Self-identification with another person's face. The time relevant role of multimodal brain areas in the enfacement illusion

Illusory subjective experience of looking at one's own face while in fact looking at another person's face can surprisingly be induced by simple synchronized visuo-tactile stimulation of the two faces. Recently, Apps and colleagues (Cerebral Cortex, 2014) investigated for the first time the role of visual unimodal and temporo-parietal multimodal brain areas in the enfacement illusion, and suggested a model in which multisensory mechanisms are crucial to construct and update self-face representation

Autistic traits affect interpersonal motor coordination by modulating strategic use of role-based behavior

Background: Despite the fact that deficits in social communication and interaction are at the core of Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC), no study has yet tested individuals on a continuum from neurotypical development to autism in an on-line, cooperative, joint action task. In our study, we aimed to assess whether the degree of autistic traits affects participants' ability to modulate their motor behavior while interacting in a Joint Grasping task and according to their given role. Methods: Sixteen pairs of adult participants played a cooperative social interactive game in which they had to synchronize their reach-to-grasp movements. Pairs were comprised of one ASC and one neurotypical with no cognitive disability. In alternate experimental blocks, one participant knew what action to perform (instructed role) while the other had to infer it from his/her partner’s action (adaptive role). When in the adaptive condition, participants were told to respond with an action that was either opposite or similar to their partner. Participants also played a non-social control game in which they had to synchronize with a non-biological stimulus. Results: In the social interactive task, higher degree of autistic trait s predicted less ability to mod ulate joint action according to one’s interactive role. In the non-social task, autistic traits did not predict differences in movement preparation and planning, thus ruling out the possibility that social interact ive task results were due to basic motor or executive function difficulties. Furthermore, when participants played the non-social game, the higher their autistic traits, the more they were interfered by the non-biological stimulus. Conclusions: Our study shows for the first time that high autistic traits predict a stereotypical interaction style when individuals are required to modulate their movements in order to coordinate with their partner according to their role in a joint action task. Specifically, the infrequent emergence of role-based motor behavior modulation during on-line motor cooperation in participants with high autistic traits sheds light on the numerous difficulties ASC have in nonverbal social interaction

Face individual identity recognition: a potential endophenotype in autism

Funder: Autism Research TrustFunder: NIHR Biomedical Research CentreFunder: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care East of England at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation TrustFunder: Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Foundation; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100001479Funder: National Science Foundation; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100008982Funder: The Harvard Clinical and Translational Science CenterFunder: US-IT Fulbright CommissionAbstract: Background: Face individual identity recognition skill is heritable and independent of intellectual ability. Difficulties in face individual identity recognition are present in autistic individuals and their family members and are possibly linked to oxytocin polymorphisms in families with an autistic child. While it is reported that developmental prosopagnosia (i.e., impaired face identity recognition) occurs in 2–3% of the general population, no prosopagnosia prevalence estimate is available for autism. Furthermore, an autism within-group approach has not been reported towards characterizing impaired face memory and to investigate its possible links to social and communication difficulties. Methods: The present study estimated the prevalence of prosopagnosia in 80 autistic adults with no intellectual disability, investigated its cognitive characteristics and links to autism symptoms’ severity, personality traits, and mental state understanding from the eye region by using standardized tests and questionnaires. Results: More than one third of autistic participants showed prosopagnosia. Their face memory skill was not associated with their symptom’s severity, empathy, alexithymia, or general intelligence. Face identity recognition was instead linked to mental state recognition from the eye region only in autistic individuals who had prosopagnosia, and this relationship did not depend on participants’ basic face perception skills. Importantly, we found that autistic participants were not aware of their face memory skills. Limitations: We did not test an epidemiological sample, and additional work is necessary to establish whether these results generalize to the entire autism spectrum. Conclusions: Impaired face individual identity recognition meets the criteria to be a potential endophenotype in autism. In the future, testing for face memory could be used to stratify autistic individuals into genetically meaningful subgroups and be translatable to autism animal models

Capacità predittiva e traslazionale: Due sfide per l'Embodied Cognition

[No abstract available

Le tecniche di indagine cerebrale

Le scienze cognitive del linguaggio indagano il modo specificamente umano in cui il linguaggio si connette con gli altri processi cognitivi. Il volume guida il lettore nei vari ambiti che costituiscono lo scenario della disciplina: dalla filosofia alla linguistica, dall'Intelligenza Artificiale alla psicologia, alla biologia fino alle patologie del linguaggio. Ne risulta una descrizione integrata del fenomeno linguistico che fa riferimento sia alla riflessione sull'evoluzione della capacità umana di parlare, sia alle più recenti scoperte scientifiche

Face individual identity recognition: a potential endophenotype in autism

Funder: Autism Research TrustFunder: NIHR Biomedical Research CentreFunder: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care East of England at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation TrustFunder: Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Foundation; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100001479Funder: National Science Foundation; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100008982Funder: The Harvard Clinical and Translational Science CenterFunder: US-IT Fulbright CommissionAbstract: Background: Face individual identity recognition skill is heritable and independent of intellectual ability. Difficulties in face individual identity recognition are present in autistic individuals and their family members and are possibly linked to oxytocin polymorphisms in families with an autistic child. While it is reported that developmental prosopagnosia (i.e., impaired face identity recognition) occurs in 2–3% of the general population, no prosopagnosia prevalence estimate is available for autism. Furthermore, an autism within-group approach has not been reported towards characterizing impaired face memory and to investigate its possible links to social and communication difficulties. Methods: The present study estimated the prevalence of prosopagnosia in 80 autistic adults with no intellectual disability, investigated its cognitive characteristics and links to autism symptoms’ severity, personality traits, and mental state understanding from the eye region by using standardized tests and questionnaires. Results: More than one third of autistic participants showed prosopagnosia. Their face memory skill was not associated with their symptom’s severity, empathy, alexithymia, or general intelligence. Face identity recognition was instead linked to mental state recognition from the eye region only in autistic individuals who had prosopagnosia, and this relationship did not depend on participants’ basic face perception skills. Importantly, we found that autistic participants were not aware of their face memory skills. Limitations: We did not test an epidemiological sample, and additional work is necessary to establish whether these results generalize to the entire autism spectrum. Conclusions: Impaired face individual identity recognition meets the criteria to be a potential endophenotype in autism. In the future, testing for face memory could be used to stratify autistic individuals into genetically meaningful subgroups and be translatable to autism animal models

The pain of a model in the personality of an onlooker: Influence of state-reactivity and personality traits on embodied empathy for pain

The study of inter-individual differences at behavioural and neural levels represents a new avenue for neuroscience. The response to socio-emotional stimuli varies greatly across individuals. For example, identification with the feelings of a movie character may be total for some people or virtually absent for others. Inter-individual differences may reflect both the on-line effect (state) of the observed stimuli and more stable personal characteristics (trait). Here we show that somatomotor mirror responses when viewing others' pain are modulated by both state- and trait-differences in empathy. We recorded motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) induced by Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) in healthy individuals observing needles penetrating a model's hand. We found a reduction of corticospinal excitability that was specific for the muscle that subjects observed being penetrated. This inhibition correlated with sensory qualities of the pain ascribed to the model. Moreover, it was greater in subjects with high trait-cognitive empathy and lower in subjects with high trait-personal distress and in those with high aversion for the observed movies. Results indicate that somatomotor responses to others' pain are influenced by specific onlookers' personality traits and self-oriented emotional reactions. Our findings suggest that multiple distinct mechanisms shape mirror mapping of others' pain. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Stimulus-driven modulation of motor-evoked potentials during observation of others' pain.

Empathy may allow interindividual sharing not only of emotions (e.g., joy, sadness, disgust) but also of sensations (e.g., touch, itching, pain). Although empathy for pain may rely upon both sensory and affective components of the pain experience, neuroimaging studies indicate that only the affective component of the pain matrix is involved in empathy for pain. By using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), we highlighted the sensorimotor side of empathy for pain by showing a clear motor inhibition during the mere observation of needles penetrating body parts of a human model. Here, we explored stimulus-specific and instruction-specific influences on this inhibition by manipulating task instructions (request to adopt first- or third-person perspective vs. passive observation) and painfulness of the experimental stimuli (presentation of videos of needles deeply penetrating or simply pinpricking a hand). We found a significant reduction in amplitudes of motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) specific to the muscle the subjects observed being penetrated that correlated with the intensity of the pain attributed to the model. Crucially, this motor inhibition was present during observation of penetrating but not of pinpricking needles. Moreover, no MEPs modulation contingent upon different task instructions was found. Results suggest that the motor inhibition elicited by the observation of 'flesh and bone' pain stimuli is more stimulus-driven than instruction-driven

Left hemisphere dominance in reading the sensory qualities of others' pain?

Seeing or imagining others in pain may activate both the sensory and affective components of the neural network (pain matrix) that is activated during the personal experience of pain. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), proved adept at highlighting the sensorimotor side of empathy for pain in studies where mere observation of needles penetrating body parts of a human model brought about a clear corticospinal motor inhibition. By using TMS, we investigated whether inferring the sensory properties of the pain of a model influenced the somatomotor system of an onlooker. Moreover, we tested the possible lateralization of the motor substrates underlying this reading process. We recorded motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) to left and right motor cortex stimulation during the observation of "flesh and bone" painful stimulations of right and left hands respectively. We found a significant reduction of onlookers' MEPs amplitudes specific to the muscle penetrated in the model. Subjective inferences about localization and intensity of the observed pain were associated with specific patterns of motor modulation with larger inhibitory effects following stimulation of the left motor cortex. Thus, results indicate that the mental simulation of the sensory qualities of others' pain may be lateralized to the left hemisphere