Puglia Meghan H, Morris James P
Department of Psychology, University of VirginiaCharlottesville, VA, United States.
Front Neurosci. 2017 Jul 14;11:404. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2017.00404. eCollection 2017.
Perception of biological motion is an important social cognitive ability that has been mapped to specialized brain regions. Perceptual deficits and neural differences during biological motion perception have previously been associated with autism, a disorder classified by social and communication difficulties and repetitive and restricted interests and behaviors. However, the traits associated with autism are not limited to diagnostic categories, but are normally distributed within the general population and show the same patterns of heritability across the continuum. In the current study, we investigate whether self-reported autistic-like traits in healthy adults are associated with variable neural response during passive viewing of biological motion displays. Results show that more autistic-like traits, particularly those associated with the communication domain, are associated with increased neural response in key regions involved in social cognitive processes, including prefrontal and left temporal cortices. This distinct pattern of activation might reflect differential neurodevelopmental processes for individuals with varying autistic-like traits, and highlights the importance of considering the full trait continuum in future work.
对生物运动的感知是一种重要的社会认知能力，已被映射到特定的脑区。此前，生物运动感知过程中的感知缺陷和神经差异与自闭症有关，自闭症是一种以社交和沟通困难以及重复和受限的兴趣及行为为特征的疾病。然而，与自闭症相关的特征并不局限于诊断类别，而是在普通人群中呈正态分布，并且在整个连续体中表现出相同的遗传模式。在当前的研究中，我们调查了健康成年人自我报告的类自闭症特征是否与被动观看生物运动展示时的可变神经反应相关。结果表明，更多的类自闭症特征，尤其是那些与沟通领域相关的特征，与参与社会认知过程的关键区域（包括前额叶和左颞叶皮质）的神经反应增加有关。这种独特的激活模式可能反映了具有不同类自闭症特征的个体的不同神经发育过程，并突出了在未来研究中考虑整个特征连续体的重要性。
