The social motivation hypothesis posits that aberrant neural response to human faces in autism is attributable to atypical social development and consequently reduced exposure to faces. The specificity of deficits in neural specialization remains unclear, and alternative theories suggest generalized processing difficulties. The current study contrasted neural specialization for social information versus non-social information in 36 individuals with autism and 18 typically developing individuals matched for age, race, sex, handedness, and cognitive ability. Event-related potentials elicited by faces, inverted faces, houses, letters, and pseudoletters were recorded. Groups were compared on an electrophysiological marker of neural specialization (N170), as well as behavioral performance on standardized measures of face recognition and word reading/decoding. Consistent with prior results, individuals with autism displayed slowed face processing and decreased sensitivity to face inversion; however, they showed comparable brain responses to letters, which were associated with behavioral performance in both groups. Results suggest that individuals with autism display atypical neural specialization for social information but intact specialization for non-social information. They concord with the notion of specific dysfunction in social brain systems rather than non-specific information processing difficulties in autism.
The study was designed to assess neonatal immunity of chicks hatched from breeders fed diets supplemented with beta-carotene, canthaxanthin, lutein, or vitamin E. Broiler breeder birds were fed experimental diets consisting of control, 0.04% beta-carotene, 0.04% canthaxanthin, 0.04% lutein, 0.03% alpha-tocopherol acetate, or 0.04% beta-carotene plus 0.03% alpha-tocopherol acetate. Three weeks after initiation of experimental feeding, birds were vaccinated against Newcastle disease virus. Chicks hatched from the eggs of these breeders were used to determine the neonatal immune responses. There were no significant differences in weight gain and antibody titers of 3-wk-old chicks. 3H-Thymidine uptake by bursal lymphocytes when stimulated with tetrahydrofuran was significantly higher for the chicks hatched from breeders fed diets supplemented with vitamin E, or vitamin E plus beta-carotene, than in controls. 3H-Thymidine uptake by splenic lymphocytes when stimulated with concanavalin A and phorbol 12-myristate 13 acetate was significantly higher for the chicks hatched from breeders fed diets supplemented with vitamin E or beta-carotene alone, or vitamin E plus beta-carotene, than for the control chicks. Chicks hatched from hens supplemented with vitamin E had significantly higher antibody titers at 1 and 7 d of age than chicks from the control group. Vitamin E supplementation of breeder birds increased the immune response of their progeny.
We studied time-based neural activity with event-related potentials (ERPs) in young adults during a computer-simulated ball-toss game. Experiencing fair play initially, participants were ultimately excluded by other players. Dense-array ERPs showed time-dependent associations between slow-wave activity (580–900 ms) in left prefrontal/medial frontal cortical regions for exclusion events and self-reported distress. More subtle ‘micro-rejections’ during fair play showed a similar distress to ERP association (420–580 ms). In both cases, greater positive amplitude neural activity was associated with less post-exclusion distress. Findings suggest that rapidly occurring neural responses to social exclusion events are linked to individual differences in ostracism-related distress. Relations emerged even during fair play, providing a window into the neural basis of more subtle social-cognitive perceptual processes.
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