title: Early neural activation during facial affect processing in adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
abstract: Impaired social interaction is one of the hallmarks of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Emotional faces are arguably the most critical visual social stimuli and the ability to perceive, recognize, and interpret emotions is central to social interaction and communication, and subsequently healthy social development. However, our understanding of the neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying emotional face processing in adolescents with ASD is limited. We recruited 48 adolescents, 24 with high functioning ASD and 24 typically developing controls. Participants completed an implicit emotional face processing task in the MEG. We examined spatiotemporal differences in neural activation between the groups during implicit angry and happy face processing. While there were no differences in response latencies between groups across emotions, adolescents with ASD had lower accuracy on the implicit emotional face processing task when the trials included angry faces. MEG data showed atypical neural activity in adolescents with ASD during angry and happy face processing, which included atypical activity in the insula, anterior and posterior cingulate and temporal and orbitofrontal regions. Our findings demonstrate differences in neural activity during happy and angry face processing between adolescents with and without ASD. These differences in activation in social cognitive regions may index the difficulties in face processing and in comprehension of social reward and punishment in the ASD group. Thus, our results suggest that atypical neural activation contributes to impaired affect processing, and thus social cognition, in adolescents with ASD.
authors.affiliation: Diagnostic Imaging, Hospital for Sick Children, Canada ; University of Toronto, Canada.
authors.forename: Rachel C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Leung
authors.affiliation: University of Toronto, Canada ; Division of Neurology, Hospital for Sick Children, Canada ; Neurosciences and Mental Health Program, Research Institute, Hospital for Sick Children, Canada.
authors.forename: Elizabeth W
authors.initials: EW
authors.lastname: Pang
authors.affiliation: Diagnostic Imaging, Hospital for Sick Children, Canada.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cassel
authors.affiliation: Bloorview Research Institute, Holland Bloorview Rehabilitation Hospital, 150 Kilgour Road, Toronto, Canada ; Autism Research Unit, Hospital for Sick Children, Canada.
authors.forename: Jessica A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Brian
authors.affiliation: University of Toronto, Canada ; Neurosciences and Mental Health Program, Research Institute, Hospital for Sick Children, Canada.
authors.forename: Mary Lou
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Diagnostic Imaging, Hospital for Sick Children, Canada ; University of Toronto, Canada ; Division of Neurology, Hospital for Sick Children, Canada ; Neurosciences and Mental Health Program, Research Institute, Hospital for Sick Children, Canada.
authors.forename: Margot J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Taylor
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D002648:Child; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D015225:Magnetoencephalography; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D012938:Social Perception
keywords: Adolescents; Affect processing; Anterior cingulate cortex; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Implicit face processing; Magnetoencephalography