The functional neuroanatomy of social behaviour

• DOI: 10.1093/brain/123.11.2203
• Publication Date: 2002-07-26T22:48:15Z
• Authors: Hugo D. Critchley; Eileen M. Daly; Edward T. Bullmore; Steven C. R. Will...; Therese Van Amels...; Dene M. Robertson; Andrea Rowe; Mary Phillips; Grainne McAlonan; Patricia Howlin; Declan G. M. Murphy
• Keywords: High-functioning autism; Disgust; Neuroanatomy; Emotional expression

Although high-functioning individuals with autistic disorder (i.e. autism and Asperger syndrome) are of normal intelligence, they have life-long abnormalities in social communication emotional behaviour. However, the biological basis difficulties is poorly understood. Facial expressions help shape behaviour, we investigated if people show neurobiological differences from controls when processing facial expressions. We used functional MRI to investigate brain activity nine adults (mean age ± standard deviation 37 7 years; IQ 102 15) (27 116 10) explicitly (consciously) implicitly (unconsciously) Subjects differed significantly cerebellar, mesolimbic temporal lobe cortical regions Notably, did not activate a `face area' appraising expressions, or left amygdala region cerebellum High-functioning consciously unconsciously emotions, these most likely be neurodevelopmental origin. This may account for some behaviour associated autism.