Kim Eunjoo, Kyeong Sunghyon, Cheon Keun-Ah, Park Bumhee, Oh Maeng-Keun, Chun Ji Won, Park Hae-Jeong, Kim Jae-Jin, Song Dong-Ho
Department of Psychiatry and Institute of Behavioral Science in Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Department of Statistics, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Yongin, Republic of Korea.
Neurosci Lett. 2016 May 16;621:117-125. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2016.04.026. Epub 2016 Apr 12.
Children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are characterized by an impaired Theory of Mind (ToM). Recent evidence suggested that two aspects of ToM (cognitive ToM versus affective ToM) are differentially impaired in individuals with ASD. In this study, we examined the neural correlates of cognitive and affective ToM in children and adolescents with ASD compared to typically developing children (TDCs). Twelve children and adolescents with ASD and 12 age, IQ matched TDCs participated in this functional MRI study. The ToM task involved the attribution of cognitive and affective mental states to a cartoon character based on verbal and eye-gaze cues. In cognitive ToM tasks, ASD participants recruited the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and superior temporal gyrus (STG) to a greater extent than did TDCs. In affective ToM tasks, both ASD and TDC participants showed more activation in the insula and other subcortical regions than in cognitive ToM tasks. Correlational analysis revealed that greater activation of the mPFC/ACC regions was associated with less symptom severity in ASD patients. In sum, our study suggests that the recruitment of additional prefrontal resources can compensate for the successful behavioral performance in the ToM task in ASD participants.
患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的儿童和青少年具有心理理论（ToM）受损的特征。最近的证据表明，ASD患者心理理论的两个方面（认知心理理论与情感心理理论）受损程度不同。在本研究中，我们将患有ASD的儿童和青少年与发育正常的儿童（TDC）进行比较，研究了认知和情感心理理论的神经关联。12名患有ASD的儿童和青少年以及12名年龄、智商匹配的TDC参与了这项功能磁共振成像研究。心理理论任务包括根据言语和眼神线索将认知和情感心理状态归因于一个卡通人物。在认知心理理论任务中，与TDC相比，ASD参与者更多地激活了内侧前额叶皮质（mPFC）、前扣带回皮质（ACC）和颞上回（STG）。在情感心理理论任务中，ASD和TDC参与者在脑岛和其他皮质下区域的激活都比认知心理理论任务中更多。相关分析表明，mPFC/ACC区域的激活增加与ASD患者症状严重程度降低有关。总之，我们的研究表明，额外前额叶资源的调动可以弥补ASD参与者在心理理论任务中的成功行为表现。
