Cortical responses to dynamic emotional facial expressions generalize across stimuli, and are sensitive to task-relevance, in adults with and without Autism
Name
nihms952285.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
2.25 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Kliemann, Dorit
Richardson, Hilary
Anzellotti, Stefano
Ayyash, Dima
Haskins, Amanda J
Gabrieli, John D. E.
Saxe, Rebecca R.
Date Issued
June 2018
Journal
Cortex
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Citation
Kliemann, Dorit et al. "Cortical responses to dynamic emotional facial expressions generalize across stimuli, and are sensitive to task-relevance, in adults with and without Autism." Cortex 103 (June 2018): 24-43 © 2018 Elsevier Ltd
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) report difficulties extracting meaningful information from dynamic and complex social cues, like facial expressions. The nature and mechanisms of these difficulties remain unclear. Here we tested whether that difficulty can be traced to the pattern of activity in “social brain” regions, when viewing dynamic facial expressions. In two studies, adult participants (male and female) watched brief videos of a range of positive and negative facial expressions, while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (Study 1: ASD n = 16, control n = 21; Study 2: ASD n = 22, control n = 30). Patterns of hemodynamic activity differentiated among facial emotional expressions in left and right superior temporal sulcus, fusiform gyrus, and parts of medial prefrontal cortex. In both control participants and high-functioning individuals with ASD, we observed (i) similar responses to emotional valence that generalized across facial expressions and animated social events; (ii) similar flexibility of responses to emotional valence, when manipulating the task-relevance of perceived emotions; and (iii) similar responses to a range of emotions within valence. Altogether, the data indicate that there was little or no group difference in cortical responses to isolated dynamic emotional facial expressions, as measured with fMRI. Difficulties with real-world social communication and social interaction in ASD may instead reflect differences in initiating and maintaining contingent interactions, or in integrating social information over time or context.
MIT Department
McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2018.02.006
