Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; Department of Psychology and Neurosciences, Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Dortmund, Germany.
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging. 2024 Sep;9(9):948-957. doi: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.04.006. Epub 2024 Apr 18.
Atypical anticipation of social reward has been shown to lie at the core of the social challenges faced by individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, previous research has yielded inconsistent results and has often overlooked crucial characteristics of stimuli. Here, we investigated ASD reward processing using social and nonsocial tangible stimuli, carefully matched on several key dimensions.
We examined the anticipation and consumption of social (interpersonal touch) and nonsocial (flavored milk) rewards in 25 high-functioning individuals with ASD and 25 neurotypical adult individuals. In addition to subjective ratings of wanting and liking, we measured physical energetic expenditure to obtain the rewards, brain activity with neuroimaging, and facial reactions through electromyography on a trial-by-trial basis.
Participants with ASD did not exhibit reduced motivation for social or nonsocial rewards; their subjective ratings, motivated efforts, and facial reactions were comparable to those of neurotypical participants. However, anticipation of higher-value rewards increased neural activation in lateral parietal cortices, sensorimotor regions, and the orbitofrontal cortex. Moreover, participants with ASD exhibited hyperconnectivity between frontal medial regions and occipital regions and the thalamus.
Individuals with ASD who experienced rewards with tangible characteristics, whether social or nonsocial, displayed typical subjective and objective motivational and hedonic responses. Notably, the observed hyperactivations in sensory and attentional nodes during anticipation suggest atypical sensory overprocessing of forthcoming rewards rather than decreased reward value. While these atypicalities may not have manifested in observable behavior here, they could impact real-life social interactions that require nuanced predictions, potentially leading to the misperception of reduced interest in rewarding social stimuli in ASD.
非典型的社会奖励预期被认为是自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）个体所面临的社会挑战的核心。然而，先前的研究结果不一致，并且经常忽略了刺激的关键特征。在这里，我们使用社会和非社会有形刺激物研究了 ASD 的奖励处理，这些刺激物在几个关键维度上进行了精心匹配。
我们检查了 25 名高功能 ASD 个体和 25 名神经典型成人个体对社会（人际触摸）和非社会（调味牛奶）奖励的预期和消费。除了对想要和喜欢的主观评价外，我们还通过神经影像学测量了获得奖励的身体能量消耗，以及通过肌电图在逐次试验的基础上测量了面部反应。
ASD 参与者并没有表现出对社会或非社会奖励的动机降低；他们的主观评价、动机努力和面部反应与神经典型参与者相当。然而，对更高价值奖励的预期增加了外侧顶叶皮层、感觉运动区域和眶额皮层的神经活动。此外，ASD 参与者表现出额内侧区域与枕叶区域和丘脑之间的过度连接。
经历具有有形特征的奖励的 ASD 个体，无论是社会奖励还是非社会奖励，都表现出典型的主观和客观动机和享乐反应。值得注意的是，在预期过程中观察到的感觉和注意力节点的过度激活表明，对即将到来的奖励进行了非典型的感觉过度处理，而不是奖励价值降低。虽然这些异常情况在这里可能没有表现为可观察的行为，但它们可能会影响需要细致预测的现实生活中的社交互动，从而导致对 ASD 中奖励性社交刺激的兴趣减少的误解。
