Is there shared neural underpinning of movement and social difficulties in autism spectrum disorders

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K17766
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Childhood science (childhood environment science); Special needs education
• Research Institution: Waseda University (2020-2021); Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (2018-2019); University of Fukui (2017)
• Principal Investigator: OKAMOTO Yuko 早稲田大学, 高等研究所, 准教授(任期付) (10635139)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: fMRI / 自閉症 / 社会性 / コミュニケーション / 運動 / 身体知覚 / 個人差 / 発達

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Many autistic children, which have communication difficulty, show difficulties in movement, and motor and communication skills has been correlated. In this study, we used fMRI to measure the brain activity of autistic individuals while they were conducted body perception, body self-recognition, and reciprocal imitation tasks, and examined whether the activities were different from those of typically developing children and whether they were related to the some autistic characteristics. We reported that (1) the association between visual body representations and characteristics is more pronounced in children and is not observed in adulthood during body perception tasks, and (2) there are differences in activity in the higher visual cortex during body self-recognition tasks. In addition, developmental changes and individual differences within autism spectrum disorder and typical developmental individuals were observed.

Free Research Field

実験心理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

これらの成果は、自閉スペクトラム症者における運動・社会性の障害の背景となる神経基盤を明らかにしたものであり、高次視覚野が両者に寄与していることを示す結果が得られた。一方で、さまざまな課題に一貫して、自閉スペクトラム症者・定型発達者の中で発達的な変化があることが明らかになり、また自閉スペクトラム症者や定型発達者の中での個人差も見つかっている。これらは自閉スペクトラム症のfMRI研究の知見を臨床に展開するにあたり、発達やheterogeneityを考慮する必要があることを示唆するものである。