Journal
CEREBRAL CORTEX
Volume 24, Issue 12, Pages 3258-3267Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bht182
Keywords
ASD; connectivity; cortical thickness; insula; social brain
Categories
Funding
- European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework Program (FP7)/ERC [205557]
- Swiss National Science Foundation
- Medical Research Council UK [G9617036]
- Erasmus Mundus scholarship
- Medical Research Council [G9617036, G9817803B] Funding Source: researchfish
- MRC [G9617036] Funding Source: UKRI
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) are neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by abnormal social cognition. A core feature of ASC is disrupted Theory of Mind (ToM), our ability to take the mental perspective of others. ASC is also associated with alexithymia, a trait characterized by altered emotional interoception and empathy. Here, we applied structural MRI covariance analysis to assess whether ASC and alexithymia differentially affect structural brain networks associated with sociocognitive and socioaffective functions. Based on previous functional MRI findings, we expected disrupted ToM networks (centered on dorsomedial prefontal cortex [dmPFC], and temporo-parietal junction [TPJ]) in ASC, while alexithymia would affect networks centered on fronto-insular cortex (FI), regions associated with interoception of emotion and empathy. Relative to controls, ASC indeed showed reduced covariance in networks centered on dmPFC and TPJ, but not within FI networks. Irrespective of ASC, covariance was negatively modulated by alexithymia in networks extending from FI to posterior regions. Network findings were complemented by self-reports, indicating decreased perspective taking but normal empathic concern in ASC. Our results show divergent effects of ASC and alexithymia on inter-regional structural networks, suggesting that networks mediating socioaffective processes may be separable from networks mediating sociocognitive processing.
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