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Greater Social Competence Is Associated With Higher Interpersonal Neural Synchrony in Adolescents With Autism

Difficulty engaging in reciprocal social interactions is a core characteristic of autism spectrum disorder. The mechanisms supporting effective dynamic real-time social exchanges are not yet well understood. This proof-of-concept hyperscanning electroencephalography study examined neural synchrony a...

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Autores principales: Key, Alexandra P., Yan, Yan, Metelko, Mary, Chang, Catie, Kang, Hakmook, Pilkington, Jennifer, Corbett, Blythe A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8770262/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35069156
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.790085
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author Key, Alexandra P.
Yan, Yan
Metelko, Mary
Chang, Catie
Kang, Hakmook
Pilkington, Jennifer
Corbett, Blythe A.
author_facet Key, Alexandra P.
Yan, Yan
Metelko, Mary
Chang, Catie
Kang, Hakmook
Pilkington, Jennifer
Corbett, Blythe A.
author_sort Key, Alexandra P.
collection PubMed
description Difficulty engaging in reciprocal social interactions is a core characteristic of autism spectrum disorder. The mechanisms supporting effective dynamic real-time social exchanges are not yet well understood. This proof-of-concept hyperscanning electroencephalography study examined neural synchrony as the mechanism supporting interpersonal social interaction in 34 adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (50% female), age 10–16 years, paired with neurotypical confederates of similar age. The degree of brain-to-brain neural synchrony was quantified at temporo-parietal scalp locations as the circular correlation of oscillatory amplitudes in theta, alpha, and beta frequency bands while the participants engaged in a friendly conversation. In line with the hypotheses, interpersonal neural synchrony was significantly greater during the social interaction compared to the baseline. Lower levels of synchrony were associated with increased behavioral symptoms of social difficulties. With regard to sex differences, we found evidence for stronger interpersonal neural synchrony during conversation than baseline in females with autism, but not in male participants, for whom such condition differences did not reach statistical significance. This study established the feasibility of hyperscanning during real-time social interactions as an informative approach to examine social competence in autism, demonstrated that neural coordination of activity between the interacting brains may contribute to social behavior, and offered new insights into sex-related variability in social functioning in individuals with autism spectrum disorders.
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spelling pubmed-87702622022-01-21 Greater Social Competence Is Associated With Higher Interpersonal Neural Synchrony in Adolescents With Autism Key, Alexandra P. Yan, Yan Metelko, Mary Chang, Catie Kang, Hakmook Pilkington, Jennifer Corbett, Blythe A. Front Hum Neurosci Human Neuroscience Difficulty engaging in reciprocal social interactions is a core characteristic of autism spectrum disorder. The mechanisms supporting effective dynamic real-time social exchanges are not yet well understood. This proof-of-concept hyperscanning electroencephalography study examined neural synchrony as the mechanism supporting interpersonal social interaction in 34 adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (50% female), age 10–16 years, paired with neurotypical confederates of similar age. The degree of brain-to-brain neural synchrony was quantified at temporo-parietal scalp locations as the circular correlation of oscillatory amplitudes in theta, alpha, and beta frequency bands while the participants engaged in a friendly conversation. In line with the hypotheses, interpersonal neural synchrony was significantly greater during the social interaction compared to the baseline. Lower levels of synchrony were associated with increased behavioral symptoms of social difficulties. With regard to sex differences, we found evidence for stronger interpersonal neural synchrony during conversation than baseline in females with autism, but not in male participants, for whom such condition differences did not reach statistical significance. This study established the feasibility of hyperscanning during real-time social interactions as an informative approach to examine social competence in autism, demonstrated that neural coordination of activity between the interacting brains may contribute to social behavior, and offered new insights into sex-related variability in social functioning in individuals with autism spectrum disorders. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-01-06 /pmc/articles/PMC8770262/ /pubmed/35069156 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.790085 Text en Copyright © 2022 Key, Yan, Metelko, Chang, Kang, Pilkington and Corbett. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Human Neuroscience
Key, Alexandra P.
Yan, Yan
Metelko, Mary
Chang, Catie
Kang, Hakmook
Pilkington, Jennifer
Corbett, Blythe A.
Greater Social Competence Is Associated With Higher Interpersonal Neural Synchrony in Adolescents With Autism
title Greater Social Competence Is Associated With Higher Interpersonal Neural Synchrony in Adolescents With Autism
title_full Greater Social Competence Is Associated With Higher Interpersonal Neural Synchrony in Adolescents With Autism
title_fullStr Greater Social Competence Is Associated With Higher Interpersonal Neural Synchrony in Adolescents With Autism
title_full_unstemmed Greater Social Competence Is Associated With Higher Interpersonal Neural Synchrony in Adolescents With Autism
title_short Greater Social Competence Is Associated With Higher Interpersonal Neural Synchrony in Adolescents With Autism
title_sort greater social competence is associated with higher interpersonal neural synchrony in adolescents with autism
topic Human Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8770262/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35069156
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.790085
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