Atypical reciprocal social interaction is a core diagnostic feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but thebrain network dynamics contributing to difficulties with social interactions remain unclear. Dominant theoriessuggest a role for social-motivational and social-cognitive brain networks. However, these theories have beentested in neuroimaging contexts divorced from social interaction (i.e., viewing photos of strangers). Becausethese detached, offline measures fail to capture the real-world social-interactive challenges faced byindividuals with ASD, the critical question of what neural mechanisms underlie atypical social interactionremains unanswered. The current proposal takes an innovative, interactive approach by examining real-timesocial interaction during fMRI data acquisition to characterize the development and interaction of motivational(i.e., reward) and social-cognitive brain networks during middle childhood. Middle childhood presents anopportune time to address this question because this age is marked by increased social competence inneurotypical (NT) children but plateauing social abilities in ASD. At the neural level, middle childhood is a timeof significant change in social brain networks in NT but relatively little data speak to these changes in ASD. Ourcentral hypothesis is that atypical organization of social-motivational and social-cognitive networks during real-time social interactions predict social-interactive difficulties in autism. We will test this hypothesis with thefollowing specific aims in NT and ASD children: 1) determine whether approval from a real-time social partnermodulates motivational systems and 2) determine whether real-time social interaction modulates social-cognitive systems, and 3) determine how interactions between motivational and social-cognitive networksduring real-time social interaction relate to measures of real-world social behaviors. To achieve these aims, 70NT and 54 ASD children (7-12 years of age) will participate in a social reward and a social cognitive task inwhich they engage with an experimenter in real time during functional MRI data acquisition. Graph theoreticmeasures will be used to examine network organization and interactions within motivational and social-cognitive brain networks during the social interaction task and at rest. Successful completion of the proposedresearch will advance our understanding of how reward and social-cognitive networks are modulated by real-time social interaction in children with ASD and whether atypical modulation of these networks is related toreal-world social impairments. These contributions will be significant to the scientific field and relevant to thestrategic mission of NIMH because they will 1) provide critical missing information about the development ofbrain mechanisms underlying social interaction, 2) determine how individual differences in these brain circuitsmap onto directly observable behavior, and 3) examine differences in the course and mechanism of functionalbrain development between neurotypical and ASD children, which will address questions of how, when, andwhere to intervene.
Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC)
Autism Research Database (AFD)
