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Examining the relationship between measures of autistic traits and neural synchrony during movies in children with and without autism

Children who have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often show a marked deficit in measures of social cognition. In autistic adults, measures of social cognition have been shown to relate to differences in brain synchronization (as measured by fMRI) when individuals are processing n...

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Autores principales: Lyons, K.M., Stevenson, R.A., Owen, A.M., Stojanoski, B.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7680702/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33395970
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2020.102477
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author Lyons, K.M.
Stevenson, R.A.
Owen, A.M.
Stojanoski, B.
author_facet Lyons, K.M.
Stevenson, R.A.
Owen, A.M.
Stojanoski, B.
author_sort Lyons, K.M.
collection PubMed
description Children who have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often show a marked deficit in measures of social cognition. In autistic adults, measures of social cognition have been shown to relate to differences in brain synchronization (as measured by fMRI) when individuals are processing naturalistic stimuli, such as movies. However, whether children who differ in their degree of autistic traits, with or without a diagnosis of ASD, differ in their neural responses to movies has not yet been investigated. In the current study, neural synchrony, measured using fMRI, was examined in three groups of children aged 7 to 12, who differed with respect to scores on a measure of autistic traits associated with social impairment and whether or not they had been diagnosed with ASD. While watching the movie ‘Despicable Me’, those diagnosed with ASD had significantly less neural synchrony in areas that have been previously shown to be associated with social cognition (e.g. areas related to ‘theory of mind’), and plot following (e.g. the lateral prefrontal cortex), than those who did not have an ASD diagnosis. In contrast, two groups who differed in their degree of autistic traits, but did not have a diagnosis of ASD, showed no significant differences in neural synchrony across the whole brain. These results shed some light on how autistic traits may contribute to an individual’s conscious experience of the world, and how, for children with ASD, that experience may differ markedly from that of those without ASD.
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spelling pubmed-76807022020-11-27 Examining the relationship between measures of autistic traits and neural synchrony during movies in children with and without autism Lyons, K.M. Stevenson, R.A. Owen, A.M. Stojanoski, B. Neuroimage Clin Regular Article Children who have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often show a marked deficit in measures of social cognition. In autistic adults, measures of social cognition have been shown to relate to differences in brain synchronization (as measured by fMRI) when individuals are processing naturalistic stimuli, such as movies. However, whether children who differ in their degree of autistic traits, with or without a diagnosis of ASD, differ in their neural responses to movies has not yet been investigated. In the current study, neural synchrony, measured using fMRI, was examined in three groups of children aged 7 to 12, who differed with respect to scores on a measure of autistic traits associated with social impairment and whether or not they had been diagnosed with ASD. While watching the movie ‘Despicable Me’, those diagnosed with ASD had significantly less neural synchrony in areas that have been previously shown to be associated with social cognition (e.g. areas related to ‘theory of mind’), and plot following (e.g. the lateral prefrontal cortex), than those who did not have an ASD diagnosis. In contrast, two groups who differed in their degree of autistic traits, but did not have a diagnosis of ASD, showed no significant differences in neural synchrony across the whole brain. These results shed some light on how autistic traits may contribute to an individual’s conscious experience of the world, and how, for children with ASD, that experience may differ markedly from that of those without ASD. Elsevier 2020-10-27 /pmc/articles/PMC7680702/ /pubmed/33395970 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2020.102477 Text en © 2020 The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
spellingShingle Regular Article
Lyons, K.M.
Stevenson, R.A.
Owen, A.M.
Stojanoski, B.
Examining the relationship between measures of autistic traits and neural synchrony during movies in children with and without autism
title Examining the relationship between measures of autistic traits and neural synchrony during movies in children with and without autism
title_full Examining the relationship between measures of autistic traits and neural synchrony during movies in children with and without autism
title_fullStr Examining the relationship between measures of autistic traits and neural synchrony during movies in children with and without autism
title_full_unstemmed Examining the relationship between measures of autistic traits and neural synchrony during movies in children with and without autism
title_short Examining the relationship between measures of autistic traits and neural synchrony during movies in children with and without autism
title_sort examining the relationship between measures of autistic traits and neural synchrony during movies in children with and without autism
topic Regular Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7680702/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33395970
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2020.102477
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