title: Emotional attribution in high-functioning individuals with autistic spectrum disorder: a functional imaging study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine whether expertise in the attribution of emotion from basic facial expressions in high-functioning individuals with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) is supported by the amygdala, fusiform, and prefrontal regions of interest (ROI) and is comparable to that of typically developing individuals.
  
  
  METHODS
  Functional magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired from 14 males with ASD and 10 matched adolescent controls while performing emotion match (EM) (perceptual), emotion label (EL) (linguistic), and control tasks. Accuracy, response time, and average activation were measured for each ROI.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was no significant difference in accuracy, response time, or ROI activation between groups performing the EL task. The ASD group was as accurate as the control group performing the EM task but had a significantly longer response time and lower average fusiform activation.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Expertise in the attribution of emotion from basic facial expressions was task-dependent in the high-functioning ASD group. The hypothesis that the high-functioning ASD group would be less expert and would have reduced fusiform activation was supported in the perceptual task but not the linguistic task. The reduced fusiform activation in the perceptual task was not explained by reduced expertise; it is therefore concluded that reduced fusiform activation is associated with the diagnosis of ASD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK. jpittog@stanford.edu
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Piggot
authors.forename: Hower
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kwon
authors.forename: Dean
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mobbs
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Blasey
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lotspeich
authors.forename: Vinod
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Menon
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bookheimer
authors.forename: Allan L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Reiss
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000679:Amygdala / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D012938:Social Perception