title: The role of the amygdala in naturalistic mentalising in typical development and in autism spectrum disorder.
abstract: The substantial discrepancy between mentalising in experimental settings v. real-life social interactions hinders the understanding of the neural basis of real-life social cognition and of social impairments in psychiatric disorders.
  
  
  
  To determine the neural mechanisms underlying naturalistic mentalising in individuals with and without autism spectrum disorder.
  
  
  
  We investigated mentalising with a new video-based functional magnetic resonance imaging task in 20 individuals with autism spectrum disorder and 22 matched healthy controls.
  
  
  
  Naturalistic mentalising implicated regions of the traditional mentalising network (medial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction), and additionally the insula and amygdala. Moreover, amygdala activity predicted implicit mentalising performance on an independent behavioural task. Compared with controls, the autism spectrum disorder group did not show differences in neural activity within classical mentalising regions. They did, however, show reduced amygdala activity and a reduced correlation between amygdala activity and mentalising accuracy on the behavioural task, compared with controls.
  
  
  
  These findings highlight the crucial role of the amygdala in making accurate implicit mental state inferences in typical development and in the social cognitive impairments of individuals with autism spectrum disorder.
authors.affiliation: Gabriela Rosenblau, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion' and Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany and Center for Translational Developmental Neuroscience, Yale Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; Dorit Kliemann, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion' and Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, McGovern Institute for Brain Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts and Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA; Benjamin Lemme, BA, Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Henrik Walter, MD, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Division of Mind and Brain Research, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Hauke R. Heekeren, MD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion', Department of Education and Psychology and Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Isabel Dziobek, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion', Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin and School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany gabriela.rosenblau@yale.edu.
authors.forename: Gabriela
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rosenblau
authors.affiliation: Gabriela Rosenblau, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion' and Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany and Center for Translational Developmental Neuroscience, Yale Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; Dorit Kliemann, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion' and Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, McGovern Institute for Brain Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts and Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA; Benjamin Lemme, BA, Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Henrik Walter, MD, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Division of Mind and Brain Research, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Hauke R. Heekeren, MD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion', Department of Education and Psychology and Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Isabel Dziobek, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion', Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin and School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Dorit
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kliemann
authors.affiliation: Gabriela Rosenblau, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion' and Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany and Center for Translational Developmental Neuroscience, Yale Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; Dorit Kliemann, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion' and Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, McGovern Institute for Brain Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts and Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA; Benjamin Lemme, BA, Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Henrik Walter, MD, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Division of Mind and Brain Research, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Hauke R. Heekeren, MD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion', Department of Education and Psychology and Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Isabel Dziobek, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion', Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin and School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lemme
authors.affiliation: Gabriela Rosenblau, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion' and Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany and Center for Translational Developmental Neuroscience, Yale Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; Dorit Kliemann, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion' and Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, McGovern Institute for Brain Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts and Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA; Benjamin Lemme, BA, Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Henrik Walter, MD, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Division of Mind and Brain Research, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Hauke R. Heekeren, MD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion', Department of Education and Psychology and Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Isabel Dziobek, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion', Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin and School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Henrik
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Walter
authors.affiliation: Gabriela Rosenblau, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion' and Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany and Center for Translational Developmental Neuroscience, Yale Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; Dorit Kliemann, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion' and Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, McGovern Institute for Brain Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts and Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA; Benjamin Lemme, BA, Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Henrik Walter, MD, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Division of Mind and Brain Research, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Hauke R. Heekeren, MD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion', Department of Education and Psychology and Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Isabel Dziobek, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion', Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin and School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Hauke R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Heekeren
authors.affiliation: Gabriela Rosenblau, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion' and Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany and Center for Translational Developmental Neuroscience, Yale Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; Dorit Kliemann, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion' and Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, McGovern Institute for Brain Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts and Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA; Benjamin Lemme, BA, Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Henrik Walter, MD, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Division of Mind and Brain Research, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Hauke R. Heekeren, MD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion', Department of Education and Psychology and Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Isabel Dziobek, PhD, Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion', Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin and School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Isabel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Dziobek
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012938:Social Perception; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult