Jequier Gygax Marine, Maillard Anne M, Favre Julien
Service des Troubles du Spectre de l'Autisme, Department of Psychiatry, Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Swiss BioMotion Lab, Department of Musculoskeletal Medicine, Lausanne University Hospital and University of Lausanne (CHUV-UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2021 Mar 16;9:624522. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2021.624522. eCollection 2021.
This perspective paper presents converging recent knowledge in neurosciences (motor neurophysiology, neuroimaging and neuro cognition) and biomechanics to outline the relationships between maturing neuronal network, behavior, and gait in human development. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) represents a particularly relevant neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) to study these convergences, as an early life condition presenting with sensorimotor and social behavioral alterations. ASD diagnosis relies solely on behavioral criteria. The absence of biological marker in ASD is a main challenge, and hampers correlations between behavioral development and standardized data such as brain structure alterations, brain connectivity, or genetic profile. Gait, as a way to study motor system development, represents a well-studied, early life ability that can be characterized through standardized biomechanical analysis. Therefore, developmental gait biomechanics might appear as a possible motor phenotype and biomarker, solid enough to be correlated to neuronal network maturation, in normal and atypical developmental trajectories-like in ASD.
这篇观点性论文展示了神经科学（运动神经生理学、神经影像学和神经认知学）和生物力学领域近期趋同的知识，以概述人类发育过程中成熟的神经网络、行为和步态之间的关系。自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）是一种特别适合用于研究这些趋同现象的神经发育障碍（NDD），因为它是一种在生命早期就出现感觉运动和社会行为改变的病症。ASD的诊断完全依赖于行为标准。ASD缺乏生物学标志物是一个主要挑战，这阻碍了行为发育与诸如脑结构改变、脑连接性或基因图谱等标准化数据之间的相关性研究。步态作为研究运动系统发育的一种方式，是一种经过充分研究的早期生命能力，可以通过标准化生物力学分析来进行表征。因此，发育性步态生物力学可能会成为一种可能的运动表型和生物标志物，其可靠性足以与正常和非典型发育轨迹（如ASD）中的神经网络成熟度相关联。
