title: Differentiating neural reward responsiveness in autism versus ADHD.
abstract: Although attention deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) share certain neurocognitive characteristics, it has been hypothesized to differentiate the two disorders based on their brain's reward responsiveness to either social or monetary reward. Thus, the present fMRI study investigated neural activation in response to both reward types in age and IQ-matched boys with ADHD versus ASD relative to typically controls (TDC). A significant group by reward type interaction effect emerged in the ventral striatum with greater activation to monetary versus social reward only in TDC, whereas subjects with ADHD responded equally strong to both reward types, and subjects with ASD showed low striatal reactivity across both reward conditions. Moreover, disorder-specific neural abnormalities were revealed, including medial prefrontal hyperactivation in response to social reward in ADHD versus ventral striatal hypoactivation in response to monetary reward in ASD. Shared dysfunction was characterized by fronto-striato-parietal hypoactivation in both clinical groups when money was at stake. Interestingly, lower neural activation within parietal circuitry was associated with higher autistic traits across the entire study sample. In sum, the present findings concur with the assumption that both ASD and ADHD display distinct and shared neural dysfunction in response to reward.
authors.affiliation: Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, RWTH Aachen University, Germany; Cognitive Neurology Section, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Research Centre, Jülich, Germany. Electronic address: gkohls@ukaachen.de.
authors.forename: Gregor
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kohls
authors.affiliation: Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, RWTH Aachen University, Germany.
authors.forename: Heike
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Thönessen
authors.affiliation: Center for Autism Research, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, USA.
authors.forename: Gregory K
authors.initials: GK
authors.lastname: Bartley
authors.affiliation: Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, RWTH Aachen University, Germany.
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Grossheinrich
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Neurology Section, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Research Centre, Jülich, Germany; Department of Neurology, University Hospital Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Gereon R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Fink
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, RWTH Aachen University, Germany; JARA Translational Brain Medicine, Germany.
authors.forename: Beate
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Herpertz-Dahlmann
authors.affiliation: Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, RWTH Aachen University, Germany; Cognitive Neurology Section, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Research Centre, Jülich, Germany; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, RWTH Aachen University, Germany; JARA Translational Brain Medicine, Germany.
authors.forename: Kerstin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Konrad
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002648:Child; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology*; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012201:Reward; D066328:Ventral Striatum / Q000503:physiopathology*
keywords: ADHD; Autism spectrum disorder; Medial prefrontal cortex; Monetary reward; Social reward; Ventral striatum