The brains of high functioning autistic individuals do not synchronize with those of others

Abstract

Multifaceted and idiosyncratic aberrancies in social cognition characterize autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). To advance understanding of underlying neural mechanisms, we measured brain hemodynamic activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in individuals with ASD and matched-pair neurotypical (NT) controls while they were viewing a feature film portraying social interactions. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used as a measure of voxelwise similarity of brain activity (InterSubject Correlations—ISCs). Individuals with ASD showed lower ISC than NT controls in brain regions implicated in processing social information including the insula, posterior and anterior cingulate cortex, caudate nucleus, precuneus, lateral occipital cortex, and supramarginal gyrus. Curiously, also within NT group, autism-quotient scores predicted ISC in overlapping areas, including, e.g., supramarginal gyrus and precuneus. In ASD participants, functional connectivity was decreased between the frontal pole and the superior frontal gyrus, angular gyrus, superior parietal lobule, precentral gyrus, precuneus, and anterior/posterior cingulate gyrus. Taken together these results suggest that ISC and functional connectivity measure distinct features of atypical brain function in high-functioning autistic individuals during free viewing of acted social interactions. Our ISC results suggest that the minds of ASD individuals do not ‘tick together’ with others while perceiving identical dynamic social interactions.

Brain dynamics in ASD during movie‐watching show idiosyncratic functional integration and segregation

“…However, they show that the idiosyncrasy in brain responses previously reported across ASD subjects in stationary computational settings (Hasson et al, 2009; Hahamy, Behrmann, & Malach, 2015; Salmi et al, 2013) concerns precisely timed movie events involving functional integration and segregation.…”

“…By correlating a given regional time course of activity across subjects, a measure of response homogeneity can be obtained. This approach revealed globally more idiosyncratic activity in ASD than in typically developing (TD) individuals (Hasson et al, 2009; Salmi et al, 2013). However, as a movie involves a continuously changing sequence of temporally overlapping cues, to which the brain dynamically adjusts, such stationary analyses (i.e., through one estimate for the whole task duration) may fall short of an accurate characterization.…”

Brain hemodynamic activity during viewing and re-viewing of comedy movies explained by experienced humor

“…First, a Mantel test was carried out where between-subject similarities in self-rated humorous experience were used to explain similarities in hemodynamic activity3536 (see Fig. 3 for an illustration of the steps in this test).…”

Functional Connectivity Changes and Executive and Social Problems in Neurofibromatosis Type I

“…Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in other diseases, examining alterations in networks of brain regions associated with cognitive and social functioning (Salmi et al, 2013;Wheaton et al, 2014), highlighted several pivotal areas being associated with measured malfunction, including the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and anterior (ACC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) (Gasquoine, 2013;Jackowski et al, 2012;Leech and Sharp, 2014;Murray et al, 2014;Salmi et al, 2013). The amygdala has been associated with determining the emotional significance of visual, auditory, and olfactory signals, and is involved in coping with the social environment and making social judgments (Adolphs et al, 1998), especially when evaluating facial expressions.…”