Autonomic and brain responses associated with empathy deficits in autism spectrum disorder.

摘要: Accumulating evidence suggests that autonomic signals and their cortical representations are closely linked to emotional processes, related abnormalities could lead social deficits. Although socio-emotional impairments a defining feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), empirical directly supporting the link between autonomic, cortical, in ASD is still lacking. In this study, we examined arousal indexed by skin conductance responses (SCR), concurrent measured functional magnetic resonance imaging, effective brain connectivity estimated dynamic causal modeling seventeen unmedicated high-functioning adults with matched controls while they performed an empathy-for-pain task. Compared controls, showed enhanced SCR empathetic pain, along increased neural activity anterior insular cortex, although behavioral pain discriminability was reduced overall decreased. individuals also correlation activities cortex. Importantly, significant group differences were limited greater reduction negative intrinsic cortex group, indicating failure attenuating pain. These results suggest aberrant interoceptive precision, as its central representations, may underlie empathy deficits ASD.