9,509
Views
129
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

Dysfunctions in brain networks supporting empathy: An fMRI study in adults with autism spectrum disorders

, , , , , & show all
Pages 1-21 | Received 24 Aug 2009, Accepted 12 Feb 2010, Published online: 13 Oct 2010

REFERENCES

  • Amodio , D. M. and Frith , C. D. 2006 . Meeting of minds: The medial frontal cortex and social cognition . Nature Reviews Neuroscience , 7 : 268 – 277 .
  • Ashburner , J. and Friston , K. J. 2005 . Unified segmentation . NeuroImage , 26 : 839 – 851 .
  • Baron-Cohen , S. , Knickmeyer , R. C. and Belmonte , M. K. 2005 . Sex differences in the brain: Implications for explaining autism . Science , 310 : 819 – 823 .
  • Baron-Cohen , S. , Ring , H. A. , Wheelwright , S. , Bullmore , E. T. , Brammer , M. J. Simmons , A. 1999 . Social intelligence in the normal and autistic brain: An fMRI study . European Journal of Neuroscience , 11 : 1891 – 1898 .
  • Baron-Cohen , S. , Tager-Flusberg , H. and Cohen , D. 2000 . Understanding other minds: Perspectives from autism and developmental cognitive neuroscience , Oxford, , UK : Oxford University Press .
  • Baron-Cohen , S. and Wheelwright , S. 2004 . The empathy quotient: An investigation of adults with Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism, and normal sex differences . Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders , 34 : 163 – 175 .
  • Baron-Cohen , S. , Wheelwright , S. , Robinson , J. and Woodbury-Smith , M. 2005 . The Adult Asperger Assessment (AAA): A diagnostic method . Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders , 35 : 807 – 819 .
  • Blakemore , S. J. and Frith , C. 2003 . Self-awareness and action . Current Opinion in Neurobiology , 13 : 219 – 224 .
  • Bowler , D. M. 1992 . “Theory of Mind” in Asperger's Syndrome . Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines , 33 : 877 – 893 .
  • Carr , L. , Iacoboni , M. , Dubeau , M. C. , Mazziotta , J. C. and Lenzi , G. L. 2003 . Neural mechanisms of empathy in humans: A relay from neural systems for imitation to limbic areas . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , 100 : 5497 – 5502 .
  • Castelli , F. , Frith , C. , Happé , F. and Frith , U. 2002 . Autism, Asperger syndrome and brain mechanisms for the attribution of mental states to animated shapes . Brain , 125 : 1839 – 1849 .
  • Cavanna , A. E. and Trimble , M. R. 2006 . The precuneus: A review of its functional anatomy and behavioural correlates . Brain , 129 : 564 – 583 .
  • Corbetta , M. , Patel , G. and Shulman , G. L. 2008 . The reorienting system of the human brain: From environment to theory of mind . Neuron , 58 : 306 – 324 .
  • Dalton , K. M. , Nacewicz , B. M. , Alexander , A. L. and Davidson , R. J. 2007 . Gaze-fixation, brain activation, and amygdala volume in unaffected siblings of individuals with autism . Biological Psychiatry , 61 : 512 – 520 .
  • Damasio , H. , Tranel , D. , Grabowski , T. , Adolphs , R. and Damasio , A. 2004 . Neural systems behind word and concept retrieval . Cognition , 92 : 179 – 229 .
  • Dapretto , M. , Davies , M. S. , Pfeifer , J. H. , Scott , A. A. , Sigman , M. Bookheimer , S. Y. 2006 . Understanding emotions in others: Mirror neuron dysfunction in children with autism spectrum disorders . Nature Neuroscience , 9 : 28 – 30 .
  • D'Argembeau , A. , Ruby , P. , Collette , F. , Degueldre , C. , Balteau , E. Luxen , A. 2007 . Distinct regions of the medial prefrontal cortex are associated with self-referential processing and perspective taking . Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience , 19 : 935 – 944 .
  • Decety , J. and Grezes , J. 2006 . The power of simulation: Imagining one's own and other's behavior . Brain Research , 1079 : 4 – 14 .
  • Decety , J. and Jackson , P. L. 2004 . The functional architecture of human empathy . Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews , 3 : 71 – 100 .
  • Decety , J. and Lamm , C. 2007 . The role of the right temporoparietal junction in social interaction: How low-level computational processes contribute to meta-cognition . The Neuroscientist , 13 ( 6 ) : 580 – 593 .
  • Derogatis , L. R. 1993 . Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) administration, scoring, and procedures manual , 3rd , Minneapolis, MN : National Computer Services .
  • Dimaggio , G. , Lysaker , P. H. , Carcione , A. , Nicolo , G. and Semerari , A. 2008 . Know yourself and you shall know the other … to a certain extent: Multiple paths of influence of self-reflection on mindreading . Consciousness and Cognition , 17 : 778 – 789 .
  • Duncan , J. and Owen , A. M. 2000 . Common regions of the human frontal lobe recruited by diverse cognitive demands . Trends in Neurosciences , 23 : 475 – 483 .
  • Duvernoy , H. M. 1999 . The human brain: Surface, three-dimensional sectional anatomy with MRI, and blood supply , Vol. 2 , New York : Springer .
  • Dziobek , I. , Rogers , K. , Fleck , S. , Bahnemann , M. , Heekeren , H. Wolf , O. T. 2008 . Dissociation of cognitive and emotional empathy in adults with Asperger syndrome using the Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET) . Journal of Autism and Developmental Disordors , 38 : 464 – 473 .
  • Eickhoff , S. B. , Stephan , K. E. , Mohlberg , H. , Grefkes , C. , Fink , G. R. Amunts , K. 2005 . A new SPM toolbox for combining probabilistic cytoarchitectonic maps and functional imaging data . NeuroImage , 25 ( 4 ) : 1325 – 1335 .
  • Ekman , P. and Friesen , W. V. 1978 . Facial Action Coding System: Manual , Palo Alto, CA : Consulting Psychologists Press .
  • Farrer , C. , Franck , N. , Georgieff , N. , Frith , C. D. , Decety , J. and Jeannerod , M. 2003 . Modulating the experience of agency: A positron emission tomography study . NeuroImage , 18 : 324 – 333 .
  • Farrer , C. and Frith , C. D. 2002 . Experiencing oneself vs another person as being the cause of an action: The neural correlates of the experience of agency . NeuroImage , 15 : 596 – 603 .
  • Fitzgerald , M. and Bellgrove , M. A. 2006 . The overlap between alexithymia and Asperger's syndrome . Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders , 36 ( 4 ) : 573 – 576 .
  • Frith , U. and Frith , C. D. 2003 . Development and neurophysiology of mentalizing . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences , 358 : 459 – 473 .
  • Gauthier , I. , Anderson , A. W. , Tarr , M. J. , Skudlarski , P. and Gore , J. C. 1997 . Levels of categorization in visual recognition studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging . Current Biology , 7 : 645 – 651 .
  • Gauthier , I. , Tarr , M. J. , Anderson , A. W. , Skudlarski , P. and Gore , J. C. 1999 . Activation of the middle fusiform ‘face area’ increases with expertise in recognizing novel objects . Nature Neuroscience , 2 : 568 – 573 .
  • Gillberg , C. L. 1992 . The Emanuel Miller Memorial Lecture 1991. Autism and autistic-like conditions: subclasses among disorders of empathy . Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines , 33 : 813 – 842 .
  • Gitelman , D. R. 2002 . ILAB: A program for postexperimental eye movement analysis . Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers , 34 : 605 – 612 .
  • Gusnard , D. A. , Akbudak , E. , Shulman , G. L. and Raichle , M. E. 2001 . Medial prefrontal cortex and self-referential mental activity: Relation to a default mode of brain function . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , 98 : 4259 – 4264 .
  • Hamilton , A. F. , Brindley , R. M. and Frith , U. 2007 . Imitation and action understanding in autistic spectrum disorders: How valid is the hypothesis of a deficit in the mirror neuron system? . Neuropsychologia , 45 : 1859 – 1868 .
  • Happé , F. G. E. 1994 . An advanced test of theory of mind: Understanding of story characters' thoughts and feelings by able autistic, mentally-handicapped, and normal children and adults . Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders , 24 : 129 – 154 .
  • Happé , F. , Ehlers , S. , Fletcher , P. , Frith , U. , Johansson , M. Gillberg , C. 1996 . ‘Theory of mind’ in the brain: Evidence from a PET scan study of Asperger syndrome . NeuroReport , 8 : 197 – 201 .
  • Hickok , G. 2009 . Eight problems for the mirror neuron theory of action understanding in monkeys and humans . Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience , 21 ( 7 ) : 1229 – 1243 .
  • Hurlburt , R. T. , Happé , F. and Frith , U. 1994 . Sampling the form of inner experience in three adults with Asperger syndrome . Psychological Medicine , 24 : 385 – 395 .
  • Kennedy , D. P. and Courchesne , E. 2008 . Functional abnormalities of the default network during self- and other-reflection in autism . Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience , 3 : 177 – 190 .
  • Kennedy , D. P. , Redcay , E. and Courchesne , E. 2006 . Failing to deactivate: Resting functional abnormalities in autism . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , 103 : 8275 – 8280 .
  • Kober , H. , Barrett , L. F. , Joseph , J. , Bliss-Moreau , E. , Lindquist , K. Wager , T. D. 2008 . Functional grouping and cortical–subcortical interactions in emotion: A meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies . NeuroImage , 42 ( 2 ) : 998 – 1031 .
  • Koski , L. and Paus , T. 2000 . Functional connectivity of the anterior cingulate cortex within the human frontal lobe: A brain-mapping meta-analysis . Experimental Brain Research , 133 : 55 – 65 .
  • Lee , A. , Hobson , R. P. and Chiat , S. 1994 . I, you, me, and autism: An experimental study . Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders , 24 : 155 – 176 .
  • Lombardo , M. V. , Barnes , J. L. , Wheelwright , S. J. and Baron-Cohen , S. 2007 . Self-referential cognition and empathy in autism . PLoS ONE , 2 : e883
  • Lou , H. C. , Luber , B. , Crupain , M. , Keenan , J. P. , Nowak , M. Kjaer , T. W. 2004 . Parietal cortex and representation of the mental self . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , 101 : 6827 – 6832 .
  • Macrae , C. N. , Moran , J. M. , Heatherton , T. F. , Banfield , J. F. and Kelley , W. M. 2004 . Medial prefrontal activity predicts memory for self . Cerebral Cortex , 14 : 647 – 654 .
  • Maldjian , J. A. , Laurienti , P. J. , Burdette , J. B. and Kraft , R. A. 2003 . An automated method for neuroanatomic and cytoarchitectonic atlas-based interrogation of fMRI data sets . NeuroImage , 19 : 1233 – 1239 .
  • Manjaly , Z. M. , Bruning , N. , Neufang , S. , Stephan , K. E. , Brieber , S. Marshall , J. C. 2007 . Neurophysiological correlates of relatively enhanced local visual search in autistic adolescents . NeuroImage , 35 : 283 – 291 .
  • Millward , C. , Powell , S. , Messer , D. and Jordan , R. 2000 . Recall for self and other in autism: Children's memory for events experienced by themselves and their peers . Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders , 30 : 15 – 28 .
  • Mitchell , J. P. , Banaji , M. R. and Macrae , C. N. 2005 . The link between social cognition and self-referential thought in the medial prefrontal cortex . Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience , 17 : 1306 – 1315 .
  • Mitchell , J. P. , Macrae , C. N. and Banaji , M. R. 2006 . Dissociable medial prefrontal contributions to judgments of similar and dissimilar others . Neuron , 50 : 655 – 663 .
  • Moran , J. M. , Macrae , C. N. , Heatherton , T. F. , Wyland , C. L. and Kelley , W. M. 2006 . Neuroanatomical evidence for distinct cognitive and affective components of self . Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience , 18 : 1586 – 1594 .
  • Morcom , A. M. and Fletcher , P. C. 2007 . Does the brain have a baseline? Why we should be resisting a rest . NeuroImage , 37 : 1073 – 1082 .
  • Ongur , D. , Ferry , A. T. and Price , J. L. 2003 . Architectonic subdivision of the human orbital and medial prefrontal cortex . Journal of Comparative Neurology , 460 : 425 – 449 .
  • Piefke , M. , Prestinger , M. , Arin , T. , Kohl , B. , Kastrau , F. Schnitker , R. 2008 . The neurofunctional mechanisms of traumatic and non-traumatic memory in patients with acute PTSD following accident trauma . Neurocase , 13 : 342 – 357 .
  • Piefke , M. , Weiss , P. H. , Zilles , K. , Markowitsch , H. J. and Fink , G. R. 2003 . Differential remoteness and emotional tone modulate the neural correlates of autobiographical memory . Brain , 126 : 650 – 668 .
  • Preston , S. D. and de Waal , F. B. M. 2002 . Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases . Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 25 : 1 – 20 .
  • Rogers , S. J. and Pennington , B. F. 1991 . A theoretical approach to the deficits in infantile autism . Development and Psychopathology , 3 : 137 – 162 .
  • Scambler , D. J. , Hepburn , S. , Rutherford , M. D. , Wehner , E. A. and Rogers , S. J. 2007 . Emotional responsivity in children with autism, children with other developmental disabilities, and children with typical development . Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders , 37 : 553 – 563 .
  • Schmitz , T. W. , Kawahara-Baccus , T. N. and Johnson , S. C. 2004 . Metacognitive evaluation, self-relevance, and the right prefrontal cortex . NeuroImage , 22 : 941 – 947 .
  • Schulte-Rüther , M. , Markowitsch , H. J. , Fink , G. R. and Piefke , M. 2007 . Mirror neuron and theory of mind mechanisms involved in face-to-face interactions: A functional magnetic resonance imaging approach to empathy . Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience , 19 : 1354 – 1372 .
  • Schulte-Rüther , M. , Markowitsch , H. J. , Shah , N. J. , Fink , G. R. and Piefke , M. 2008 . Gender differences in brain networks supporting empathy . NeuroImage , 42 : 393 – 403 .
  • Schultz , R. T. , Gauthier , I. , Klin , A. , Fulbright , R. K. , Anderson , A. W. Volkmar , F. 2000 . Abnormal ventral temporal cortical activity during face discrimination among individuals with autism and Asperger syndrome . Archives of General Psychiatry , 57 : 331 – 340 .
  • Shamay-Tsoory , S. G. , Tomer , R. , Berger , B. D. , Goldsher , D. and Sharon-Peretz , J. 2005 . Impaired “affective theory of mind” is associated with right ventromedial prefrontal damage . Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology , 18 : 55 – 67 .
  • Shamay-Tsoory , S. G. , Sharon-Peretz , J. and Perry , D. 2009 . Two systems for empathy: A double dissociation between emotional and cognitive empathy in inferior frontal gyrus versus ventromedial prefrontal lesions . Brain , 132 : 617 – 627 .
  • Silani , G. , Bird , G. , Brindley , R. , Singer , T. , Frith , C. and Frith , U. 2008 . Levels of emotional awareness and autism: An fMRI study . Social Neuroscience , 3 : 97 – 112 .
  • Singer , T. 2006 . The neuronal basis and ontogeny of empathy and mind reading: Review of literature and implications for future research . Neuroscience and Biobehhavioral Reviews , 30 : 855 – 863 .
  • Southgate , V. and Hamilton , A. F. 2008 . Unbroken mirrors: Challenging a theory of autism . Trends in Cognitive Sciences , 12 : 225 – 229 .
  • Spreng , R. N. , Mar , R. A. and Kim , A. S. N. 2009 . The common neural basis of autobiographical memory, prospection, navigation, theory of mind, and the default mode: A quantitative meta-analysis . Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience , 21 : 489
  • Stone , V. E. , Baron-Cohen , S. and Knight , R. T. 1998 . Frontal lobe contributions to theory of mind . Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience , 10 : 640 – 656 .
  • Toichi , M. , Kamio , Y. , Okada , T. , Sakihama , M. , Youngstrom , E. A. Findling , R. L. 2002 . A lack of self-consciousness in autism . American Journal of Psychiatry , 159 : 1422 – 1424 .
  • Tzourio-Mazoyer , N. , Landeau , B. , Papathanassiou , D. , Crivello , F. , Etard , O. Delcroix , N. 2002 . Automated anatomical labeling of activations in SPM using a macroscopic anatomical parcellation of the MNI MRI single-subject brain . NeuroImage , 15 ( 1 ) : 273 – 89 .
  • Uddin , L. Q. , Davies , M. S. , Scott , A. A. , Zaidel , E. , Bookheimer , S. Y. Iacoboni , M. 2008 . Neural basis of self and other representation in autism: An FMRI study of self-face recognition . PLoS ONE , 3 : e3526
  • Vogeley , K. , Bussfeld , P. , Newen , A. , Herrmann , S. , Happé , F. Falkai , P. 2001 . Mind reading: Neural mechanisms of theory of mind and self-perspective . NeuroImage , 14 : 170 – 181 .
  • Vogeley , K. and Fink , G. R. 2003 . Neural correlates of the first-person-perspective . Trends in Cognitive Sciences , 7 : 38 – 42 .
  • Wang , A. T. , Lee , S. S. , Sigman , M. and Dapretto , M. 2007 . Reading affect in the face and voice: Neural correlates of interpreting communicative intent in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders . Archives of General Psychiatry , 64 : 698 – 708 .
  • Williams , J. H. , Whiten , A. , Suddendorf , T. and Perrett , D. I. 2001 . Imitation, mirror neurons and autism . Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews , 25 : 287 – 295 .