The mirror neuron system compensates for amygdala dysfunction-associated social deficits in individuals with higher autistic traits

Abstract

The amygdala is a core node in the social brain which exhibits structural and functional abnormalities in Autism spectrum disorder and there is evidence that the mirror neuron system (MNS) can functionally compensate for impaired emotion processing following amygdala lesions. In the current study, we employed an fMRI paradigm in 241 subjects investigating MNS and amygdala responses to observation, imagination and imitation of dynamic facial expressions and whether these differed in individuals with higher as opposed to lower autistic traits. Results indicated that individuals with higher compared to lower autistic traits showed reduced left amygdala responses to imitation and enhanced responses in the left superior temporal sulcus (STS) of the MNS to observation, imagination and imitation. Additionally, functional connectivity between the left amygdala and the left STS as well as some other MNS regions was increased in individuals with higher autistic traits, especially during imitation of fearful expressions. The amygdala-MNS connectivity significantly moderated autistic group differences on recognition memory for fearful faces and real-life social network indices, indicating that increased amygdala-MNS connectivity could diminish the social behavioral differences between higher and lower autistic trait groups. Overall, findings demonstrate decreased imitation-related amygdala activity in individuals with higher autistic traits in the context of increased cortical MNS activity and amygdala-MNS connectivity which may functionally compensate for amygdala dysfunction and social deficits. Training targeting the MNS may capitalize on this compensatory mechanism for therapeutic benefits in Autism spectrum disorder.

The right inferior frontal gyrus as pivotal node and effective regulator of the basal ganglia-thalamocortical response inhibition circuit

“…Participants N=250 healthy right-handed participants were enrolled in the current study and underwent a validated Go/NoGo fMRI paradigm. The data has been previously used to examine undirected functional connectivity within domain-general and emotion-specific inhibitory brain systems (Zhuang et al, 2021) and was part of larger neuroimaging project examining pain empathy (Li et al, 2018;Zhou et al, 2020), emotional face memory (Liu et al, 2022) and mirror neuron processing (Xu et al, 2022). After quality assessment n=218 subjects were included (104 males, Supplementary Materials).…”

Systematic Bibliometric and Visualized Analysis of Research Hotspots and Trends on Autism Spectrum Disorder Neuroimaging

“…ASD neuroimaging research examines the brain from a variety of perspectives including brain structure, functional connections, and neurometabolic [8][9][10]. Structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) is a technique for examining the anatomical structure of the brain.…”