Im Woo Young, Ha Ji Hye, Kim Eun Joo, Cheon Keun-Ah, Cho Jaeil, Song Dong-Ho
Department of Psychiatry and Myunggok Medical Research Institute, Konyang University College of Medicine, Daejeon, Republic of Korea.
Department of Medicine, the Graduate School of Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Psychiatry Investig. 2018 Mar;15(3):292-299. doi: 10.30773/pi.2017.08.15. Epub 2018 Feb 28.
It is known that many of the cognitive and social deficits associated with autism can arise from abnormal functional connectivity between brain networks. This aberrant functional connectivity in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) can be explained by impaired integrity of white matter tracts that link distant regions of the networks.
We investigated white matter in 9 children with high-function autism (HFA) compared to 13 typically developing controls using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). The aim of this research is to provide supporting evidence for abnormalities in neural connectivity as an underlying pathophysiology of the main characteristics of ASD.
We found impairment of neural connectivity, mainly in association fiber tracts as evidenced by decreased fractional anisotropy (FA), the index of white matter integrity, of these tracts. Among them, inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF) had a significant relationship with ADI-R score. The inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF) and superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) also showed decreased FA. Decreased FA of ILF and SLF had negative correlations with scores of social interaction.
These findings suggest that widespread abnormalities in association fiber tracts may contribute to both core and associated symptoms of ASD.
众所周知，许多与自闭症相关的认知和社交缺陷可能源于脑网络之间异常的功能连接。自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）中这种异常的功能连接可以通过连接网络遥远区域的白质纤维束完整性受损来解释。
我们使用扩散张量成像（DTI）对9名高功能自闭症（HFA）儿童与13名正常发育对照儿童的白质进行了研究。本研究的目的是为神经连接异常作为ASD主要特征的潜在病理生理学提供支持证据。
我们发现神经连接受损，主要存在于联合纤维束中，表现为这些纤维束的白质完整性指标分数各向异性（FA）降低。其中，额枕下束（IFOF）与孤独症诊断访谈量表修订版（ADI-R）评分有显著关系。下纵束（ILF）和上纵束（SLF）也显示FA降低。ILF和SLF的FA降低与社交互动得分呈负相关。
这些发现表明，联合纤维束的广泛异常可能导致ASD的核心症状和相关症状。
