The brains of high functioning autistic individuals do not synchronize with those of others

TLDR

Autism spectrum disorders are characterized by multifaceted and idiosyncratic aberrancies in social cognition. The study aimed to elucidate neural mechanisms by measuring fMRI activity in ASD and matched neurotypical participants while they watched a feature film depicting social interactions. Voxelwise intersubject correlations were computed from the fMRI data using Pearson’s correlation coefficient to assess brain activity similarity across subjects. ASD participants showed lower intersubject correlation in social‑processing regions and reduced frontal‑to‑parietal functional connectivity relative to controls, suggesting that their neural responses to dynamic social stimuli are less synchronized and that ISC and connectivity capture distinct atypical brain features.

Abstract

Multifaceted and idiosyncratic aberrancies in social cognition characterize autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). To advance understanding of underlying neural mechanisms, we measured brain hemodynamic activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in individuals with ASD and matched-pair neurotypical (NT) controls while they were viewing a feature film portraying social interactions. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used as a measure of voxelwise similarity of brain activity (InterSubject Correlations—ISCs). Individuals with ASD showed lower ISC than NT controls in brain regions implicated in processing social information including the insula, posterior and anterior cingulate cortex, caudate nucleus, precuneus, lateral occipital cortex, and supramarginal gyrus. Curiously, also within NT group, autism-quotient scores predicted ISC in overlapping areas, including, e.g., supramarginal gyrus and precuneus. In ASD participants, functional connectivity was decreased between the frontal pole and the superior frontal gyrus, angular gyrus, superior parietal lobule, precentral gyrus, precuneus, and anterior/posterior cingulate gyrus. Taken together these results suggest that ISC and functional connectivity measure distinct features of atypical brain function in high-functioning autistic individuals during free viewing of acted social interactions. Our ISC results suggest that the minds of ASD individuals do not 'tick together' with others while perceiving identical dynamic social interactions.