title: Imagination in human social cognition, autism, and psychotic-affective conditions.
abstract: Complex human social cognition has evolved in concert with risks for psychiatric disorders. Recently, autism and psychotic-affective conditions (mainly schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression) have been posited as psychological 'opposites' with regard to social-cognitive phenotypes. Imagination, considered as 'forming new ideas, mental images, or concepts', represents a central facet of human social evolution and cognition. Previous studies have documented reduced imagination in autism, and increased imagination in association with psychotic-affective conditions, yet these sets of findings have yet to be considered together, or evaluated in the context of the diametric model. We first review studies of the components, manifestations, and neural correlates of imagination in autism and psychotic-affective conditions. Next, we use data on dimensional autism in healthy populations to test the hypotheses that: (1) imagination represents the facet of autism that best accounts for its strongly male-biased sex ratio, and (2) higher genetic risk of schizophrenia is associated with higher imagination, in accordance with the predictions of the diametric model. The first hypothesis was supported by a systematic review and meta-analysis showing that Imagination exhibits the strongest male bias of all Autism Quotient (AQ) subscales, in non-clinical populations. The second hypothesis was supported, for males, by associations between schizophrenia genetic risk scores, derived from a set of single-nucleotide polymorphisms, and the AQ Imagination subscale. Considered together, these findings indicate that imagination, especially social imagination as embodied in the default mode human brain network, mediates risk and diametric dimensional phenotypes of autism and psychotic-affective conditions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada. Electronic address: crespi@sfu.ca.
authors.forename: Bernard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Crespi
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada. Electronic address: eleach@sfu.ca.
authors.forename: Emma
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Leach
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada. Electronic address: nld670@mail.usask.ca.
authors.forename: Natalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dinsdale
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada; Department of Biological and Environmental Science, P.O. Box 35, 40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Electronic address: mika@sfu.ca.
authors.forename: Mikael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mokkonen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, and Centre for Neuroscience, University of Alberta, 116 St. and 85 Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2R3, Canada. Electronic address: phurd@ualberta.ca.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hurd
mesh_terms: D000341:Affective Disorders, Psychotic / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D012919:Social Behavior
keywords: Autism; Autism Spectrum Quotient; Creativity; Imagination; Polygenic risk score; Schizophrenia