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Greater Disruption to Control of Voluntary Saccades in Autistic Disorder than Asperger’s Disorder: Evidence for Greater Cerebellar Involvement in Autism?

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Abstract

It remains unclear whether autism and Asperger’s disorder (AD) exist on a symptom continuum or are separate disorders with discrete neurobiological underpinnings. In addition to impairments in communication and social cognition, motor deficits constitute a significant clinical feature in both disorders. It has been suggested that motor deficits and in particular the integrity of cerebellar modulation of movement may differentiate these disorders. We used a simple volitional saccade task to comprehensively profile the integrity of voluntary ocular motor behaviour in individuals with high functioning autism (HFA) or AD, and included measures sensitive to cerebellar dysfunction. We tested three groups of age-matched young males with normal intelligence (full scale, verbal, and performance IQ estimates >70) aged between 11 and 19 years; nine with AD, eight with HFA, and ten normally developing males as the comparison group. Overall, the metrics and dynamics of the voluntary saccades produced in this task were preserved in the AD group. In contrast, the HFA group demonstrated relatively preserved mean measures of ocular motricity with cerebellar-like deficits demonstrated in increased variability on measures of response time, final eye position, and movement dynamics. These deficits were considered to be consistent with reduced cerebellar online adaptation of movement. The results support the notion that the integrity of cerebellar modulation of movement may be different in AD and HFA, suggesting potentially differential neurobiological substrates may underpin these complex disorders.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the time and effort of all the participants and their families involved in this study. We thank Lynette Millist for technical support. This research was supported by Monash University, an Autism Speaks Award (#CF06-0154) awarded to Dr Joanne Fielding, and two grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council Australia: Fellowship grant (#454811) awarded to Dr Joanne Fielding and Project Grant (#585801) awarded to Dr Joanne Fielding, Dr Nicole Rinehart, Prof B.Tonge and A/Prof O. White.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Developmental Psychiatry and Psychology, School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Monash University, Building 1, 270 Ferntree Gully Road, Notting Hill, Clayton, VIC, 3168, Australia

    Chloe Stanley-Cary, Nicole Rinehart, Bruce Tonge & Joanne Fielding

  2. Centre for Neuroscience, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia

    Joanne Fielding

  3. Department of Neurology, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, Australia

    Owen White & Joanne Fielding

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  1. Chloe Stanley-Cary
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  2. Nicole Rinehart
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  3. Bruce Tonge
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  4. Owen White
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  5. Joanne Fielding
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Correspondence to Chloe Stanley-Cary.

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Stanley-Cary, C., Rinehart, N., Tonge, B. et al. Greater Disruption to Control of Voluntary Saccades in Autistic Disorder than Asperger’s Disorder: Evidence for Greater Cerebellar Involvement in Autism?. Cerebellum 10, 70–80 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12311-010-0229-y

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