Brief report: Attention performance in autism and regional brain metabolic rate assessed by positron emission tomography

Ms, Buchsbaum; Siegel, Benjamin V.; Wu, Joseph C.; Hazlett, Erin A.; Sicotte, Nancy L.; Haier, Richard J.; Tanguay, Peter E.; Asarnow, Robert F.; Cadorette, T; Donoghue, D

doi:10.1007/bf01046407

Cited by 70 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Deteriorating performance over time, rather than absolute levels of accuracy, have generally formed the key index of 'sustained attention' capacity in these studies (Parasuraman, Mutter, & Molloy, 1991). Most studies performed on people with ASD have reported no deficits in sustained attention (Buchsbaum et al, 1992;Garretson, Fein, & Waterhouse, 1990;Johnson et al, in press;Noterdaeme, Amorosa, Mildenberger, Sitter, & Minow, 2001;Pascualvaca, Fantie, Papageorgiou, & Mirsky, 1998;Siegel, Nuechterlein, Abel, Wu, & Buchsbaum, 1995;Voelbel et al, 2006); but see (Corbett & Constantine, 2006).…”

Section: Neuropsychological Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of neuropsychological and neuroimaging research in autistic spectrum disorders: Attention, inhibition and cognitive flexibility

Sanders

Johnson

Garavan

et al. 2008

Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders

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Autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) are devastating neurodevelopmental disorders of unknown aetiology with characteristic deficits in social interaction, communication and behaviour. Individuals with ASD show deficits in executive function (EF), which are hypothesised to underlie core repetitive, stereotyped behaviours of autism. Neuroimaging research has identified structural brain abnormalities in ASD, which coincide with brain regions involved in EF. Therefore, we reviewed the literature on four specific executive functions in ASD-sustained attention, orienting attention, response inhibition and set shifting. Medline and Embase searches were carried out using specific search terms. This task was followed by the identification of further relevant publications from papers referenced in initial search results. Discussion with experts in neuropsychology, neuroimaging and autism research yielded further publications that were reviewed. Based on these data there is evidence to suggest that deficits in orienting attention, response inhibition and set shifting exist in ASD, but sustained attention ability appears to be normal. A striking lack of research attempting to link neural correlates with these deficits in orienting attention, response inhibition and set shifting was noted. Future research should focus on understanding links between the neuropsychological deficits and structural and functional brain abnormalities. #

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Section: Neuropsychological Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of neuropsychological and neuroimaging research in autistic spectrum disorders: Attention, inhibition and cognitive flexibility

Sanders

Johnson

Garavan

et al. 2008

Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders

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“…Studies using positron emission tomography (PET) to examine brain function, however, have found abnormal metabolism not only in the frontal region, but in other cortical and subcortical brain regions, as well. Abnormalities detected in PET studies have included hyper-or hypofrontality, as well as atypical asymmetries in the frontal and temporal lobes and basal ganglia (Buchsbaum et al, 1992;DeVolder, Bol, Michel, Congneau, & Goffinet 1987;George, Costa, Kouris, Ring, and Ell, 1992;Rumsey et al, 1985). Taken together, the evidence gathered thus far suggests that autistic persons do suffer from frontal lobe dysfunction, but that this is part of a dysfunction of a complex brain system involving the frontal lobe and functionally related cortical and subcortical structures.…”

mentioning

confidence: 95%

Subgroups of autistic children based on social behavior display distinct patterns of brain activity

Dawson

Klinger

Panagiotides

et al. 1995

J Abnorm Child Psychol

133

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Two questions were addressed in the present study: (1) Do autistic and normally developing children exhibit regionally specific differences in electroencephalographic (EEG) activity? (2) Do subgroups of autistic children classified according to Wing and Gould's (1979) system which emphasizes degree of social impairment exhibit distinct patterns of EEG activity? Twenty-eight children with autism (5 to 18 years of age) and two groups of normally developing children (one matched on chronological age and the other on receptive language level) participated. EEG was recorded from left and right frontal, temporal, and parietal regions during an alert baseline condition. Compared to normally developing children, autistic children exhibited reduced EEG power in the frontal and temporal regions, but not in the parietal region. Differences were more prominent in the left than the right hemisphere. Furthermore, subgroups of autistic children based on Wing and Gould's system displayed distinct patterns of brain activity. Compared to autistic children classified as "active-but-odd," "passive" autistic children displayed reduced alpha EEG power in the frontal region.

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“…Despite the theoretical basis for predicting otherwise, the studies on sustained attention in high-functioning individuals with ASD have failed to show any difference in performance levels when compared to control individuals (Buchsbaum et al, 1992;Casey et al, 1993;Goldstein et al, 2001;Pascualvaca et al, 1998;Siegel, Jr. et al, 1992). It has been suggested, however, that in some of these studies the way in which the groups were matched resulted in the ASD group having a considerably lower IQ than the control group (Burack et al, 1997).…”

Section: Sustained Attentionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selective Attention and Perceptual Load in Autism Spectrum Disorder

et al. 2009

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This thesis examines selective attention in young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Existing literature regarding this issue is mixed; some research suggesting an overly-focused attentional style (Rincover & Ducharme, 1987) while others highlight an abnormally broad attentional lens (Burack, 1994).The research presented here has, for the first time, examined selective attention in individuals with ASD using a theoretically-led approach based on Lavie's Load Theory of attention and cognitive control (Lavie et al., 2004). Load theory states that the perceptual load (amount of potentially task relevant information) of a task affects selective attention. This theory may explain the equivocal findings in the current data on selective attention and ASD.Using behavioural measures, the pattern of selective attention under various levels of load was explored in individuals with ASD and matched controls. The results provide evidence of increased perceptual capacity in ASD. This means that, at any one time, individuals with ASD may be able to process more information from the visual environment. This increase in capacity was evident on tasks of both unconscious and conscious perception.In light of the social deficits observed in the condition, the work in this thesis also explored selective attention in the presence of social distractor stimuli. Results indicated that faces are less salient for individuals with ASD and, unlike for typical adults, are not processed in an automatic and mandatory fashion. These results bring together findings on selective attention with work on social processing in an attempt to find basic abnormalities which might be fundamental in explaining the disorder. 4For Guy 5

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Brief report: Attention performance in autism and regional brain metabolic rate assessed by positron emission tomography

Cited by 70 publications

References 28 publications

A review of neuropsychological and neuroimaging research in autistic spectrum disorders: Attention, inhibition and cognitive flexibility

A review of neuropsychological and neuroimaging research in autistic spectrum disorders: Attention, inhibition and cognitive flexibility

Subgroups of autistic children based on social behavior display distinct patterns of brain activity

Selective Attention and Perceptual Load in Autism Spectrum Disorder

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