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Thursday, May 15, 2008
Champagne Terrace/Bordeaux (Novotel London West)
11:30 AM
Background: Comprehension of irony requires the integration of regions associated with language processing and social cognition. It is also a later developing language skill, leading to potential differences in processing in children and adults with autism.
Objectives: The purpose of the study was to compare the brain activation and cortical synchronization in children and adults with autism during the comprehension of irony.
Methods: Adult groups were 13 individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA) and 12 age/IQ-matched controls. Child groups were 17 children with HFA and 16 age/IQ-matched controls. The participants completed an event-related fMRI study consisting of two experimental conditions in which the first two sentences provided the context for the third sentence that was either literal or ironic. Results: No reliable activation differences occurred between the adults with autism and the adult controls for the ironic critical utterances. Activation differences were more prominent for the child groups with the child controls exhibiting greater activation particularly in left inferior frontal and left and right temporal areas. The adults with autism had reliably less functional connectivity than the controls for the frontal:parietal and frontal:temporal networks during the ironic critical utterance. The children with autism had reliably less functional connectivity than the control children for the temporal:occipital network during the ironic critical utterance.
Conclusions: The activation pattern of the adults with autism was similar to that of the adult and child controls with the use of more right hemispheric language areas. Differences in the areas of functional underconnectivity occurred primarily because of lesser posterior connectivity and higher frontal connectivity in the control adults as compared to the control children. Although changes occurred in the areas of activation, measures of functional connectivity for the adults and children with autism were highly similar during the ironic critical utterances.
Objectives: The purpose of the study was to compare the brain activation and cortical synchronization in children and adults with autism during the comprehension of irony.
Methods: Adult groups were 13 individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA) and 12 age/IQ-matched controls. Child groups were 17 children with HFA and 16 age/IQ-matched controls. The participants completed an event-related fMRI study consisting of two experimental conditions in which the first two sentences provided the context for the third sentence that was either literal or ironic. Results: No reliable activation differences occurred between the adults with autism and the adult controls for the ironic critical utterances. Activation differences were more prominent for the child groups with the child controls exhibiting greater activation particularly in left inferior frontal and left and right temporal areas. The adults with autism had reliably less functional connectivity than the controls for the frontal:parietal and frontal:temporal networks during the ironic critical utterance. The children with autism had reliably less functional connectivity than the control children for the temporal:occipital network during the ironic critical utterance.
Conclusions: The activation pattern of the adults with autism was similar to that of the adult and child controls with the use of more right hemispheric language areas. Differences in the areas of functional underconnectivity occurred primarily because of lesser posterior connectivity and higher frontal connectivity in the control adults as compared to the control children. Although changes occurred in the areas of activation, measures of functional connectivity for the adults and children with autism were highly similar during the ironic critical utterances.