Fwd: Autism's Social Struggles Due To Disrupted Communication Networks In Brain

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Autism's Social Struggles Due To Disrupted Communication Networks In

Brain

ScienceDaily (July 23, 2008) & mdash;

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080723102335.htm

Picking up on innuendo and social cues is a central component of

engaging in conversation, but people with autism often struggle to

determine another person's intentions in a social interaction. New

research from Carnegie Mellon University sheds light on the neural

mechanisms that are responsible for such social difficulties in

autism, and on the workings of these social brain mechanisms in all

of us.

According to the study, which is available on the Web site of the

journal Social Neuroscience, inefficient pathways for transmitting

information between certain brain regions are to blame. The research

implicates abnormalities in the brain's inter-regional communication

system, which connects the gray matter's computing centers.

" The communication between the frontal and posterior areas of the

social brain network is impaired in autism, making it difficult to

understand the intentions of others " said the study's senior author,

Marcel Just, the D.O. Hebb Professor of Psychology at Carnegie

Mellon.

The study is the first to measure the synchronization between the

brain areas that make up the Theory of Mind (ToM) network, which is

responsible for processing the intentions and thoughts of others. It

is the first to provide such concrete evidence of faulty social

network connections.

To measure the ToM network's effectiveness, the researchers asked 12

high-functioning autistic adults and 12 control participants to view

animations of interacting geometric figures, an example of which can

be viewed from a link at

http://www.ccbi.cmu.edu/reprints/reprints.htm.

Participants then were asked to select the word from several choices

that best described the interaction. For example, a large triangle

would nudge a small triangle to move outside its enclosure, and the

correct word choice would be " persuading. " The control subjects were

consistently better at inferring the intention from the action than

the participants with autism were.

While the study participants were performing the task, the

researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to

measure activation levels in all of the cortical areas that compose

the ToM network. Specifically, they simultaneously examined

activation levels in several frontal and posterior brain regions to

determine the synchronization levels in the network. The

synchronization was reliably lower in the group with autism.

Furthermore, the autistic participants' brains showed much lower

activation levels than their counterparts in the frontal regions.

These measures of brain activity in autism, such as the activation

level in the posterior part of the ToM network (located approximately

behind one's right ear), were correlated with how well each autism

participant performed in the Happe's Strange Story Test -- a

pencil-and-paper assessment of an individual's understanding of

non-literal statements, such as figures of speech.

" This study offers compelling evidence that a lack of synchronization

in the Theory of Mind network is largely responsible for social

challenges in autism, " said Just, director of Carnegie Mellon's

Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging. " That evidence can provide the

foundation for therapies that are more useful than current

approaches. "

The findings have the potential to guide the development of

theoretically based interventions for autism that could target this

particular shortfall, for example, by focusing on games and

activities that would strengthen the connections. Eventually, it

might be possible to tailor autism therapies to the brain

communication deficit on a case-by-case basis. Measuring the

connectivity before and after an intervention also could be used to

determine effectiveness.

The research was supported by a Collaborative Program of Excellence

in Autism grant from NICHD and the Cure Autism Now grant awarded to

the study's lead author, Rajesh K. Kana, now an Assistant Professor

of Psychology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

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