David J. Grelottia, Ami J. Klina, Isabel Gauthierb, Pawel Skudlarskic, Donald J. Cohena, John C. Gored, Fred R. Volkmara, Robert T. Schultz

fMRI Activation of the Fusiform Gyrus and Amygdala to Cartoon Characters but not to Faces in a boy with Autism

Laura Kwon

What is Autism?

Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) social impairments deficits in language development stereotypic or repetitive behaviors

Face perception deficit Relates to social impairments

Different way of perceving faces Hypoactivation in the Amygdala and

Fusiform Face Area (FFA)

• Autistic person - Smaller and more densely packed neurons

• Damage in Amygdala - Deficits in emotion perception

Fusiform Face Area (FFA) Amygdala

• Composed of…- Middle fusiform gyrus (FG)- Occipito-temporal visual cortical area

• Most activated by the human face• Damage in FFA - Prosopagnosia

Hypothesis

FFA & Amygdala of autistic individuals would respond to their special interests despite a lack of activation to faces

Previous findings - expertise

Methods

Participants DD (Autism+Digimon) – 11 yrs

- Expertise in Digimon CC (Autism) – 17 yrs

- No expertise/ interest in digimon/ pokemon TDC (No Autism+Pokemon) – 10 yrs

- Expertise in Pokemon, but knew of digimon

Procedure1. Forced-choice verification task (Behavioural Response)2. Neuroimaging task (fMRI)

Method - Neuroimaging task

2 sessions (E1) DD & CC

- Unfamiliar faces

- Digimon

- Nonface objects (E2) DD & TDC

- Familiar faces

- Unfamiliar faces

- Digimon

- Nonface objects

( )( )3.9s

0.3s

Stimulus Stimulus Stimulus Stimulus Stimulus(( ((

12s

1 Block

Same or Different

Results - DD

FFA- No activation to

unfamiliar faces

- Significant activation to Digimon

Amygdala- Showed bilateral

activation for Digimon

Results

DD; FFA & Amygdala responded more to Digimon than to faces or objects

Neither TDC nor CC had greater activation to Digimon than objects or faces

Discussion

FFA “Face Module” damaged Expertise

Amygdala DD found Digimon emotionally meaningful (more

salient and rewarding than human face)

Conclusion

FFA and Amygdala of Autistic individuals function normally under certain conditions

Personal Opinion

Strengths Real life application Various approach

Limitations Subjects – small #, not well matched Technical difficulty – part of results lost due to malfunction

of the devices Next Step?

Other special interest or expertise? Explore possible treatment for autism?

Thank you for listening!

Questions?