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Successful Face Recognition is Associated with Increased Prefrontal Cortex Activation in Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Abstract

This study examines whether deficits in visual information processing in autism-spectrum disorder (ASD) can be offset by the recruitment of brain structures involved in selective attention. During functional MRI, 12 children with ASD and 19 control participants completed a selective attention one-back task in which images of faces and houses were superimposed. When attending to faces, the ASD group showed increased activation relative to control participants within multiple prefrontal cortex areas, including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). DLPFC activation in ASD was associated with increased response times for faces. These data suggest that prefrontal cortex activation may represent a compensatory mechanism for diminished visual information processing abilities in ASD.

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Acknowledgments

Funding for this project was provided by an award from NIMH (R01MH073084) to R. Schultz. Portions of these data were presented at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, 2010. J. Herrington and R. Schultz reported having received lecture fees and research funds from Shire Pharmaceuticals. Additionally, R. Schultz reported receiving lecture fees from Pfizer and Hoffman-La Roche, and research funds from Pfizer. M. Riley and D. Grupe reported no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest. We would like to thank Elinora Price and Julie Wolf for their roles in recruiting and testing research participants for this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 3535 Market Street, Suite 860, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    John D. Herrington, Meghan E. Riley & Robert T. Schultz

  2. Department of Child Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 3535 Market Street, Suite 860, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    John D. Herrington & Robert T. Schultz

  3. Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1500 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI, 53705, USA

    Daniel W. Grupe

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  1. John D. Herrington
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Correspondence to John D. Herrington.

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Herrington, J.D., Riley, M.E., Grupe, D.W. et al. Successful Face Recognition is Associated with Increased Prefrontal Cortex Activation in Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 45, 902–910 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-014-2233-4

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