2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Investigation of neural correlates of cognitive inflexibility in autism spectrum disorder
| Project/Area Number |
16K17363
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Research Field |
Experimental psychology
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| Research Institution | Showa University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
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| Keywords | 自閉スペクトラム症 / 島皮質 / 安静時機能結合 / 聴覚 / 心的距離 |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
We investigated the neural correlates of disrupted cognitive flexibility in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using resting-state fMRI, task-based fMRI, and behavioral tests. We first investigated whether the ASD group exhibited atypical functional differentiations in the insular cortices using resting-state fMRI and unsupervised machine learning. We observed atypical functional differentiations in bilateral insula. Notably, the ASD group exhibited enlarged sensorimotor regions in the anterior part of left insula and loss of the brain regions responsible for cognition and emotion. For task-based fMRI, we identified reduced brain activations in the bilateral superior temporal gyri during emotional prosodic processing. In addition, we also tried to investigate the effects of social and psychological distances on the cognitive flexibility.
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| Free Research Field |
信号処理
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| Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements |
常同行為やそれに関連する認知的柔軟性の欠如は、ASD当事者の日常生活を送る上での様々な難しさと密接に関連していると考えられる。本研究はASDにおける認知的柔軟性の神経基盤を調査した。当初予定していた課題は負担が大きく変更を余儀なくされたが、認知的柔軟性に関わる脳機能ネットワークの中でも重要な役割をしていると考えられる島皮質の機能的な違いを明らかにしたことは、学術的意義があると考えられる。今後、心的距離などの様々な要因がどのようにASDの困難さと関わっているかを明らかにすることは社会的意義もあると予想される。
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