Department of Psychology, Faculty of Science and Technology, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge, CB1 1PT, UK.
EPFL Center of Neuroprosthetics, Campus Biotech Batiment H4, Chemin Des Mines 9, 1202, Geneva, Switzerland.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2018 Sep;48(9):2953-2967. doi: 10.1007/s10803-018-3564-3.
Following recent evidence for a link between interoception, emotion and empathy, we investigated relationships between these factors in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). 26 adults with ASD and 26 healthy participants completed tasks measuring interoception, alexithymia and empathy. ASD participants with alexithymia demonstrated lower cognitive and affective empathy than ASD participants without alexithymia. ASD participants showed reduced interoceptive sensitivity (IS), and also reduced interoceptive awareness (IA). IA was correlated with empathy and alexithymia, but IS was related to neither. Alexithymia fulfilled a mediating role between IA and empathy. Our findings are suggestive of an alexithymic subgroup in ASD, with distinct interoceptive processing abilities, and have implications for diagnosis and interventions.
最近有证据表明，内脏感知、情绪和同理心之间存在联系，因此我们研究了自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者中这些因素之间的关系。26 名 ASD 患者和 26 名健康参与者完成了测量内脏感知、述情障碍和同理心的任务。有述情障碍的 ASD 患者的认知同理心和情感同理心低于没有述情障碍的 ASD 患者。ASD 患者的内脏感知敏感性（IS）降低，且内脏感知意识（IA）也降低。IA 与同理心和述情障碍呈正相关，而 IS 则与二者均无相关性。述情障碍在 IA 和同理心之间起中介作用。我们的发现表明，ASD 中存在一个具有不同内脏感知加工能力的述情障碍亚组，这对诊断和干预具有启示意义。
