Journal article
Prefrontal Cortex Responses to Social Video Stimuli in Young Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder
Brain sciences, v 14(5), 503
01 Jan 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.
Metrics
16 Record Views
1 citations in Scopus
Details
- Title
- Prefrontal Cortex Responses to Social Video Stimuli in Young Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Creators
- Candida Barreto - Drexel UniversityAdrian Curtin - Drexel UniversityYigit Topoglu - Drexel UniversityJessica Day-WatkinsBrigid Garvin - St. Christopher's Hospital for ChildrenGrant Foster - Drexel UniversityZuhal Ormanoglu - Drexel UniversityElisabeth SheridanJames Connell - Drexel UniversityDavid Bennett - Drexel UniversityKaren Heffler - Drexel UniversityHasan Ayaz - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Brain sciences, v 14(5), 503
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Psychiatry; Psychological and Brain Sciences (Psychology); Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum; Drexel Solutions Institute; School of Biomedical Engineering, Science, and Health Systems; A.J. Drexel Autism Institute
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85194370701
- Other Identifier
- 991021879761304721