Tarrit Katy, Freedman Edward G, Francisco Ana A, Horsthuis Douwe J, Molholm Sophie, Foxe John J
Information and Computer Sciences Department, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, United States.
The Frederick J. and Marion A. Schindler Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, The Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, Department of Neuroscience, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY, United States.
Front Integr Neurosci. 2023 Oct 6;17:1232474. doi: 10.3389/fnint.2023.1232474. eCollection 2023.
Altered patterns of eye-movements during scene exploration, and atypical gaze preferences in social settings, have long been noted as features of the Autism phenotype. While these are typically attributed to differences in social engagement and interests (e.g., preferences for inanimate objects over face stimuli), there are also reports of differential saccade measures to non-social stimuli, raising the possibility that fundamental differences in visuo-sensorimotor processing may be at play. Here, we tested the plasticity of the eye-movement system using a classic saccade-adaptation paradigm to assess whether individuals with ASD make typical adjustments to their eye-movements in response to experimentally introduced errors. Saccade adaptation can be measured in infants as young as 10 months, raising the possibility that such measures could be useful as early neuro-markers of ASD risk.
Saccade amplitudes were measured while children and adults with ASD ( = 41) and age-matched typically developing (TD) individuals ( = 68) made rapid eye-movements to peripherally presented targets. During adaptation trials, the target was relocated from 20-degrees to 15-degrees from fixation once a saccade to the original target location was initiated, a manipulation that leads to systematic reduction in saccade amplitudes in typical observers.
Neither children nor adults with ASD showed any differences relative to TD peers in their abilities to appropriately adapt saccades in the face of persistently introduced errors.
Of the three studies to date of saccade adaptation in ASD, none have shown deficits in saccade adaptation that are sufficient to generalize to the whole or a subgroup of the ASD population. Unlike prior studies, we found no evidence for a slower adaptation rate during the early adaptation phase, and no of evidence greater variance of saccade amplitudes in ASD. In analysis, there was evidence for larger primary saccades to non-adapted targets, a finding requiring replication in future work.
长期以来，人们一直注意到场景探索过程中眼球运动模式的改变以及社交场合中不典型的注视偏好是自闭症表型的特征。虽然这些通常归因于社交参与和兴趣的差异（例如，对无生命物体的偏好超过面部刺激），但也有关于对非社交刺激的扫视测量存在差异的报道，这增加了视觉 - 感觉运动处理存在根本差异的可能性。在这里，我们使用经典的扫视适应范式测试了眼球运动系统的可塑性，以评估自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）个体是否会根据实验引入的误差对其眼球运动做出典型调整。扫视适应可以在10个月大的婴儿中测量，这增加了此类测量可作为ASD风险早期神经标志物的可能性。
在患有ASD的儿童和成人（n = 41）以及年龄匹配的典型发育（TD）个体（n = 68）对周边呈现的目标进行快速眼球运动时，测量扫视幅度。在适应试验中，一旦开始向原始目标位置的扫视，目标就从注视点20度重新定位到15度，这种操作会导致典型观察者的扫视幅度系统性减小。
患有ASD的儿童和成人在面对持续引入的误差时，在适当适应扫视的能力方面与TD同龄人相比均未显示出任何差异。
在迄今为止的三项关于ASD扫视适应的研究中，没有一项表明扫视适应缺陷足以推广到整个ASD人群或其中一个亚组。与先前的研究不同，我们没有发现早期适应阶段适应速度较慢的证据，也没有发现ASD中扫视幅度方差更大的证据。在分析中，有证据表明对未适应目标的初始扫视更大，这一发现需要在未来的研究中重复验证。
