Social stimuli interfere with cognitive control in autism

Autism spectrum disorders are characterized by cognitive control deficits as well as impairments in social interactions. However, the brain mechanisms mediating the interactive effects of these deficits have not been addressed. We employed event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the effects of processing directional information from faces on activity within brain regions mediating cognitive control. High-functioning individuals with autism and age-, gender-, and IQ-matched neurotypical individuals attended to the direction of a centrally-presented arrow or gaze stimulus with similar flanker stimuli oriented in the same (“congruent”) or opposite (“incongruent”) direction. The incongruent arrow condition was examined to assess functioning of brain regions mediating cognitive control in a context without social-cognitive demands, whereas the incongruent gaze condition assessed functioning of the same brain regions in a social-cognitive context. Consistent with prior studies, the incongruent arrow condition recruited activity in bilateral midfrontal gyrus, right inferior frontal gyrus, bilateral intraparietal sulcus, and the anterior cingulate relative to the congruent arrow condition in neurotypical participants. Notably, there were not diagnostic group differences in patterns of regional fMRI activation in response to the arrow condition. However, while viewing the incongruent gaze stimuli, although neurotypical participants recruited the same brain regions, participants with autism showed marked hypoactivation in these areas. These findings suggest that processing social-cognitive stimuli interferes with functioning of brain regions recruited during cognitive control tasks in autism. Implications for research into cognitive control deficits in autism are discussed

Atypical modulation of cognitive control by arousal in autism

We examined the effects of viewing high-arousal pictures on regional brain activations elicited by a cognitive control task in participants with high-functioning autism and neurotypical controls. Specifically, using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, we assessed the effects of brief presentations of highly arousing pictures (i.e., both very pleasant and very unpleasant) on the processing of stimuli requiring cognitive control. Similar to previous findings, when stimuli with high cognitive control demands were preceded by low-arousal pictures, individuals with autism demonstrated regional brain activations that were comparable to neurotypical control individuals. When the presentation of the cognitive control stimuli was preceded by high-arousal pictures, however, the control group was characterized by relatively greater activation in the right lateral midfrontal cortex in response to cognitive control stimuli. In contrast, preceding high-arousal stimuli did not modulate activity elicited in this region by cognitive control stimuli in the autism group. Differential modulation of right lateral midfrontal activation by high-arousal stimuli in autism is consistent with the “inefficiency model” of brain functioning in autism spectrum disorders, and contributes to a growing body of evidence that autism may be characterized by anomalous sensitivity of cognitive control brain regions to social-emotional context

The chronometry of affective startle modulation in unipolar depression.

Affective startle eyeblink modulation by unipolar depressed and nondepressed participants was assessed during the anticipation and viewing of emotional pictures. Anticipatory startle probes were presented at 2,000 ms and 750 ms before picture onset. Startle probes during picture viewing were presented at 300 ms and 3,500–4,500 ms after picture onset. Although nondepressed participants demonstrated the predicted quadratic and linear patterns of responding in the 2,000-ms anticipatory and 3,500–4,500-ms viewing conditions, respectively, depressed participants were not significantly responsive to differences among picture valence categories at these probe conditions. There were no between-groups differences in startle modulation at the other two probe intervals, in picture ratings, or in behavioral responses to pictures. There was also little evidence of hyperresponsivity to negatively valenced stimuli in the depressed group. These results indicate that depression-related affective hyporesponsivity extended to startle modulation but that the nature and magnitude of the differences between depressed and nondepressed individuals were conditional on the specific cognitive and motivational processes recruited at different points in time

Experience sampling of positive affect in adolescents with autism: Feasibility and preliminary findings

Experience sampling is a powerful method for obtaining ecologically valid data from research participants in real-world contexts. Given the urgent need for innovative and sensitive outcome measures in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) research, the present study sought to examine the feasibility of using experience sampling of positive affect and behavior in adolescents with ASD

Major depressive disorder is characterized by greater reward network activation to monetary than pleasant image rewards

Anhedonia, the loss of interest or pleasure in normally rewarding activities, is a hallmark feature of unipolar Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). A growing body of literature has identified frontostriatal dysfunction during reward anticipation and outcomes in MDD. However, no study to date has directly compared responses to different types of rewards such as pleasant images and monetary rewards in MDD. To investigate the neural responses to monetary and pleasant image rewards in MDD, a modified Monetary Incentive Delay task was used during fMRI scanning to assess neural responses during anticipation and receipt of monetary and pleasant image rewards. Participants included nine adults with MDD and thirteen affectively healthy controls. The MDD group showed lower activation than controls when anticipating monetary rewards in right orbitofrontal cortex and subcallosal cortex, and when anticipating pleasant image rewards in paracingulate and supplementary motor cortex. The MDD group had relatively greater activation in right putamen when anticipating monetary versus pleasant image rewards, relative to the control group. Results suggest reduced reward network activation in MDD when anticipating rewards, as well as relatively greater hypoactivation to pleasant image than monetary rewards

Affective Responses by Adults with Autism Are Reduced to Social Images but Elevated to Images Related to Circumscribed Interests

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) demonstrate increased visual attention and elevated brain reward circuitry responses to images related to circumscribed interests (CI), suggesting that a heightened affective response to CI may underlie their disproportionate salience and reward value in ASD. To determine if individuals with ASD differ from typically developing (TD) adults in their subjective emotional experience of CI object images, non-CI object images and social images, 213 TD adults and 56 adults with ASD provided arousal ratings (sensation of being energized varying along a dimension from calm to excited) and valence ratings (emotionality varying along dimension of approach to withdrawal) for a series of 114 images derived from previous research on CI. The groups did not differ on arousal ratings for any image type, but ASD adults provided higher valence ratings than TD adults for CI-related images, and lower valence ratings for social images. Even after co-varying the effects of sex, the ASD group, but not the TD group, gave higher valence ratings to CI images than social images. These findings provide additional evidence that ASD is characterized by a preference for certain categories of non-social objects and a reduced preference for social stimuli, and support the dissemination of this image set for examining aspects of the circumscribed interest phenotype in ASD

Affective context interferes with cognitive control in unipolar depression: An fMRI investigation

Unipolar major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by aberrant amygdala responses to sad stimuli and poor cognitive control, but the interactive effects of these impairments are poorly understood

Early Life Abuse Moderates the Effects of Intranasal Oxytocin on Symptoms of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder: Preliminary Evidence From a Placebo-Controlled Trial

Background: Although intranasal oxytocin (OXT) has been proposed to be a promising treatment for some psychiatric disorders, little research has addressed individual difference factors that may predict response to OXT. One such factor is early life abuse (ELA), which has widespread influences on social-emotional processing and behavior. This single-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial examined the role of ELA in shaping the effects of intranasal OXT (vs. placebo) on daily behavioral symptoms in women with three or more prospectively-diagnosed cycling symptoms of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD).Methods: Participants were ten women with PMDD (n = 8) or subthreshold PMDD (n = 2), who had experienced ELA prior to age 13 (n = 5) or no ELA (n = 5). They completed two study visits during the late luteal (premenstrual) phase: once following administration of intranasal OXT and once following intranasal placebo (counterbalanced). Participants then self-administered OXT or placebo at home three times per day for 5 days or until menstrual onset, and prospectively rated daily emotional symptoms of PMDD. Power was adequate to detect medium main and interactive effects.Results: Among women with ELA, intranasal OXT (vs. placebo) increased the premenstrual emotional symptoms of PMDD, whereas among women without ELA, OXT decreased symptoms.Conclusion: This study adds to a growing literature highlighting the importance of considering historical social contexts and traits (such as ELA) as moderators of therapeutic response to OXT

The Neural Circuitry Mediating Shifts in Behavioral Response and Cognitive Set in Autism

Recent studies have suggested that the social and cognitive impairments in autism are associated with neural processing deficits in specific brain regions. However, these studies have primarily focused on neural systems responsible for face processing and social behaviors. Although repetitive, stereotyped behaviors are a hallmark of autism, little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying these behaviors in the disorder

Remitted major depression is characterized by reduced prefrontal cortex reactivity to reward loss

Major depression (MDD) is characterized by anhedonia. Although a growing body of literature has linked anhedonia in MDD to reduced frontostriatal activity during reward gains, relatively few studies have examined neural responsivity to loss, and no studies to date have examined neural responses to loss in euthymic individuals with a history of MDD