Scholars@Duke publication: Neurocognitive and electrophysiological evidence of altered face processing in parents of children with autism: implications for a model of abnormal development of social brain circuitry in autism.

Neurocognitive and electrophysiological evidence of altered face processing in parents of children with autism: implications for a model of abnormal development of social brain circuitry in autism.

Publication , Journal Article

Dawson, G; Webb, SJ; Wijsman, E; Schellenberg, G; Estes, A; Munson, J; Faja, S

Published in: Dev Psychopathol

2005

Neuroimaging and behavioral studies have shown that children and adults with autism have impaired face recognition. Individuals with autism also exhibit atypical event-related brain potentials to faces, characterized by a failure to show a negative component (N170) latency advantage to face compared to nonface stimuli and a bilateral, rather than right lateralized, pattern of N170 distribution. In this report, performance by 143 parents of children with autism on standardized verbal, visual-spatial, and face recognition tasks was examined. It was found that parents of children with autism exhibited a significant decrement in face recognition ability relative to their verbal and visual spatial abilities. Event-related brain potentials to face and nonface stimuli were examined in 21 parents of children with autism and 21 control adults. Parents of children with autism showed an atypical event-related potential response to faces, which mirrored the pattern shown by children and adults with autism. These results raise the possibility that face processing might be a functional trait marker of genetic susceptibility to autism. Discussion focuses on hypotheses regarding the neurodevelopmental and genetic basis of altered face processing in autism. A general model of the normal emergence of social brain circuitry in the first year of life is proposed, followed by a discussion of how the trajectory of normal development of social brain circuitry, including cortical specialization for face processing, is altered in individuals with autism. The hypothesis that genetic-mediated dysfunction of the dopamine reward system, especially its functioning in social contexts, might account for altered face processing in individuals with autism and their relatives is discussed.