Dataset Information

Autistic traits are associated with the functional connectivity of between-but not within-attention systems in the general population.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Previous studies have demonstrated that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit dysfunction in the three attention systems (i.e., alerting, orienting, and executive control) as well as atypical relationships among these systems. Additionally, other studies have reported that individuals with subclinical but high levels of autistic traits show similar attentional tendencies to those observed in ASD. Based on these findings, it was hypothesized that autistic traits would affect the functions and relationships of the three attention systems in a general population. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed in 119 healthy adults to investigate relationships between autistic traits and within- and between-system functional connectivity (FC) among the three attention systems. Twenty-six regions of interest that were defined as components of the three attention systems by a previous task-based fMRI study were examined in terms of within- and between-system FC. We assessed autistic traits using the Autism-Spectrum Quotient. RESULTS:Correlational analyses revealed that autistic traits were significantly correlated with between-system FC, but not with within-system FC. CONCLUSIONS:Our results imply that a high autistic trait level, even when subclinical, is associated with the way the three attention systems interact.

SUBMITTER: Yoshimura S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7686764 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Autistic traits are associated with the functional connectivity of between-but not within-attention systems in the general population.

Yoshimura Sayaka S Kobayashi Kei K Ueno Tsukasa T Miyagi Takashi T Oishi Naoya N Murai Toshiya T Fujiwara Hironobu H

BMC neuroscience 20201123 1

<h4>Background</h4>Previous studies have demonstrated that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit dysfunction in the three attention systems (i.e., alerting, orienting, and executive control) as well as atypical relationships among these systems. Additionally, other studies have reported that individuals with subclinical but high levels of autistic traits show similar attentional tendencies to those observed in ASD. Based on these findings, it was hypothesized that autistic trai ...[more]

PMID: 33228525

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Project description:Facial expressions, and the ability to recognize these expressions, have evolved in humans to communicate information to one another. Face masks are equipment used in healthcare by health professionals to prevent the transmission of airborne infections. As part of the social distancing efforts related to COVID-19, wearing facial masks has been practiced globally. Such practice might influence affective information communication among humans. Previous research suggests that masks disrupt expression recognition of some emotions (e.g., fear, sadness or neutrality) and lower the confidence in their identification. To extend the previous research, in the current study we tested a larger and more diverse sample of individuals and also investigated the effect of masks on perceived intensity of expressions. Moreover, for the first time in the literature we examined these questions using individuals with autistic traits. Specifically, across three experiments using different populations (college students and general population), and the 10-item Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ-10; lower and higher scorers), we tested the effect of facial masks on facial emotion recognition of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and neutrality. Results showed that the ability to identify all facial expressions decreased when faces were masked, a finding observed across all three studies, contradicting previous research on fear, sad, and neutral expressions. Participants were also less confident in their judgements for all emotions, supporting previous research; and participants perceived emotions as less expressive in the mask condition compared to the unmasked condition, a finding novel to the literature. An additional novel finding was that participants with higher scores on the AQ-10 were less accurate and less confident overall in facial expression recognition, as well as perceiving expressions as less intense. Our findings reveal that wearing face masks decreases facial expression recognition, confidence in expression identification, as well as the perception of intensity for all expressions, affecting high-scoring AQ-10 individuals more than low-scoring individuals.

Dataset Information

Autistic traits are associated with the functional connectivity of between-but not within-attention systems in the general population.

Publications

Autistic traits are associated with the functional connectivity of between-but not within-attention systems in the general population.

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