Hoglund Biomedical Imaging Center, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas, USA.
Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies, Clinical Child Psychology Program, and Kansas Center for Autism Research and Training (K-CART), University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2022 Feb 1;43(2):844-859. doi: 10.1002/hbm.25692. Epub 2021 Oct 30.
Sensorimotor abnormalities are common in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and predictive of functional outcomes, though their neural underpinnings remain poorly understood. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined both brain activation and functional connectivity during visuomotor behavior in 27 individuals with ASD and 30 typically developing (TD) controls (ages 9-35 years). Participants maintained a constant grip force while receiving visual feedback at three different visual gain levels. Relative to controls, ASD participants showed increased force variability, especially at high gain, and reduced entropy. Brain activation was greater in individuals with ASD than controls in supplementary motor area, bilateral superior parietal lobules, and contralateral middle frontal gyrus at high gain. During motor action, functional connectivity was reduced between parietal-premotor and parietal-putamen in individuals with ASD compared to controls. Individuals with ASD also showed greater age-associated increases in functional connectivity between cerebellum and visual, motor, and prefrontal cortical areas relative to controls. These results indicate that visuomotor deficits in ASD are associated with atypical activation and functional connectivity of posterior parietal, premotor, and striatal circuits involved in translating sensory feedback information into precision motor behaviors, and that functional connectivity of cerebellar-cortical sensorimotor and nonsensorimotor networks show delayed maturation.
感觉运动异常在自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）中很常见，可预测功能结果，但它们的神经基础仍知之甚少。我们使用功能磁共振成像，研究了 27 名 ASD 患者和 30 名典型发育（TD）对照者（年龄 9-35 岁）在进行视觉运动行为时的大脑激活和功能连接。参与者在三个不同的视觉增益水平下接受视觉反馈时保持恒定的握力。与对照组相比，ASD 患者的力变异性增加，尤其是在高增益时，而熵减少。与对照组相比，ASD 患者在高增益时，补充运动区、双侧顶叶上回和对侧中额回的大脑激活更高。在运动过程中，与对照组相比，ASD 患者的顶叶-运动前区和顶叶-壳核之间的功能连接减少。与对照组相比，ASD 患者的小脑与视觉、运动和前额皮质区域之间的功能连接也表现出与年龄相关的更大增加。这些结果表明，ASD 中的视觉运动缺陷与参与将感觉反馈信息转化为精确运动行为的后顶叶、运动前和纹状体回路的异常激活和功能连接有关，并且小脑-皮质感觉运动和非感觉运动网络的功能连接显示出延迟成熟。
