title: Lost for emotion words: what motor and limbic brain activity reveals about autism and semantic theory.
abstract: Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) are characterised by deficits in understanding and expressing emotions and are frequently accompanied by alexithymia, a difficulty in understanding and expressing emotion words. Words are differentially represented in the brain according to their semantic category and these difficulties in ASC predict reduced activation to emotion-related words in limbic structures crucial for affective processing. Semantic theories view 'emotion actions' as critical for learning the semantic relationship between a word and the emotion it describes, such that emotion words typically activate the cortical motor systems involved in expressing emotion actions such as facial expressions. As ASC are also characterised by motor deficits and atypical brain structure and function in these regions, motor structures would also be expected to show reduced activation during emotion-semantic processing. Here we used event-related fMRI to compare passive processing of emotion words in comparison to abstract verbs and animal names in typically-developing controls and individuals with ASC. Relatively reduced brain activation in ASC for emotion words, but not matched control words, was found in motor areas and cingulate cortex specifically. The degree of activation evoked by emotion words in the motor system was also associated with the extent of autistic traits as revealed by the Autism Spectrum Quotient. We suggest that hypoactivation of motor and limbic regions for emotion word processing may underlie difficulties in processing emotional language in ASC. The role that sensorimotor systems and their connections might play in the affective and social-communication difficulties in ASC is discussed.
authors.affiliation: MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, UK; Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, UK. Electronic address: rachel.moseley@cantab.net.
authors.forename: Rachel L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Moseley
authors.affiliation: MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, UK; Centre for Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University, Denmark; Centre for Cognition & Decision Making, Faculty of Psychology, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.
authors.forename: Yury
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shtyrov
authors.affiliation: Charité Universitätsmedizin, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Bettina
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Mohr
authors.affiliation: Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, UK; Department of Psychology, University of Cyprus, Cyprus; Center for Applied Neuroscience, University of Cyprus, Cyprus.
authors.forename: Michael V
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Lombardo
authors.affiliation: Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, UK; Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, CLASS Clinic, UK.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Baron-Cohen
authors.affiliation: Brain Language Laboratory, Department of Philosophy and Humanities, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Friedemann
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pulvermüller
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008032:Limbic System / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics
keywords: Autism; Embodied cognition; Emotion; Semantics