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Contribution Details

Type Journal Article
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title Levels of emotional awareness and autism: an fMRI study
Organization Unit
Authors
  • G Silani
  • G Bird
  • R Brindley
  • T Singer
  • C Frith
  • U Frith
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Journal Title Social Neuroscience
Publisher Taylor & Francis
Geographical Reach international
ISSN 1747-0919
Volume 3
Number 2
Page Range 97 - 112
Date 2008
Abstract Text Autism is associated with an inability to identify and distinguish one’s own feelings. We assessed this inability using alexithymia and empathy questionnaires, and used fMRI to investigate brain activity while introspecting on emotion. Individuals with high functioning autism/Asperger syndrome (HFA/AS) were compared with matched controls. Participants rated stimuli from the International Affective Picture System twice, once according to the degree of un/pleasantness that the pictures induced, and once according to their color balance. The groups differed significantly on both alexithymia and empathy questionnaires. Alexithymia and lack of empathy were correlated, indicating a link between understanding one’s own and others’ emotions. For both groups a strong relationship between questionnaire scores and brain activity was found in the anterior insula (AI), when participants were required to assess their feelings to unpleasant pictures. Regardless of selfreported degree of emotional awareness, individuals with HFA/AS differed from controls when required to introspect on their feelings by showing reduced activation in self-reflection/mentalizing regions. Thus, we conclude that difficulties in emotional awareness are related to hypoactivity in AI in both individuals with HFA/AS and controls, and that the particular difficulties in emotional awareness in individuals with HFA/AS are not related to their impairments in selfreflection/mentalizing.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1080/17470910701577020
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Additional Information This is an electronic version of an article published in Social Neuroscience 3(2):97-112. Social Neuroscience is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17470910701577020