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fMRI Activation of the Fusiform Gyrus and Amygdala to Cartoon Characters

fMRI Activation of the Fusiform Gyrus and Amygdala to Cartoon Characters but not to Faces in a boy with Autism. David J. Grelottia , Ami J. Klina, Isabel Gauthierb, Pawel Skudlarskic, Donald J. Cohena, John C. Gored, Fred R. Volkmara, Robert T. Schultz. Laura Kwon. What is Autism?.

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fMRI Activation of the Fusiform Gyrus and Amygdala to Cartoon Characters

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  1. fMRI Activation of the Fusiform Gyrus and Amygdala to Cartoon Characters but not to Faces in a boy with Autism David J. Grelottia, Ami J. Klina, Isabel Gauthierb, Pawel Skudlarskic, Donald J. Cohena, John C. Gored, Fred R. Volkmara, Robert T. Schultz Laura Kwon

  2. 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)

  3. Fusiform Face Area (FFA) Amygdala • Composed of… • - Middle fusiformgyrus (FG) • - Occipito-temporal visual cortical area • Most activated by the human face • Damage in FFA - Prosopagnosia • Autistic person • - Smaller and more densely packed neurons • Damage in Amygdala • - Deficits in emotion perception

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

  5. 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 • Procedure 1. Forced-choice verification task (Behavioural Response) 2. Neuroimaging task (fMRI)

  6. Method - Neuroimaging task • 2 sessions • (E1) DD & CC - Unfamiliar faces - Digimon - Nonface objects • (E2) DD & TDC - Familiar faces - Unfamiliar faces - Digimon - Nonface objects

  7. ( 0.3s 12s ( 3.9s 1 Block ( ) Stimulus Stimulus Stimulus Stimulus Stimulus Same or Different

  8. Results - DD • FFA - No activation to unfamiliar faces - Significant activation to Digimon • Amygdala - Showed bilateral activation for Digimon

  9. 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

  10. Discussion • FFA • “Face Module” damaged • Expertise • Amygdala • DD found Digimon emotionally meaningful (more salient and rewarding than human face)

  11. Conclusion FFA and Amygdala of Autistic individuals function normally under certain conditions

  12. 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?

  13. Thank you for listening! Questions?

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