Mangnus Margot, Koch Saskia B J, Cai Kexin, Greidanus Romaneli Miriam, Hagoort Peter, Bašnáková Jana, Stolk Arjen
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging. 2024 Oct 28. doi: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.10.007.
While individuals with autism often face challenges in everyday social interactions, they may demonstrate proficiency in structured theory of mind (ToM) tasks that assess their ability to infer others' mental states. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and pupillometry, we investigated whether these discrepancies stem from diminished spontaneous mentalizing or broader difficulties in unstructured contexts.
Fifty-two adults diagnosed with autism and 52 neurotypical control participants viewed the animated short Partly Cloudy, a nonverbal animated film with a dynamic social narrative known to engage the ToM brain network during specific scenes. Analysis focused on comparing brain and pupil responses to these ToM events. Additionally, dynamic intersubject correlations were used to explore the variability of these responses throughout the film.
Both groups showed similar brain and pupil responses to ToM events and provided comparable descriptions of the characters' mental states. However, participants with autism exhibited significantly stronger correlations in their responses across the film's social narrative, indicating reduced interindividual variability. This distinct pattern emerged well before any ToM events and involved brain regions beyond the ToM network.
Our findings provide functional evidence of spontaneous mentalizing in autism, demonstrating this capacity in a context that affords but does not require mentalizing. Rather than responses to ToM events, a novel neurocognitive signature-interindividual variability in brain and pupil responses to evolving social narratives-differentiated neurotypical individuals from individuals with autism. These results suggest that idiosyncratic narrative processing in unstructured settings, a common element of everyday social interactions, may offer a more sensitive scenario for understanding the autistic mind.
虽然自闭症患者在日常社交互动中常常面临挑战，但他们在评估推断他人心理状态能力的结构化心理理论（ToM）任务中可能表现出熟练水平。我们使用功能磁共振成像和瞳孔测量法，研究了这些差异是否源于自发心理化能力的减弱或非结构化情境中更广泛的困难。
52名被诊断患有自闭症的成年人和52名神经典型对照参与者观看了动画短片《多云有时有肉丸》，这是一部无语言的动画电影，具有动态的社会叙事，已知在特定场景中会激活ToM脑网络。分析重点在于比较大脑和瞳孔对这些ToM事件的反应。此外，还使用动态主体间相关性来探索整部电影中这些反应的变异性。
两组在对ToM事件的大脑和瞳孔反应上相似，并且对角色心理状态的描述相当。然而，自闭症参与者在整部电影的社会叙事中的反应相关性显著更强，表明个体间变异性降低。这种独特模式在任何ToM事件出现之前就已出现，并且涉及ToM网络之外的脑区。
我们的研究结果为自闭症患者的自发心理化提供了功能证据，证明了这种能力在提供但不要求心理化的情境中的存在。与对ToM事件的反应不同，一种新的神经认知特征——大脑和瞳孔对不断演变的社会叙事的反应中的个体间变异性——将神经典型个体与自闭症个体区分开来。这些结果表明，非结构化环境中的特殊叙事处理作为日常社交互动的一个常见元素，可能为理解自闭症思维提供一个更敏感的情境。
