Dataset Information

Autistic traits predict poor integration between top-down contextual expectations and movement kinematics during action observation.

ABSTRACT: Autism is associated with difficulties in predicting and understanding other people's actions. There is evidence that autistic traits are distributed across a spectrum and that subclinical forms of autistic impairments can also be measured in the typical population. To investigate the association between autistic traits and motor responses to others' actions, we quantified these traits and measured cortico-spinal excitability modulations in M1 during the observation of actions embedded in congruent, incongruent and ambiguous contexts. In keeping with previous studies, we found that actions observed in congruent contexts elicited an early facilitation of M1 responses, and actions observed in incongruent contexts, resulted in a later inhibition. Correlational analysis revealed no association between autistic traits and the facilitation for congruent contexts. However, we found a significant correlation between motor inhibition and autistic traits, specifically related to social skills and attention to details. Importantly, the influence of these factors was independent from each other, and from the observer's gender. Thus, results suggest that individuals with higher social deficits and greater detail-processing style are more impaired in suppressing action simulation in M1 when a mismatch between kinematics and context occurs. This points to difficult integration between kinematics and contextual representations in the autistic-like brain.

SUBMITTER: Amoruso L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6212496 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Autistic traits predict poor integration between top-down contextual expectations and movement kinematics during action observation.

Amoruso L L Finisguerra A A Urgesi C C

Scientific reports 20181101 1

Autism is associated with difficulties in predicting and understanding other people's actions. There is evidence that autistic traits are distributed across a spectrum and that subclinical forms of autistic impairments can also be measured in the typical population. To investigate the association between autistic traits and motor responses to others' actions, we quantified these traits and measured cortico-spinal excitability modulations in M1 during the observation of actions embedded in congru ...[more]

PMID: 30385765

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Project description:The brain has the extraordinary capacity to construct predictive models of the environment by internalizing statistical regularities in the sensory inputs. The resulting sensory expectations shape how we perceive and react to the world; at the neural level, this relates to decreased neural responses to expected than unexpected stimuli ("expectation suppression"). Crucially, expectations may need revision as context changes. However, existing research has often neglected this issue. Further, it is unclear whether contextual revisions apply selectively to expectations relevant to the task at hand, hence serving adaptive behavior. The present fMRI study examined how contextual visual expectations spread throughout the cortical hierarchy as we update our beliefs. We created a volatile environment: two alternating contexts contained different sequences of object images, thereby producing context-dependent expectations that needed revision when the context changed. Human participants of both sexes attended a training session before scanning to learn the contextual sequences. The fMRI experiment then tested for the emergence of contextual expectation suppression in two separate tasks, respectively, with task-relevant and task-irrelevant expectations. Effects of contextual expectation emerged progressively across the cortical hierarchy as participants attuned themselves to the context: expectation suppression appeared first in the insula, inferior frontal gyrus, and posterior parietal cortex, followed by the ventral visual stream, up to early visual cortex. This applied selectively to task-relevant expectations. Together, the present results suggest that an insular and frontoparietal executive control network may guide the flexible deployment of contextual sensory expectations for adaptive behavior in our complex and dynamic world.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The world is structured by statistical regularities, which we use to predict the future. This is often accompanied by suppressed neural responses to expected compared with unexpected events ("expectation suppression"). Crucially, the world is also highly volatile and context-dependent: expected events may become unexpected when the context changes, thus raising the crucial need for belief updating. However, this issue has generally been neglected. By setting up a volatile environment, we show that expectation suppression emerges first in executive control regions, followed by relevant sensory areas, only when observers use their expectations to optimize behavior. This provides surprising yet clear evidence on how the brain controls the updating of sensory expectations for adaptive behavior in our ever-changing world.

Dataset Information

Autistic traits predict poor integration between top-down contextual expectations and movement kinematics during action observation.

Publications

Autistic traits predict poor integration between top-down contextual expectations and movement kinematics during action observation.

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