Developmental Imaging and Psychopathology Lab, Department of Psychiatry, University of Geneva School of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland.
Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
J Neurodev Disord. 2018 Aug 29;10(1):26. doi: 10.1186/s11689-018-9245-x.
Previous research links social difficulties to atypical face exploration in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS). Two types of face processing are distinguished: configural (CFP) and featural (FFP). CFP develops later in life and plays an important role in face and emotion recognition abilities. Recent studies reported atypical development of CFP in several neurodevelopmental disorders. Taking previous reports of atypical face exploration one step further, our study aims at characterizing face processing in children and adolescents with 22q11.2DS. First, we sought to identify biases in the first two fixation positions on faces and to detect differences between CFP and FFP in 22q11.2DS using eye-tracking technology. Second, we investigated the developmental trajectories of CFP and FFP using accuracy data from follow-up evaluation.
Seventy-five individuals with 22q11.2DS and 84 typically developed (TD) individuals (aged 6-21 years) completed a discrimination task ("Jane task") inducing CFP and FFP in an eye-tracking setting. Thirty-six individuals with 22q11DS and 30 TD from our sample completed a longitudinal follow-up evaluation.
Findings revealed that individuals with 22q11.2DS demonstrate an early bias toward the mouth region during the initial fixations on the faces and reduced flexibility exploration of the faces, with a reduced number of transitions between faces and longer fixations compared to the TD group. Further, scanpaths did not differ between CFP and FFP in the 22q11.2DS group. Longitudinal analysis of accuracy data provided evidence for atypical development of CFP in 22q11.2DS.
The current study brings new evidence of altered face exploration in 22q11.2DS and identifies developmental mechanisms that may contribute to difficulties impacting social interactions in the syndrome.
先前的研究将社交困难与 22q11.2 缺失综合征（22q11.2DS）中的非典型面孔探索联系起来。区分了两种类型的面孔处理：整体（CFP）和特征（FFP）。CFP 是在生命后期发展起来的，在面孔和情绪识别能力中起着重要作用。最近的研究报告了几种神经发育障碍中 CFP 的非典型发育。在进一步报告先前的非典型面孔探索的基础上，我们的研究旨在描述 22q11.2DS 儿童和青少年的面孔处理。首先，我们试图通过眼动追踪技术识别面孔前两个注视位置上的偏差，并检测 22q11.2DS 中的 CFP 和 FFP 之间的差异。其次，我们使用后续评估的准确性数据研究 CFP 和 FFP 的发展轨迹。
75 名 22q11.2DS 患者和 84 名典型发育（TD）个体（年龄 6-21 岁）在眼动追踪环境中完成了区分任务（“Jane 任务”），诱导 CFP 和 FFP。我们的样本中有 36 名 22q11DS 患者和 30 名 TD 患者完成了纵向随访评估。
研究结果表明，22q11.2DS 患者在初始注视面孔时表现出对嘴部区域的早期偏向，并且对面部的灵活性探索减少，与 TD 组相比，面孔之间的转换次数减少，注视时间延长。此外，22q11.2DS 组的 CFP 和 FFP 之间的扫描路径没有差异。准确性数据的纵向分析为 22q11.2DS 中 CFP 的异常发育提供了证据。
本研究为 22q11.2DS 中改变的面孔探索提供了新的证据，并确定了可能导致该综合征中社交互动困难的发展机制。
