CART Brain Imaging Study

Several recent investigations have provided converging evidence linking a dysfunctional mirror neuron system (MNS) to core deficits in ASD. In a previous fMRI study, we found that high-functioning children with ASD showed no significant MNS activity during observation and imitation of emotional expressions, and that the level of MNS activity observed within this group was strongly and inversely correlated with symptom severity in the social domain. In two other recent fMRI studies, we have shown that ASD children:

1. could recruit normative neural networks when interpreting a speaker's communicative intent if explicit instructions are provided to direct their attention to the speaker's facial expression, but
2. failed to activate the basal ganglia during an implicit language learning task.

Building on these earlier findings, the first aim of the proposed project is to examine whether the MNS can be brought 'online' in children with ASD by manipulating their attention via task instructions, in order to begin to address whether MNS dysfunction is likely to be a cause or an effect of the lack of attentional preference for the human face that characterizes this disorder.