Abnormal functional specialization within medial prefrontal cortex in high-functioning autism: a multi-voxel similarity analysis
Open accessAbstract
Multi-voxel pattern analyses have proved successful in 'decoding' mental states from fMRI data, but have not been used to examine brain differences associated with atypical populations. We investigated a group of 16 (14 males) high-functioning participants with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 16 non-autistic control participants (12 males) performing two tasks (spatial/verbal) previously shown to activate medial rostral prefrontal cortex (mrPFC). Each task manipulated: (i) attention towards perceptual versus self-generated information and (ii) reflection on another person's mental state ('mentalizing'versus 'non-mentalizing') in a 2 x 2 design. Behavioral performance and group-level fMRI results were similar between groups. However, multi-voxel similarity analyses revealed strong differences. In control participants, the spatial distribution of activity generalized significantly between task contexts (spatial/verbal) when examining the same function (attention/mentalizing) but not when comparing different functions. This pattern was disrupted in the ASD group, indicating abnormal functional specialization within mrPFC, and demonstrating the applicability of multi-voxel pattern analysis to investigations of atypical populations.
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Changes in cerebellar-mPFC functional connectivity have been identified in ASD.
“Changes in cerebellar–mPFC functional connectivity have also been identified in ASD1,16”
From Regulation of autism-relevant behaviors by cerebellar-prefrontal cortical circuits (2020) · cites this paper as [16]
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- Authors
- Gilbert, S. J., Meuwese, J. D. I., Towgood, K. J., Frith, C. D., & Burgess, P. W.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Gilbert, Sam J.
- Venue
- Brain
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2009-01-27
- Volume
- 132
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 869-878
- ISSN
- 0006-8950 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-2156
- PMC
- PMC2668942
- OpenAlex
- W2159008199
- Cited by
- 73
- References
- 43
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 4 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 9
- FWCI
- 4.19
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- Brain (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (061171)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- autism spectrum disorder, high-functioning autism, medial prefrontal cortex, functional specialization, multi-voxel pattern analysis, mentalization, attention
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Attention, Autistic Disorder, Brain Mapping, Female, Humans, Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Psychometrics, Reproducibility of Results, Prefrontal Cortex, Asperger Syndrome, Young Adult
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