Research Interests: Adolescent, Brain, Humans, Child, Female, and 6 moreMale, Young Adult, Aged, Middle Aged, Adult, and Sex Factors
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Neuroimaging studies of brain anatomy in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have mostly been based on measures of cortical volume (CV). However, CV is a product of 2 distinct parameters, cortical thickness (CT) and surface area (SA), that in... more
Neuroimaging studies of brain anatomy in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have mostly been based on measures of cortical volume (CV). However, CV is a product of 2 distinct parameters, cortical thickness (CT) and surface area (SA), that in turn have distinct genetic and developmental origins. To investigate regional differences in CV, SA, and CT as well as their relationship in a large and well-characterized sample of men with ASD and matched controls. Multicenter case-control design using quantitative magnetic resonance imaging. Medical Research Council UK Autism Imaging Multicentre Study. A total of 168 men, 84 diagnosed as having ASD and 84 controls who did not differ significantly in mean (SD) age (26 [7] years vs 28 [6] years, respectively) or full-scale IQ (110 [14] vs 114 [12], respectively). Between-group differences in CV, SA, and CT investigated using a spatially unbiased vertex-based approach; the degree of spatial overlap between the differences in CT and SA; and their relative contribution to differences in regional CV. Individuals with ASD differed from controls in all 3 parameters. These mainly consisted of significantly increased CT within frontal lobe regions and reduced SA in the orbitofrontal cortex and posterior cingulum. These differences in CT and SA were paralleled by commensurate differences in CV. The spatially distributed patterns for CT and SA were largely nonoverlapping and shared only about 3% of all significantly different locations on the cerebral surface. Individuals with ASD have significant differences in CV, but these may be underpinned by (separable) variations in its 2 components, CT and SA. This is of importance because both measures result from distinct developmental pathways that are likely modulated by different neurobiological mechanisms. This finding may provide novel targets for future studies into the etiology of the condition and a new way to fractionate the disorder.
Research Interests: Psychiatry, Developmental Psychopathology, Neuroimaging, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and 13 moreMRI, Morphometry, Adolescent, Humans, Child, Cerebral Cortex, Male, Young Adult, Adult, Surface Properties, Archives General Psychiatry, Autism Spectrum Treatment, and Case Control Studies
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Individuals with autism are often characterized as 'seeing the trees, but not the forest'-attuned to individual details in the visual world at the expense of the global percept they compose. Here, we tested the extent to which... more
Individuals with autism are often characterized as 'seeing the trees, but not the forest'-attuned to individual details in the visual world at the expense of the global percept they compose. Here, we tested the extent to which global processing deficits in autism reflect impairments in (i) primary visual processing; or (ii) decision-formation, using an archetypal example of global perception, coherent motion perception. In an event-related functional MRI experiment, 43 intelligence quotient and age-matched male participants (21 with autism, age range 15-27 years) performed a series of coherent motion perception judgements in which the amount of local motion signals available to be integrated into a global percept was varied by controlling stimulus viewing duration (0.2 or 0.6 s) and the proportion of dots moving in the correct direction (coherence: 4%, 15%, 30%, 50%, or 75%). Both typical participants and those with autism evidenced the same basic pattern of accuracy in judg...
Research Interests: Motion perception, Adolescent, Visual Cortex, Brain, Humans, and 3 moreMale, Reaction Time, and Adult
Evidence was reported earlier from a single case that chromatic-lexical (CL) synaesthesia was a genuine phenomenon. A study is presented in which nine subjects were tested who also reported having coloured hearing. The following questions... more
Evidence was reported earlier from a single case that chromatic-lexical (CL) synaesthesia was a genuine phenomenon. A study is presented in which nine subjects were tested who also reported having coloured hearing. The following questions were addressed: (a) were these cases also genuine (ie consistent over time), (b) were they truly lexical, or rather variants of this condition, such as chromatic-graphemic (CG) or chromatic-phonemic (CP) synaesthesia, (c) did the experimental subjects show any commonalities between them, and (d) were they able to give information on a standard questionnaire about the phenomenology and ontogenesis of the condition? Subjects were asked to describe the colour sensation experienced on hearing items from a list of 130 words, phrases, and letters. The experimental group were not informed of any retest, but were retested more than one year later. A control group (n = 9), matched for IQ, memory, age, and gender, were read the same list and asked to associate a colour with each list item. They were informed at the time of testing that they would be retested on a sample of items from the list a week later. 92.3% of the responses of the experimental group when retested one year later were identical to those given in the original test, compared with only 37.6% of the control subjects' responses (retested one week later). This confirmed the genuinneess of these nine cases. All nine experimental subjects showed CG synaesthesia, none showing either CL or CP synaesthesia. Among the experimental group, some consistency was found in the colours evoked by hearing specific letters, suggesting the condition has a neurological basis.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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... Empathizing and systemizing in autism spectrum conditions Simon Baron-Cohen, Sally Wheelwright, John Lawson, Richard Griffin, Chris Ashwin, Jac Billington, and Bhismadev Chakrabarti Departments of Experimental Psychology and... more
... Empathizing and systemizing in autism spectrum conditions Simon Baron-Cohen, Sally Wheelwright, John Lawson, Richard Griffin, Chris Ashwin, Jac Billington, and Bhismadev Chakrabarti Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry, ...
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Characteristic features of autism include atypical social perception and social-communication skills, and atypical visual attention, alongside rigid and repetitive thinking and behavior. Debate has focused on whether the later emergence... more
Characteristic features of autism include atypical social perception and social-communication skills, and atypical visual attention, alongside rigid and repetitive thinking and behavior. Debate has focused on whether the later emergence of atypical social skills is a consequence of attention problems early in life, or, conversely, whether early social deficits have knock-on consequences for the later development of attention skills. We investigated this question based on evidence from infants at familial risk for a later diagnosis of autism by virtue of being younger siblings of children with a diagnosis. Around 9months, at-risk siblings differed as a group from controls, both in measures of social perception and inhibitory control. We present preliminary data from an ongoing longitudinal research program, suggesting clear associations between some of these infant measures and autism-related characteristics at 3years. We discuss the findings in terms of the emergent nature of autism as a result of complex developmental interactions among brain networks.
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... ISBN I 85302 931 9 Page 5. An Exact Mind An Artist with Asperger Syndrome Peter Myers, with Simon Boron-Cohen and Solly Wheelwright Jessica Kingsley Publishers London and New York Page 6. Parts of the chapter entitled ...
The relationship between sex/gender differences and autism has attracted a variety of research ranging from clinical and neurobiological to etiological, stimulated by the male bias in autism prevalence. Findings are complex and do not... more
The relationship between sex/gender differences and autism has attracted a variety of research ranging from clinical and neurobiological to etiological, stimulated by the male bias in autism prevalence. Findings are complex and do not always relate to each other in a straightforward manner. Distinct but interlinked questions on the relationship between sex/gender differences and autism remain underaddressed. To better understand the implications from existing research and to help design future studies, we propose a 4-level conceptual framework to clarify the embedded themes. We searched PubMed for publications before September 2014 using search terms "'sex OR gender OR females' AND autism." A total of 1,906 articles were screened for relevance, along with publications identified via additional literature reviews, resulting in 329 articles that were reviewed. Level 1, "Nosological and diagnostic challenges," concerns the question, "How should autism b...
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We report an apparent cluster of seven cases of autism spectrum disorder in a network of a few streets in the UK. Clusters do not easily fit the dominant genetic theory of autism. Whilst this could in principle represent the effect of an... more
We report an apparent cluster of seven cases of autism spectrum disorder in a network of a few streets in the UK. Clusters do not easily fit the dominant genetic theory of autism. Whilst this could in principle represent the effect of an environmental pathogen, we ...
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Previous work suggests only a small set of facial expressions can be interpreted universally with any reliability. This set is confined to the six basic emotions. On the other hand, ''cognitive" mental states (such as... more
Previous work suggests only a small set of facial expressions can be interpreted universally with any reliability. This set is confined to the six basic emotions. On the other hand, ''cognitive" mental states (such as distrust, recognize, etc.) are held to be private, unobservable, and ...
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Research Interests: Neuroscience, TIME, Brain, Humans, Child, and 8 moreTestosterone, Female, Male, Body Patterning, Sex Differentiation, Time, Fetus, and Cohort Studies
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... View full textDownload full text Full access. DOI: 10.1080/17470910601117463 Rebecca Saxe a * & Simon Baron-Cohen b ... been thoroughly investigated by developmental psychologists over the last 25 years, since the landmark... more
... View full textDownload full text Full access. DOI: 10.1080/17470910601117463 Rebecca Saxe a * & Simon Baron-Cohen b ... been thoroughly investigated by developmental psychologists over the last 25 years, since the landmark publication of the paper by Wimmer and Perner ...
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Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Reading, Social Neuroscience, Empathy, and 20 moreSocial behavior, Pregnancy, Humans, Child, Testosterone, Sex Difference, Autism Spectrum Conditions, Female, Male, Mental processes, Amniotic Fluid, Eye, Middle Aged, Adult, Brain Structure, Social Behavior, Fetus, Social, Neurosciences, and Empathy Quotient
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Social Neuroscience, Facial expression, Face perception, and 16 moreEmotions, Empathy, Brain Mapping, Brain, Humans, Female, Male, Social Communication, Premotor cortex, Adult, Inferior frontal gyrus, Quantitative Trait Loci, Exploratory Analysis, Neurosciences, Empathy Quotient, and General Population
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Reading, Social Neuroscience, Face recognition (Psychology), and 15 moreAdolescent, Emotions, Brain Mapping, Humans, Autism Spectrum Conditions, Emotion Recognition, Female, Male, Mental processes, Middle Aged, Task Complexity, Adult, Asperger Syndrome, Neurosciences, and General Population
Eyes are key social features providing a wealth of information about the attention, interest, emotion, and intention of others. Humans are typically very adept at detecting gaze direction, but there is a large decrement in gaze... more
Eyes are key social features providing a wealth of information about the attention, interest, emotion, and intention of others. Humans are typically very adept at detecting gaze direction, but there is a large decrement in gaze discrimination ability when eye images change from positive to negative polarity. This is thought to show an expert system for gaze perception that applies a contrast-specific heuristic to determine where someone else is looking. Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) are characterized by social deficits including difficulties in face-processing and in the social use of gaze. People with ASC are thought to have less expertise for gaze processing compared to typical controls, though little research has tested this. We investigated gaze direction perception in typical males and females, and males with ASC using facial stimuli with positive or negative polarity of the eyes. Results showed that the ASC group was worse at judging gaze direction with positive stimuli, and showed less of a decrement in performance when eye stimuli changed from positive to negative polarity. The differences in gaze perception for the ASC group were most evident when information from the eyes was more difficult and ambiguous. Typical females performed better at gaze direction detection with positive polarity than typical males, who in turn performed better than males with ASC. This latter finding is consistent with the extreme male brain theory of autism, and with the idea that people with ASC have less gaze expertise.
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Attention, Social Neuroscience, Social Perception, and 15 moreHumans, Sex Difference, Autism Spectrum Conditions, Orientation, Face processing, Gaze Direction, Male, Reaction Time, expert System, Young Adult, Psychological Tests, Adult, Analysis of Variance, Asperger Syndrome, and Neurosciences
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Research Interests: Science, Multidisciplinary, Empathy, Brain, Humans, and 7 moreSex Difference, Female, Animals, Male, Androgens, Asperger Syndrome, and Estradiol
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Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Socialization, Empathy, and 14 moreHumans, Child, Sex Difference, Autism Spectrum Conditions, Female, Male, Spectrum, Savant Syndrome, Adult, Sex Factors, Resistance to Change, General Population, Cognition disorders, and academic achievement of individuals with ASD
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In this paper we describe a cognitive mechanism, the Intention Editor, which is triggered whenever there are several intentions competing in parallel with each other. This mechanism is hypothesized to be a subcomponent of a larger... more
In this paper we describe a cognitive mechanism, the Intention Editor, which is triggered whenever there are several intentions competing in parallel with each other. This mechanism is hypothesized to be a subcomponent of a larger mechanism, the Supervisory Attentional System (SAS: Shallice, 1988) which serves inhibition in general. The Intention Editor interrupts one of several simultaneously activated intentions, preventing it from executing its action, utterance, or thought. This mechanism appears to develop during the first five to six years of life. We propose that an impairment in the development of this mechanism may account for the triad of symptoms in children with Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome (GTS): involuntary movements, involuntary utterances, and obsessive thoughts. This mechanism is tested with normal children aged 3-6 years old, and with children with GTS, in two experiments. In Experiment 1, subjects were required to make one hand movement while inhibiting making a (different) hand movement that the other hand was simultaneously making. In Experiment 2, they were asked to say one thing while inhibiting saying something else. On both tasks, normal 6-year-olds were significantly better than normal 4-year-olds, but children with GTS performed worse than normal 6-year-olds, despite having a mean age of 12 years. These results constitute preliminary evidence for the theory that the Intention Editor is dysfunctional in GTS.