Journal
SOCIAL COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 4, Issue 1, Pages 70-78Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsn038
Keywords
autism; emotion; functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); bodily expression; amygdala; pulvinar; subcortical processing; mirror neurons system
Categories
Funding
- National Institute of Health [RO1 NS44824-01, K01 MH073944-01, U19 DC 03610]
- Swiss National Foundation [PPOOB-110741]
- Canadian Institute of Health Research [200703MOP-172783-MPI-CFCL-155844]
- NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH [K01MH073944] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
- NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS AND STROKE [R01NS044824] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
- NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DEAFNESS AND OTHER COMMUNICATION DISORDERS [U19DC003610] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Although there is evidence of emotion perception deficits in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), research on this topic has been mostly confined to perception of emotions in faces. Using behavioral measures and 3T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined whether such deficits extend to the perception of bodily expressed emotions. We found that individuals with ASD, in contrast to neurotypical (NT) individuals, did not exhibit a differential pattern of brain activation to bodies expressing fear as compared with emotionally neutral bodies. ASD and NT individuals showed similar patterns of activation in response to bodies engaged in emotionally neutral actions, with the exception of decreased activation in the inferior frontal cortex and the anterior insula in ASD. We discuss these findings in relation to possible abnormalities in a network of cortical and subcortical mechanisms involved in social orienting and emotion contagion. Our data suggest that emotion perception deficits in ASD may be due to compromised processing of the emotional component of observed actions.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available