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Thursday, May 7, 2009
Northwest Hall (Chicago Hilton)
10:00 AM
Background: Facial mimicry plays a role in emotion recognition and may involve the mirror neurons system (Oberman et al. 2007). There are evidences for deficits in automatic mimicry of emotional facial expressions in autism (McIntosh et al., 2006). Additionally, adults with high functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit decreased activation in the somatosensory cortex and in motor areas corresponding to the face during naturalistic face perception (Hadjikhani et al., 2007). The somatosensory cortex is crucial for emotion recognition (Addolphs et al, 1996), and cortical thinning has been observed in that area in adult ASD subjects (Hadjikhani et al., 2006).
Objectives: The aim of the study was to examine functional connectivity of the somatosensory cortex during naturalistic face perception in high-functioning ASD adults compared to controls.
Methods: 10 ASD subjects: 7 males; 24.9 ± 7.6 years (mean ± SD) and 10 age-matched controls: 7 males; 27.8 ± 8.1 years underwent anatomical and functional scanning on a Siemens 3T Tim Trio scanner. Visual stimuli consisted of grayscale pictures of naturalistic faces and their own Fourier scrambled version. Participants were instructed to fixate a cross in the center of the stimuli and to perform a one-back task. A functional connectivity analysis was conducted using the FMRIB software library. The somatosensory cortex was selected as the region of interest using the Harvard-Oxford cortical structural atlas. Timecourses were extracted from the peak of the region of interest at an individual level and used as a regressor. Group comparison of connectivity was performed using an unpaired t-test (p<0.005).
Results: Preliminary results show that controls have stronger connections between the somatosensory cortex and bilateral motor, premotor and supplementary motor areas, as well as with the inferior frontal cortex, the inferior parietal cortex and the superior temporal sulcus. In addition, stronger connectivity was found in the controls with the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus and the colliculi. Posterior insula, hippocampi, temporal gyri and prefrontal cortices also had stronger connectivity with the somatosensory cortex in controls. Finally, controls had stronger correlations between the somatosensory cortex and bilateral visual cortices.
Conclusions: The findings suggest that emotion perception difficulties in ASD are reflected by a decreased connectivity of the somatosensory cortex with motor, premotor and supplementary motor cortices, areas of the mirror neurons system, the visual cortex, as well as with other areas involved in emotion perception and social cognition.
Objectives: The aim of the study was to examine functional connectivity of the somatosensory cortex during naturalistic face perception in high-functioning ASD adults compared to controls.
Methods: 10 ASD subjects: 7 males; 24.9 ± 7.6 years (mean ± SD) and 10 age-matched controls: 7 males; 27.8 ± 8.1 years underwent anatomical and functional scanning on a Siemens 3T Tim Trio scanner. Visual stimuli consisted of grayscale pictures of naturalistic faces and their own Fourier scrambled version. Participants were instructed to fixate a cross in the center of the stimuli and to perform a one-back task. A functional connectivity analysis was conducted using the FMRIB software library. The somatosensory cortex was selected as the region of interest using the Harvard-Oxford cortical structural atlas. Timecourses were extracted from the peak of the region of interest at an individual level and used as a regressor. Group comparison of connectivity was performed using an unpaired t-test (p<0.005).
Results: Preliminary results show that controls have stronger connections between the somatosensory cortex and bilateral motor, premotor and supplementary motor areas, as well as with the inferior frontal cortex, the inferior parietal cortex and the superior temporal sulcus. In addition, stronger connectivity was found in the controls with the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus and the colliculi. Posterior insula, hippocampi, temporal gyri and prefrontal cortices also had stronger connectivity with the somatosensory cortex in controls. Finally, controls had stronger correlations between the somatosensory cortex and bilateral visual cortices.
Conclusions: The findings suggest that emotion perception difficulties in ASD are reflected by a decreased connectivity of the somatosensory cortex with motor, premotor and supplementary motor cortices, areas of the mirror neurons system, the visual cortex, as well as with other areas involved in emotion perception and social cognition.