Atypical perception of affective prosody in Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by impairments in language and social-emotional cognition. Yet, findings of emotion recognition from affective prosody in individuals with ASD are inconsistent. This study investigated emotion recognition and neural processing of affective prosody in high-functioning adults with ASD relative to neurotypical (NT) adults. Individuals with ASD showed mostly typical brain activation of the fronto-temporal and subcortical brain regions in response to affective prosody. Yet, the ASD group showed a trend towards increased activation of the right caudate during processing of affective prosody and rated the emotional intensity lower than NT individuals. This is likely associated with increased attentional task demands in this group, which might contribute to social-emotional impairments.
Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University, Building 10G, 5th Floor, Noerrebrogade 44, Aarhus C 8000, Denmark ; Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, Building 1483, 3rd Floor, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4, Aarhus C 8000, Denmark.
Line
L
Gebauer
Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, Building 1483, 3rd Floor, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4, Aarhus C 8000, Denmark.
Joshua
J
Skewes
Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University, Building 10G, 5th Floor, Noerrebrogade 44, Aarhus C 8000, Denmark.
Lone
L
Hørlyck
Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University, Building 10G, 5th Floor, Noerrebrogade 44, Aarhus C 8000, Denmark ; Royal Academy of Music, Skovgaardsgade 2C, Aarhus C 8000, Denmark.
Peter
P
Vuust
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
Affective prosody; Autism spectrum disorder; Caudate; Emotion; Speech