Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering and Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, West Virginia University, BMRC 311, 108 Biomedical Road, Morgantown, WV, 26506, USA.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2019 Jun;49(6):2605-2611. doi: 10.1007/s10803-019-04009-w.
Prior studies have emphasized the contribution of aberrant amygdala structure and function in social aspects of autism. However, it remains largely unknown whether amygdala dysfunction directly impairs visual attention and exploration as has been observed in people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Here, gaze patterns were directly compared between a rare amygdala lesion patient and adults with ASD when they freely viewed static images of complex natural scenes. The amygdala lesion patient showed a gaze pattern that was more similar to controls rather than that of the ASD group, which was independent of image content (social vs. objects) or complexity. This finding was further corroborated by analysis of temporal aspects of the gaze patterns and semantic category analysis. Together, the present results suggest that abnormal visual exploration observed in people with ASD is not likely primarily attributed to the amygdala.
先前的研究强调了杏仁核结构和功能的异常在自闭症的社会方面的贡献。然而，杏仁核功能障碍是否直接损害视觉注意力和探索，就像在自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者中观察到的那样，在很大程度上仍然未知。在这里，当患有 ASD 的成年人自由地观看复杂自然场景的静态图像时，直接比较了罕见的杏仁核损伤患者和他们的注视模式。杏仁核损伤患者的注视模式更类似于对照组，而不是 ASD 组，这与图像内容（社交与物体）或复杂性无关。通过对注视模式的时间方面和语义类别分析的进一步分析，证实了这一发现。总的来说，这些结果表明，在 ASD 患者中观察到的异常视觉探索不太可能主要归因于杏仁核。
