Highlights Brain response distributed across regions in infants at high risk for autism. Brain response localized to anterior regions in 6-month-old low risk infants. Comparing groups, high risk infants had reduced response in anterior regions. High risk infants had greater response than low risk infants in right posterior. Brain response to speech predicted language outcomes in low risk infants only.

Numerous studies have investigated the predictors of language in pre-verbal toddlers and verbally fluent children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study investigated the concurrent relations among expressive language and a set of empirically-selected social communication variables-joint attention, imitation, and play-in a unique sample of 37 minimally verbal (MV) children and adolescents with ASD. Results revealed that imitation and play were significantly correlated with expressive language, even when controlling for non-verbal IQ, but joint attention was not. Imitation was the only predictor variable to reach significance within the regression model. Findings demonstrate that predictors of expressive language vary for subpopulations of the autism spectrum, and have broader implications for intervention design for older, MV individuals with ASD.

Although substantial human and animal evidence suggests a role for the amygdala in anxiety, literature linking amygdala volume to anxiety symptomatology is inconclusive, with studies finding positive, negative, and null results. Clarifying this brain-behavior relation in middle to late childhood is especially important, as this is a time both of amygdala structural maturation and the emergence of many anxiety disorders. The goal of the current study was to clarify inconsistent findings in previous literature by identifying factors moderating the relation between amygdala volume and anxiety traits in a large sample of typically developing children aged 6-13 years (N = 72). In particular, we investigated the moderating effects of informant (parent vs. child), age, and sex. We found that children's reports (i.e., self-reports) were related to amygdala volume; children who reported higher anxiety levels had smaller amygdalae. This negative relation between amygdala volume and anxiety weakened with age. There was also an independent effect of sex, such that relations were stronger in males than in females. These results indicate the importance of considering sample and informant characteristics when charting the neurobiological mechanisms underlying developmental anxiety.

Rats exhibit ‘empathy’ making them a model to understand the neural underpinnings of such behavior. We show data consistent with these findings, but also that behavior and dopamine (DA) release reflects subjective rather than objective evaluation of appetitive and aversive events that occur to another. We recorded DA release in two paradigms: one that involved cues predictive of unavoidable shock to the conspecific and another that allowed the rat to refrain from reward when there were harmful consequences to the conspecific. Behavior and DA reflected pro-social interactions in that DA suppression was reduced during cues that predicted shock in the presence of the conspecific and that DA release observed on self-avoidance trials was present when the conspecific was spared. However, DA also increased when the conspecific was shocked instead of the recording rat and DA release during conspecific avoidance trials was lower than when the rat avoided shock for itself.