Pantelis Peter C, Byrge Lisa, Tyszka J Michael, Adolphs Ralph, Kennedy Daniel P
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University-Bloomington 1101 E. 10th Street, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA,
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University-Bloomington 1101 E. 10th Street, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2015 Oct;10(10):1348-56. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsv021. Epub 2015 Feb 19.
People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulty comprehending social situations in the complex, dynamic contexts encountered in the real world. To study the social brain under conditions which approximate naturalistic situations, we measured brain activity with FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING: while participants watched a full-length episode of the sitcom The Office. Having quantified the degree of social awkwardness at each moment of the episode, as judged by an independent sample of controls, we found that both individuals with ASD and control participants showed reliable activation of several brain regions commonly associated with social perception and cognition (e.g. those comprising the 'mentalizing network') during the more awkward moments. However, individuals with ASD showed less activity than controls in a region near right temporo-parietal junction (RTPJ) extending into the posterior end of the right superior temporal sulcus (RSTS). Further analyses suggested that, despite the free-form nature of the experimental design, this group difference was specific to this RTPJ/RSTS area of the mentalizing network; other regions of interest showed similar activity across groups with respect to both location and magnitude. These findings add support to a body of evidence suggesting that RTPJ/RSTS plays a special role in social processes across modalities and may function atypically in individuals with ASD navigating the social world.
患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的人通常难以理解现实世界中复杂、动态环境下的社交情境。为了在接近自然情境的条件下研究社交大脑，我们使用功能磁共振成像测量大脑活动：让参与者观看情景喜剧《办公室》的一集完整剧集。通过由一组独立的对照组判断，我们量化了剧集中每个时刻的社交尴尬程度，发现患有ASD的个体和对照组参与者在更尴尬的时刻，几个通常与社交感知和认知相关的脑区（例如构成“心理理论网络”的脑区）都出现了可靠的激活。然而，患有ASD的个体在右颞顶联合区（RTPJ）附近延伸至右颞上沟（RSTS）后端的一个区域的活动比对照组少。进一步分析表明，尽管实验设计具有自由形式的性质，但这种组间差异特定于心理理论网络的这个RTPJ/RSTS区域；其他感兴趣的区域在位置和活动强度方面在两组间显示出相似的活动情况。这些发现为一系列证据提供了支持，表明RTPJ/RSTS在跨模态社交过程中发挥特殊作用，并且在患有ASD的个体应对社交世界时可能存在非典型功能。
