Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University Hospital, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt, Germany.
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
Autism Res. 2019 Nov;12(11):1680-1692. doi: 10.1002/aur.2178. Epub 2019 Jul 25.
Progression of pupil dilation (PD) in response to visual stimuli may indicate distinct internal processes. No study has been performed on PD progression during a social cognition task. Here, we describe PD progression during the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC) test in n = 23 adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and n = 24 age, IQ and sex-matched neurotypical controls (NTC). The MASC consists of 43 video sequences depicting human social interactions, each followed by a multiple-choice question concerning characters' mental states. PD progression data were extracted by eye tracking and controlled for fixation behavior. Segmenting PD progression during video sequences by principal component analysis, three sequential PD components were unveiled. In ASD compared with NTC, a distinct PD progression was observed with increased constriction amplitude, increased dilation latency, and increased dilation amplitude that correlated with PD progression components. These components predicted social cognition performance. The first and second PD components correlated positively with MASC behavioral performance in ASD but negatively in NTC. These PD components may be interpreted as indicators of sensory-perceptual processing and attention function. In ASD, aberrant sensory-perceptual processing and attention function could contribute to attenuated social cognition performance. This needs to be tested by additional studies combining the respective cognitive tests and the outlined PD progression analysis. Phasic activity of the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine system is discussed as putatively shared underlying mechanism. Autism Res2019. © 2019 The Authors. Autism Research published by International Society for Autism Research published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: In adolescents with autism, we found an altered pupil dilation during watching scenes of human interactions. Early pupil dilation correlated positively with the number of correct answers to questions about the shown human interactions. Our findings suggest that aberrant sensory processing and attention function may contribute to altered social cognition in autism.
瞳孔扩张（PD）对视觉刺激的进展可能表明存在不同的内在过程。目前尚未有研究针对社会认知任务期间的 PD 进展进行研究。在这里，我们描述了 23 名自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）青少年和 24 名年龄、智商和性别匹配的神经典型对照（NTC）在观看电影评估社会认知（MASC）测试期间的 PD 进展。MASC 由 43 个描绘人类社会互动的视频序列组成，每个视频序列后都有一个关于角色心理状态的多项选择题。通过眼动追踪提取 PD 进展数据，并对注视行为进行控制。通过主成分分析对视频序列中的 PD 进展进行分段，揭示了三个连续的 PD 成分。与 NTC 相比，在 ASD 中观察到明显的 PD 进展，表现为收缩幅度增加、扩张潜伏期增加和扩张幅度增加，这些都与 PD 进展成分相关。这些成分预测了社会认知表现。在 ASD 中，前两个 PD 成分与 MASC 行为表现呈正相关，但在 NTC 中呈负相关。这些 PD 成分可以解释为感觉知觉处理和注意力功能的指标。在 ASD 中，异常的感觉知觉处理和注意力功能可能导致社会认知表现减弱。这需要通过结合各自的认知测试和概述的 PD 进展分析的额外研究来进行测试。蓝斑核-去甲肾上腺素系统的相位活动被讨论为潜在的共同潜在机制。自闭症研究 2019。© 2019 作者。自闭症研究由国际自闭症研究协会出版，由 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 出版。
