Atypical Reward-Driven Modulation of Mimicry-Related Neural Activity in Autism.

ABSTRACT: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by deficits in social functioning and difficulties in forming social bonds. According to the social motivation theory of ASD, people with ASD fail to attend social stimuli because they do not experience them as rewarding, resulting in deficits in social cognition. In neurotypical (NT) individuals, more rewarding faces have been shown to elicit greater spontaneous facial mimicry. This association between reward and mimicry is reduced in people with high autistic traits, suggesting that altered reward processing might explain the deficits in spontaneous facial mimicry observed in individuals with ASD. In a previous study, we observed that learned reward value of a face modulates mimicry-related neural response to it and that this modulation is

SUBMITTER: Neufeld J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6532344 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature