Objectives: The current study sought to examine which brain regions children with autism recruit when making magnitude estimates of “time” (duration).
Methods: Children with and without a diagnosis of autistic disorder (8-13 years old) were scanned while performing a temporal ordinal comparison task; a standard duration (2 or 8 sec) was followed in quick succession by a comparison duration that was a deviant of the standard (± 12, 24 & 36%) and participants were required to judge whether the comparison was ‘shorter’ or ‘longer’ (than the standard).
Results: Group differences in regional activity were observed when children were timing both the standard and comparison durations. For instance, non-affected participants revealed greater activation in the cerebellum when timing the 2-s standard and the caudate-putamen when timing the 8-s standard (as expected); in contrast, children with autism recruited the caudate-putamen more heavily when timing the shorter standard (and not the longer one).
Conclusions: These results lend support to existing behavioral evidence that individuals with autism may subjectively experience the passage of time differently. The implications of these results to our understanding of autistic symptomology will be outlined.
See more of: Brain Imaging: fMRI-Social Cognition and Emotion Perception
See more of: Brain Structure & Function