Self–other relations in social development and autism: multiple roles for mirror neurons and other brain bases

Williams, Justin H. G.

doi:10.1002/aur.15

Cited by 125 publications

(116 citation statements)

References 166 publications

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“…Some theoretical frameworks for understanding autism, such as the "enactive mind approach" (Klin et al, 2003) or mirror neuron theory (Williams et al, 2001;Williams, 2008), propose that perception is tightly linked to action knowledge and associated top-down influences, particularly in relation to developmental processes. Such theories would predict that a capacity for action recognition would enhance action detection.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Action Perception Is Intact in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Cusack

Williams

Neri³

2015

J. Neurosci.

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Autistic traits span a wide spectrum of behavioral departures from typical function. Despite the heterogeneous nature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), there have been attempts at formulating unified theoretical accounts of the associated impairments in social cognition. A class of prominent theories capitalizes on the link between social interaction and visual perception: effective interaction with others often relies on discrimination of subtle nonverbal cues. It has been proposed that individuals with ASD may rely on poorer perceptual representations of other people's actions as returned by dysfunctional visual circuitry and that this, in turn, may lead to less effective interpretation of those actions for social behavior. It remains unclear whether such perceptual deficits exist in ASD: the evidence currently available is limited to specific aspects of action recognition, and the reported deficits are often attributable to cognitive factors that may not be strictly visual (e.g., attention). We present results from an exhaustive set of measurements spanning the entire action processing hierarchy, from motion detection to action interpretation, designed to factor out effects that are not selectively relevant to this function. Our results demonstrate that the ASD perceptual system returns functionally intact signals for interpreting other people's actions adequately; these signals can be accessed effectively when autistic individuals are prompted and motivated to do so under controlled conditions. However, they may fail to exploit them adequately during real-life social interactions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Action Perception Is Intact in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Cusack

Williams

Neri³

2015

J. Neurosci.

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“…Under-development of social phenotypes such as theory of mind, language, sense of self in relation to others, and reciprocal social interaction represent well-recognized manifestations of autism (79)(80)(81), which can in some models be linked with neurological phenotypes such as imbalance toward excitatory glutamatergic cortical neurotransmission (82)(83)(84) or increased local versus global processing of information (85,86). By contrast, such psychotic traits as auditory hallucination and thought disorder, paranoia, megalomania, and ascription of causal purpose to inanimate objects may be interpretable in terms of dysregulated hyperdevelopment of language, theory of mind and sense of self, all traits that are highly derived and elaborated in the human lineage (5).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative genomics of autism and schizophrenia

Crespi

Stead

Elliot

2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

236

138

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We used data from studies of copy-number variants (CNVs), singlegene associations, growth-signaling pathways, and intermediate phenotypes associated with brain growth to evaluate four alternative hypotheses for the genomic and developmental relationships between autism and schizophrenia: (i) autism subsumed in schizophrenia, (ii) independence, (iii) diametric, and (iv) partial overlap. Data from CNVs provides statistical support for the hypothesis that autism and schizophrenia are associated with reciprocal variants, such that at four loci, deletions predispose to one disorder, whereas duplications predispose to the other. Data from single-gene studies are inconsistent with a hypothesis based on independence, in that autism and schizophrenia share associated genes more often than expected by chance. However, differentiation between the partial overlap and diametric hypotheses using these data is precluded by limited overlap in the specific genetic markers analyzed in both autism and schizophrenia. Evidence from the effects of risk variants on growth-signaling pathways shows that autism-spectrum conditions tend to be associated with upregulation of pathways due to loss of function mutations in negative regulators, whereas schizophrenia is associated with reduced pathway activation. Finally, data from studies of head and brain size phenotypes indicate that autism is commonly associated with developmentally-enhanced brain growth, whereas schizophrenia is characterized, on average, by reduced brain growth. These convergent lines of evidence appear most compatible with the hypothesis that autism and schizophrenia represent diametric conditions with regard to their genomic underpinnings, neurodevelopmental bases, and phenotypic manifestations as reflecting under-development versus dysregulated over-development of the human social brain.genetics | evolution | psychiatry T he Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler coined the terms "schizophrenia", for the splitting of psychic functions, and "autism", for withdrawal from external reality in patients with schizophrenia, almost exactly a century ago (1). Ever since 1943, when Leo Kanner (2) coopted autism to refer to a new condition involving "disturbance of affective contact" manifested in children, the relationship between schizophrenia and Kanner's autism has remained unclear (3). Kanner originally conceived autism as an early, distinct subtype of schizophrenia (model 1A) (Fig. 1A), a view he later renounced in favor of a model, which was also supported by Rutter (4) with the conditions as distinct, separate, and unrelated (model 1B) (Fig. 1B). Under each of these two hypotheses, autism and schizophrenia may each grade more or less smoothly, and independently, into so-called normality. Schizophrenia and autism have also been considered as diametric, or opposite sets of conditions (model 1C) (Fig. 1C) along a spectrum of social-brain phenotypes from hypodevelopment in autism, to normality, to hyperdevelopment in schizophrenia (5). By a fourth model, autism overlaps broadly yet...

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“…Imitation deficits in particular have been described in terms of impairments in 'self-other mapping' (Williams, 2008;Williams, Whiten, Suddendorf, & Perrett, 2001): the ability to connect an observed action with the motor program necessary to perform a similar movement oneself, possibly with a similar goal. The mechanism of this perception-to-action mapping has been posited in mirror neurons, a type of sensorimotor neuron 7 responsive both when a specific action is carried out and when the same action type is perceived visually or acoustically (Rizzolatti & Sinigaglia, 2010).…”

Section: The Neuroanatomical Correlates Of Movement Impairmentmentioning

confidence: 99%