Department of Child Psychiatry, Scientific Institute, IRCCS Eugenio Medea, Bosisio Parini, Lecco 23842, Italy.
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University-Newark, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
Cereb Cortex. 2018 Jun 1;28(6):2100-2108. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhx115.
Although it is clear that early language acquisition can be a target of CNTNAP2, the pathway between gene and language is still largely unknown. This research focused on the mediation role of rapid auditory processing (RAP). We tested RAP at 6 months of age by the use of event-related potentials, as a mediator between common variants of the CNTNAP2 gene (rs7794745 and rs2710102) and 20-month-old language outcome in a prospective longitudinal study of 96 Italian infants. The mediation model examines the hypothesis that language outcome is explained by a sequence of effects involving RAP and CNTNAP2. The ability to discriminate spectrotemporally complex auditory frequency changes at 6 months of age mediates the contribution of rs2710102 to expressive vocabulary at 20 months. The indirect effect revealed that rs2710102 C/C was associated with lower P3 amplitude in the right hemisphere, which, in turn, predicted poorer expressive vocabulary at 20 months of age. These findings add to a growing body of literature implicating RAP as a viable marker in genetic studies of language development. The results demonstrate a potential developmental cascade of effects, whereby CNTNAP2 drives RAP functioning that, in turn, contributes to early expressive outcome.
虽然早期语言习得可能是 CNTNAP2 的一个靶点已经很明确，但基因与语言之间的通路在很大程度上仍然未知。本研究专注于快速听觉处理（RAP）的中介作用。我们通过事件相关电位（ERP）在 6 个月大时测试 RAP，作为 CNTNAP2 基因常见变异（rs7794745 和 rs2710102）与 96 名意大利婴儿前瞻性纵向研究中 20 个月大时语言结果之间的中介，该研究对其进行了测试。中介模型检验了一个假设，即语言结果是由涉及 RAP 和 CNTNAP2 的一系列效应解释的。6 个月时辨别频谱时间复杂听觉频率变化的能力，中介了 rs2710102 对 20 个月时表达词汇量的影响。间接效应表明，rs2710102 C/C 与右半球 P3 振幅较低有关，而右半球 P3 振幅较低又与 20 个月时表达词汇量较差有关。这些发现增加了越来越多的文献，将 RAP 作为语言发展遗传研究中一种可行的标志物。研究结果表明，存在一种潜在的发育级联效应，其中 CNTNAP2 驱动 RAP 功能，而 RAP 功能反过来又有助于早期表达结果。
