title: Abnormal functional specialization within medial prefrontal cortex in high-functioning autism: a multi-voxel similarity analysis.
abstract: Multi-voxel pattern analyses have proved successful in 'decoding' mental states from fMRI data, but have not been used to examine brain differences associated with atypical populations. We investigated a group of 16 (14 males) high-functioning participants with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 16 non-autistic control participants (12 males) performing two tasks (spatial/verbal) previously shown to activate medial rostral prefrontal cortex (mrPFC). Each task manipulated: (i) attention towards perceptual versus self-generated information and (ii) reflection on another person's mental state ('mentalizing'versus 'non-mentalizing') in a 2 x 2 design. Behavioral performance and group-level fMRI results were similar between groups. However, multi-voxel similarity analyses revealed strong differences. In control participants, the spatial distribution of activity generalized significantly between task contexts (spatial/verbal) when examining the same function (attention/mentalizing) but not when comparing different functions. This pattern was disrupted in the ASD group, indicating abnormal functional specialization within mrPFC, and demonstrating the applicability of multi-voxel pattern analysis to investigations of atypical populations.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Department of Psychology, University College London, London, UK. sam.gilbert@ucl.ac.uk
authors.forename: Sam J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Gilbert
authors.forename: Julia D I
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Meuwese
authors.forename: Karren J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Towgood
authors.forename: Christopher D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Frith
authors.forename: Paul W
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Burgess
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D020817:Asperger Syndrome / Q000503:physiopathology; D001288:Attention; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D055815:Young Adult