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Neurodevelopmental and Cognitive Mechanisms of Repetitive Behaviors in Autism Spectrum Disorder
Kelly, Shannon Elizabeth
Kelly, Shannon Elizabeth
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Abstract
Although restricted, repetitive behaviors (RRBs; e.g., compulsive behaviors, insistence on strict routines) are some of the most distressing and impairing features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), treatments targeting these symptoms have been lacking due to limited knowledge of their psychological and neurodevelopmental underpinnings. The development of effective interventions requires increased understanding of biological and cognitive mechanisms that contribute to RRBs. Inhibitory control, or the ability to inhibit dominant behavioral responses, is impaired in ASD and selectively related to RRBs but not to social impairments. We previously have identified that failures to proactively delay responses (i.e., proactive control) underpin these inhibitory control deficits, while the ability to react quickly to cues to inhibit (i.e., reactive control) is unaffected in ASD, suggesting that reduced proactive inhibitory control interferes with the ability to terminate contextually inappropriate behaviors (e.g., compulsions) in ASD. Based on previous neuroimaging and single-cell recording research, these findings suggest that frontostriatal networks involved in top-down inhibition of movement circuitry and frontoparietal networks involved in attentional control may be disrupted in ASD. However, research has not yet delineated neurobiological differences specific to proactive control deficits or their relationships with RRBs in ASD. Characterizing differences in frontostriatal and frontoparietal network connectivity in ASD and relationships with proactive control deficits and clinical symptoms across development may provide key insights into neurobiological underpinnings of proactive inhibitory control impairments in ASD. Thirty-eight participants with ASD (aged 9-34 years) and 31 age-, sex-, and nonverbal IQ-matched typically developing (TD) controls completed a measure of inhibitory control and a task-free functional magnetic resonance imaging scan (tf-fMRI). To measure proactive inhibitory control ability, participants completed an antisaccade task during which they were instructed to inhibit saccadic eye movements toward suddenly appearing peripheral stimuli (i.e., prosaccades) and instead to make volitional saccades to the mirror location (i.e., antisaccades). We examined the percentage of trials on which participants made correct antisaccades instead of prosaccades (i.e., accuracy), latencies of correct antisaccades and prosaccade errors, and slowing of antisaccades and prosaccades compared to baseline reactive saccade latencies. Normalized correlation coefficients of tf-fMRI activity were derived between targeted regions of interest (ROIs) to examine functional connectivity within the frontostriatal inhibitory control network, frontostriatal movement network, dorsal frontoparietal attention network, and ventral frontoparietal attention network. Individuals with ASD showed reduced accuracy during the antisaccade task which related to reduced slowing of prosaccade errors, but not antisaccades, suggesting that inhibitory control errors in ASD are due to reduced ability to proactively down-regulate movement networks. Functional connectivity analyses demonstrated reduced frontostriatal inhibitory, frontostriatal movement, and dorsal frontoparietal network connectivity which became more severe in adulthood as well as sex-dependent alterations in ventral frontoparietal network lateralization. These findings support theories positing ASD as a disorder of brain dysconnectivity and suggest that dysmaturation of functional connectivity within cognitive control and attention networks underpin difficulties inhibiting unwanted behaviors in ASD.
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Date
2022-08-31
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University of Kansas
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Keywords
Clinical psychology, Cognitive psychology, Neurosciences, antisaccade, autism spectrum disorder, functional connectivity, inhibitory control, neurocognition, proactive control