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The Lost Neural Hierarchy of the Autistic Self—Locked-Out of the Mental Self and Its Default-Mode Network

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by a fundamental change in self-awareness including seemingly paradoxical features like increased ego-centeredness and weakened self-referentiality. What is the neural basis of this so-called “self-paradox”? Conducting a meta-analytic review of fMRI re...

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Autores principales: Lian, Fuxin, Northoff, Georg
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8145974/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33946964
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11050574
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author Lian, Fuxin
Northoff, Georg
author_facet Lian, Fuxin
Northoff, Georg
author_sort Lian, Fuxin
collection PubMed
description Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by a fundamental change in self-awareness including seemingly paradoxical features like increased ego-centeredness and weakened self-referentiality. What is the neural basis of this so-called “self-paradox”? Conducting a meta-analytic review of fMRI rest and task studies, we show that ASD exhibits consistent hypofunction in anterior and posterior midline regions of the default-mode network (DMN) in both rest and task with decreased self–non-self differentiation. Relying on a multilayered nested hierarchical model of self, as recently established (Qin et al. 2020), we propose that ASD subjects cannot access the most upper layer of their self, the DMN-based mental self—they are locked-out of their own DMN and its mental self. This, in turn, results in strong weakening of their self-referentiality with decreases in both self-awareness and self–other distinction. Moreover, this blocks the extension of non-DMN cortical and subcortical regions at the lower layers of the physical self to the DMN-based upper layer of the mental self, including self–other distinction. The ASD subjects remain stuck and restricted to their intero- and exteroceptive selves as manifested in a relative increase in ego-centeredness (as compared to self-referentiality). This amounts to what we describe as “Hierarchical Model of Autistic Self” (HAS), which, characterizing the autistic self in hierarchical and spatiotemporal terms, aligns well with and extends current theories of ASD including predictive coding and weak central coherence.
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spelling pubmed-81459742021-05-26 The Lost Neural Hierarchy of the Autistic Self—Locked-Out of the Mental Self and Its Default-Mode Network Lian, Fuxin Northoff, Georg Brain Sci Review Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by a fundamental change in self-awareness including seemingly paradoxical features like increased ego-centeredness and weakened self-referentiality. What is the neural basis of this so-called “self-paradox”? Conducting a meta-analytic review of fMRI rest and task studies, we show that ASD exhibits consistent hypofunction in anterior and posterior midline regions of the default-mode network (DMN) in both rest and task with decreased self–non-self differentiation. Relying on a multilayered nested hierarchical model of self, as recently established (Qin et al. 2020), we propose that ASD subjects cannot access the most upper layer of their self, the DMN-based mental self—they are locked-out of their own DMN and its mental self. This, in turn, results in strong weakening of their self-referentiality with decreases in both self-awareness and self–other distinction. Moreover, this blocks the extension of non-DMN cortical and subcortical regions at the lower layers of the physical self to the DMN-based upper layer of the mental self, including self–other distinction. The ASD subjects remain stuck and restricted to their intero- and exteroceptive selves as manifested in a relative increase in ego-centeredness (as compared to self-referentiality). This amounts to what we describe as “Hierarchical Model of Autistic Self” (HAS), which, characterizing the autistic self in hierarchical and spatiotemporal terms, aligns well with and extends current theories of ASD including predictive coding and weak central coherence. MDPI 2021-04-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8145974/ /pubmed/33946964 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11050574 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Lian, Fuxin
Northoff, Georg
The Lost Neural Hierarchy of the Autistic Self—Locked-Out of the Mental Self and Its Default-Mode Network
title The Lost Neural Hierarchy of the Autistic Self—Locked-Out of the Mental Self and Its Default-Mode Network
title_full The Lost Neural Hierarchy of the Autistic Self—Locked-Out of the Mental Self and Its Default-Mode Network
title_fullStr The Lost Neural Hierarchy of the Autistic Self—Locked-Out of the Mental Self and Its Default-Mode Network
title_full_unstemmed The Lost Neural Hierarchy of the Autistic Self—Locked-Out of the Mental Self and Its Default-Mode Network
title_short The Lost Neural Hierarchy of the Autistic Self—Locked-Out of the Mental Self and Its Default-Mode Network
title_sort lost neural hierarchy of the autistic self—locked-out of the mental self and its default-mode network
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8145974/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33946964
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11050574
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