The social brain in autism: Emotion through body motion

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The project is aimed at investigation of deficits in visual recognition of emotions through body motion in persons with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD). Veridical social cognition is of tremendous value for a variety of daily life activities. Perception and understanding of social characteristics of others (such as intentions, drives, and emotions) are impaired in a number of neuropsychiatric disorders. Most of these disorders including autism are gender-specific. Earlier studies indicate that autistic individuals exhibit deficits in both social cognition and visual processing of body motion. It is unclear whether aberrant body motion (BM) processing in autistic individuals can indicate impairments in social cognition. Previous data are primarily restricted to localization of brain regions underlying social cognition. The important rationale for this proposal is a desire to uncover time course and dynamic topography of brain networks. By combination of brain imaging (magnetoencephalography, MEG, providing for high temporal resolution) with visual psychophysics, we plan to clarify: (1.1) how brain mechanisms underlying recognition of emotions through BM differ in autistic persons in terms of dynamic topography; and (1.2) whether neuronal communication in the social brain is altered in autistic persons. By using identical visual input with re-directing tasks either to BM processing or body language reading, the first part of the project confirmed our hypothesis that BM processing and body language reading are tightly related to each other, but this bond is gender-specific. By taking advantage of the point-light technique that helps to minimize information revealed by BM and implementing three experimental paradigms adapted to the specificity of MEG recording (point-light BM, point-light face motion, and reading in the eyes), we intend to investigate: (1) whether brain networks underlying two indispensable components of social cognition, namely, body language reading and face reading (including reading in the eyes) are impaired in autism; and (3) whether impairments of neural networks for social cognition in autism are gender-specific. A related issue is how gender differences in performance relate to possible differences in the social brain in autistic individuals. The outcome will substantially contribute to developing new and improving already existing intervention models in autism, and remediate nonverbal communication and social participation. On the other hand, uncovering the nature of social deficits in autism will shed light on functioning of the social brain in normalcy.