Journal
SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 4, Issue 2, Pages 135-152Publisher
PSYCHOLOGY PRESS
DOI: 10.1080/17470910802198510
Keywords
Autism; Mentalizing; Theory of Mind (ToM); Mental state; fMRI; Underconnectivity
Categories
Funding
- Collaborative Program of Excellence in Autism (CPEA) [HD35469]
- National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
- Cure Autism Now Young Investigator Award
- EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH &HUMAN DEVELOPMENT [P50HD055748, U19HD035469] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This study used fMRI to investigate the functioning of the Theory of Mind (ToM) cortical network in autism during the viewing of animations that in some conditions entailed the attribution of a mental state to animated geometric figures. At the cortical level, mentalizing (attribution of metal states) is underpinned by the coordination and integration of the components of the ToM network, which include the medial frontal gyrus, the anterior paracingulate, and the right temporoparietal junction. The pivotal new finding was a functional underconnectivity (a lower degree of synchronization) in autism, especially in the connections between frontal and posterior areas during the attribution of mental states. In addition, the frontal ToM regions activated less in participants with autism relative to control participants. In the autism group, an independent psychometric assessment of ToM ability and the activation in the right temporoparietal junction were reliably correlated. The results together provide new evidence for the biological basis of atypical processing of ToM in autism, implicating the underconnectivity between frontal regions and more posterior areas.
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