Neural circuitry of emotional face processing in autism spectrum disorders.
BACKGROUND
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are associated with severe impairments in social functioning. Because faces provide nonverbal cues that support social interactions, many studies of ASD have examined neural structures that process faces, including the amygdala, ventromedial prefrontal cortex and superior and middle temporal gyri. However, increases or decreases in activation are often contingent on the cognitive task. Specifically, the cognitive domain of attention influences group differences in brain activation. We investigated brain function abnormalities in participants with ASD using a task that monitored attention bias to emotional faces.


METHODS
Twenty-four participants (12 with ASD, 12 controls) completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging study while performing an attention cuing task with emotional (happy, sad, angry) and neutral faces.


RESULTS
In response to emotional faces, those in the ASD group showed greater right amygdala activation than those in the control group. A preliminary psychophysiological connectivity analysis showed that ASD participants had stronger positive right amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex coupling and weaker positive right amygdala and temporal lobe coupling than controls. There were no group differences in the behavioural measure of attention bias to the emotional faces.


CONCLUSIONS
The small sample size may have affected our ability to detect additional group differences.


CONCLUSIONS
When attention bias to emotional faces was equivalent between ASD and control groups, ASD was associated with greater amygdala activation. Preliminary analyses showed that ASD participants had stronger connectivity between the amygdala ventromedial prefrontal cortex (a network implicated in emotional modulation) and weaker connectivity between the amygdala and temporal lobe (a pathway involved in the identification of facial expressions, although areas of group differences were generally in a more anterior region of the temporal lobe than what is typically reported for emotional face processing). These alterations in connectivity are consistent with emotion and face processing disturbances in ASD.
Monk
Christopher S
CS
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48109, USA. csmonk@umich.edu
Weng
Shih-Jen
SJ
Wiggins
Jillian Lee
JL
Kurapati
Nikhil
N
Louro
Hugo M C
HM
Carrasco
Melisa
M
Maslowsky
Julie
J
Risi
Susan
S
Lord
Catherine
C
D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000503:physiopathology; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002648:Child; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003463:Cues; D004644:Emotions; D005145:Face; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000503:physiopathology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D012938:Social Perception; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology