-Billancourt, France ; Inserm U894, Centre de Psychiatrie et Neurosciences, Université Paris Descartes Paris, France.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2013 Dec 30;7:894. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00894.
In the last few decades there has been increasing interest in the role of the amygdala in psychiatric disorders and, in particular, in its contribution to the socio-emotional impairments in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Given that the amygdala is a component structure of the "social brain," several theoretical explanations compatible with amygdala dysfunction have been proposed to account for socio-emotional impairments in ASDs, including abnormal eye contact, gaze monitoring, face processing, mental state understanding, and empathy. Nevertheless, many theoretical accounts, based on the Amygdala Theory of Autism, fail to elucidate the complex pattern of impairments observed in this population, which extends beyond the social domain. As posited by the Relevance Detector theory (Sander et al., 2003), the human amygdala is a critical component of a brain circuit involved in the appraisal of self-relevant events that include, but are not restricted to, social stimuli. Here, we propose that the behavioral and social-emotional features of ASDs may be better understood in terms of a disruption in a "Relevance Detector Network" affecting the processing of stimuli that are relevant for the organism's self-regulating functions. In the present review, we will first summarize the main literature supporting the involvement of the amygdala in socio-emotional disturbances in ASDs. Next, we will present a revised version of the Amygdala Relevance Detector hypothesis and we will show that this theoretical framework can provide a better understanding of the heterogeneity of the impairments and symptomatology of ASDs. Finally, we will discuss some predictions of our model, and suggest new directions in the investigation of the role of the amygdala within the more generally disrupted cortical connectivity framework as a model of neural organization of the autistic brain.
在过去几十年里，杏仁核在精神疾病中的作用，尤其是其对自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）社会情感障碍的影响，受到了越来越多的关注。鉴于杏仁核是“社会大脑”的一个组成结构，人们提出了几种与杏仁核功能障碍相符的理论解释，以说明ASD中的社会情感障碍，包括异常的眼神接触、注视监测、面部处理、心理状态理解和共情。然而，许多基于自闭症杏仁核理论的解释，未能阐明在这一人群中观察到的复杂障碍模式，这种模式超出了社会领域。正如相关性探测器理论（桑德等人，2003年）所提出的，人类杏仁核是一个大脑回路的关键组成部分，该回路参与对与自我相关事件的评估，这些事件包括但不限于社会刺激。在此，我们提出，从影响与生物体自我调节功能相关刺激处理的“相关性探测器网络”中断的角度，可能能更好地理解ASD的行为和社会情感特征。在本综述中，我们首先将总结支持杏仁核参与ASD社会情感障碍的主要文献。接下来，我们将提出杏仁核相关性探测器假说的修订版，并表明这一理论框架能够更好地理解ASD障碍和症状的异质性。最后，我们将讨论我们模型的一些预测，并在更普遍的皮质连接中断框架内，作为自闭症大脑神经组织模型，提出杏仁核作用研究的新方向。
