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Prefrontal Cortex Responses to Social Video Stimuli in Young Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder

Authors :
Candida Barreto
Adrian Curtin
Yigit Topoglu
Jessica Day-Watkins
Brigid Garvin
Grant Foster
Zuhal Ormanoglu
Elisabeth Sheridan
James Connell
David Bennett
Karen Heffler
Hasan Ayaz
Source :
Brain Sciences, Vol 14, Iss 5, p 503 (2024)
Publication Year :
2024
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2024.

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting individuals worldwide and characterized by deficits in social interaction along with the presence of restricted interest and repetitive behaviors. Despite decades of behavioral research, little is known about the brain mechanisms that influence social behaviors among children with ASD. This, in part, is due to limitations of traditional imaging techniques specifically targeting pediatric populations. As a portable and scalable optical brain monitoring technology, functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) provides a measure of cerebral hemodynamics related to sensory, motor, or cognitive function. Here, we utilized fNIRS to investigate the prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity of young children with ASD and with typical development while they watched social and nonsocial video clips. The PFC activity of ASD children was significantly higher for social stimuli at medial PFC, which is implicated in social cognition/processing. Moreover, this activity was also consistently correlated with clinical measures, and higher activation of the same brain area only during social video viewing was associated with more ASD symptoms. This is the first study to implement a neuroergonomics approach to investigate cognitive load in response to realistic, complex, and dynamic audiovisual social stimuli for young children with and without autism. Our results further confirm that new generation of portable fNIRS neuroimaging can be used for ecologically valid measurements of the brain function of toddlers and preschool children with ASD.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
20763425
Volume :
14
Issue :
5
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Brain Sciences
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.9f1be89de6494abd63460768365957
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci14050503