Autism is characterized by dorsal anterior cingulate hyperactivation during social target detection.

Though the functional neural correlates of impaired cognitive control and social dysfunction in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have been delineated, brain regions implicated in poor cognitive control of social information is a novel area of autism research. We recently reported in a non-clinical sample that detection of 'social oddball' targets activated a portion of the dorsal anterior cingulate gyrus and the supracalcarine cortex (Dichter, Felder, Bodfish, Sikich, and Belger, 2009). In the present investigation, we report functional magnetic resonance imaging results from individuals with ASD who completed the same social oddball task. Between-group comparisons revealed generally greater activation in the ASD group to both social and non-social targets. When responses to social and non-social targets were contrasted, the ASD group showed relatively greater activation in the right and middle inferior frontal gyri and a region in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex that abuts the dorsal anterior cingulate (Brodmann's Area 32). Further, dorsal anterior cingulate activation to social targets predicted the severity of social impairments in a subset of the ASD sample. These data suggest that the dorsal anterior cingulate mediates social target detection in neurotypical individuals and is implicated in deficits of cognitive control of social information in ASD.

• Publication year

  2009

• Venue

  Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

• Publication date

  2009-09-01

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1093/scan/nsp017PMID 19574440PMCID PMC2728636
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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