背景:自闭症和精神分裂症谱系障碍(SSD)均具有非典型的社会认知特征。尽管有证据表明,在较低层次的情绪处理和较高层次的心理处理中,群体水平的表现相当,有限的研究已经研究了在这些条件下社会认知的神经基础。我们的目标是比较自闭症中社会认知的神经相关性,SSD,并通常开发控件(TDC)。
方法:数据来自对自闭症或SSD和TDC(年龄16-35岁)的个体进行的两项统一研究,包括行为社会认知指标和两个功能磁共振成像(fMRI)任务:社会镜像模仿/观察(ImObs)任务和移情准确性(EA)任务。组级别比较,和纳入社会认知表现的诊断分析,为每个任务使用FSL的PALM运行,年龄和性别的协方差(1000个排列,阈值为p<0.05,FWE校正)。还进行了基于感兴趣区域(ROI)的探索分析。
结果:ImObs和EA分析包括164和174名参与者,分别(自闭症N=56/59,SSDN=50/56,TDCN=58/59)。EA和较低级和较高级别的社会认知得分在各组之间有所不同。当规范的社交认知网络被激活时,在任一任务的神经相关性方面,均未检测到显著的全脑或基于ROI的组间水平差异.在诊断上,EA任务期间的神经活动,但不是ImObs任务,与低级和高级社会认知表现相关。
结论:尽管试图与我们的年龄相匹配,性别,和种族,显著的组间差异仍然存在。检测区域大脑差异的能力也受到样本大小和全脑分析中的多重比较的影响。我们的发现可能无法推广到自闭症和并发智力障碍的SSD个体。
结论:在我们的样本中发现的缺乏全脑和基于ROI的组水平差异以及观察到的维度EA脑行为关系表明,EA任务可能非常适合用于新型干预测试的目标参与。我们的结果还强调了跨条件方法的潜在效用,以更好地理解自闭症和SSD的社会认知。
BACKGROUND: Autism and schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) both feature atypical social cognition. Despite evidence for comparable group-level performance in lower-level emotion processing and higher-level mentalizing, limited research has examined the neural basis of social cognition across these conditions. Our goal was to compare the neural correlates of social cognition in autism, SSDs, and typically developing controls (TDCs).
METHODS: Data came from two harmonized studies in individuals diagnosed with autism or SSDs and TDCs (aged 16-35 years), including behavioral social cognitive metrics and two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tasks: a social mirroring Imitate/Observe (ImObs) task and the Empathic Accuracy (EA) task. Group-level comparisons, and transdiagnostic analyses incorporating social cognitive performance, were run using FSL\'s PALM for each task, covarying for age and sex (1000 permutations, thresholded at p < 0.05 FWE-corrected). Exploratory region of interest (ROI)-based analyses were also conducted.
RESULTS: ImObs and EA analyses included 164 and 174 participants, respectively (autism N = 56/59, SSD N = 50/56, TDC N = 58/59). EA and both lower- and higher-level social cognition scores differed across groups. While canonical social cognitive networks were activated, no significant whole-brain or ROI-based group-level differences in neural correlates for either task were detected. Transdiagnostically, neural activity during the EA task, but not the ImObs task, was associated with lower- and higher-level social cognitive performance.
CONCLUSIONS: Despite attempting to match our groups on age, sex, and race, significant group differences remained. Power to detect regional brain differences is also influenced by sample size and multiple comparisons in whole-brain analyses. Our findings may not generalize to autism and SSD individuals with co-occurring intellectual disabilities.
CONCLUSIONS: The lack of whole-brain and ROI-based group-level differences identified and the dimensional EA brain-behavior relationship observed across our sample suggest that the EA task may be well-suited to target engagement in novel intervention testing. Our results also emphasize the potential utility of cross-condition approaches to better understand social cognition across autism and SSDs.