TY - JOUR
T1 - Functional connectivity differences in autism during face and car recognition
T2 - underconnectivity and atypical age-related changes
AU - Lynn, Andrew C.
AU - Padmanabhan, Aarthi
AU - Simmonds, Daniel
AU - Foran, William
AU - Hallquist, Michael N.
AU - Luna, Beatriz
AU - O'Hearn, Kirsten
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was completed at the University of Pittsburgh and supported by NIMH K01MH081191 (PI O’Hearn), and NIH HD055748 (PI Minshew) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development. Recruitment was supported by NICHD ACE grant HD055648 and CPEA grant HD35469. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. We thank the participants, their families, Jennifer Fedor, Heidi Baumgartner, and the staff at the Autism Center for Excellence for their generous help. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their critical feedback and suggestions that resulted in a much improved manuscript. Preliminary results were presented at the Association for Psychological Science meeting in Washington, DC in 2013 and the International Congress for Integrative Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (FLUX Congress) in Pittsburgh, PA in 2013.
Funding Information:
This work was completed at the University of Pittsburgh and supported by NIMH K01MH081191 (PI O'Hearn), and NIH HD055748 (PI Minshew) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development. Recruitment was supported by NICHD ACE grant HD055648 and CPEA grant HD35469. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. We thank the participants, their families, Jennifer Fedor, Heidi Baumgartner, and the staff at the Autism Center for Excellence for their generous help. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their critical feedback and suggestions that resulted in a much improved manuscript. Preliminary results were presented at the Association for Psychological Science meeting in Washington, DC in 2013 and the International Congress for Integrative Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (FLUX Congress) in Pittsburgh, PA in 2013.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
PY - 2018/1
Y1 - 2018/1
N2 - Face recognition abilities improve between adolescence and adulthood over typical development (TD), but plateau in autism, leading to increasing face recognition deficits in autism later in life. Developmental differences between autism and TD may reflect changes between neural systems involved in the development of face encoding and recognition. Here, we focused on whole-brain connectivity with the fusiform face area (FFA), a well-established face-preferential brain region. Older children, adolescents, and adults with and without autism completed the Cambridge Face Memory Test, and a matched car memory test, during fMRI scanning. We then examined task-based functional connectivity between the FFA and the rest of the brain, comparing autism and TD groups during encoding and recognition of face and car stimuli. The autism group exhibited underconnectivity, relative to the TD group, between the FFA and frontal and primary visual cortices, independent of age. Underconnectivity with the medial and rostral lateral prefrontal cortex was face-specific during encoding and recognition, respectively. Conversely, underconnectivity with the L orbitofrontal cortex was evident for both face and car encoding. Atypical age-related changes in connectivity emerged between the FFA and the R temporoparietal junction, and R dorsal striatum for face stimuli only. Similar differences in age-related changes in autism emerged for FFA connectivity with the amygdala across both face and car recognition. Thus, underconnectivity and atypical development of functional connectivity may lead to a less optimal face-processing network in the context of increasing general and social cognitive deficits in autism.
AB - Face recognition abilities improve between adolescence and adulthood over typical development (TD), but plateau in autism, leading to increasing face recognition deficits in autism later in life. Developmental differences between autism and TD may reflect changes between neural systems involved in the development of face encoding and recognition. Here, we focused on whole-brain connectivity with the fusiform face area (FFA), a well-established face-preferential brain region. Older children, adolescents, and adults with and without autism completed the Cambridge Face Memory Test, and a matched car memory test, during fMRI scanning. We then examined task-based functional connectivity between the FFA and the rest of the brain, comparing autism and TD groups during encoding and recognition of face and car stimuli. The autism group exhibited underconnectivity, relative to the TD group, between the FFA and frontal and primary visual cortices, independent of age. Underconnectivity with the medial and rostral lateral prefrontal cortex was face-specific during encoding and recognition, respectively. Conversely, underconnectivity with the L orbitofrontal cortex was evident for both face and car encoding. Atypical age-related changes in connectivity emerged between the FFA and the R temporoparietal junction, and R dorsal striatum for face stimuli only. Similar differences in age-related changes in autism emerged for FFA connectivity with the amygdala across both face and car recognition. Thus, underconnectivity and atypical development of functional connectivity may lead to a less optimal face-processing network in the context of increasing general and social cognitive deficits in autism.
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U2 - 10.1111/desc.12508
DO - 10.1111/desc.12508
M3 - Article
C2 - 27748031
AN - SCOPUS:84991451127
VL - 21
JO - Developmental Science
JF - Developmental Science
SN - 1363-755X
IS - 1
M1 - e12508
ER -