Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging最新文献

{"title":"Resting State Cortical Network and Subcortical Hyperconnectivity in Youth With Generalized Anxiety Disorder in the ABCD Study.","authors":"Sam A Sievertsen, Jinhan Zhu, Angela Fang, Jennifer K Forsyth","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.02.005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.02.005","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) frequently emerges during childhood or adolescence, yet, few studies have examined functional connectivity differences in youth GAD. Functional MRI studies of adult GAD have implicated multiple brain regions; however, frequent examination of individual brain seed regions and/or networks has limited a holistic view of GAD-associated differences. The current study therefore used resting-state fMRI data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study to investigate connectivity in youth with GAD across multiple cortical networks and subcortical regions implicated in adult GAD, considering diagnosis changes across two assessment periods.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Within- and between-network connectivity in 164 youth with GAD and 3158 healthy controls for 6 cortical networks and 6 subcortical regions was assessed using linear mixed effect models. Changes in GAD-associated connectivity between baseline and 2-year follow-up were then compared for subjects with: continuous GAD, GAD at baseline and not follow-up (GAD-remitters), GAD at follow-up and not baseline (GAD-converters), and controls.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Youth with GAD showed greater within-ventral attention network (VAN) connectivity, and hyperconnectivity between the amygdala and cingulo-opercular network, and between striatal regions and the cingulo-opercular, default mode, and salience networks (FDR p<0.05). Within-VAN connectivity decreased for GAD-remitters between baseline and follow-up. Sensitivity analyses revealed that these hyperconnectivity patterns were not observed in major depressive disorder (n=19), separation anxiety (n=33), or social anxiety disorder (n=111) without GAD.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>Results indicate that GAD in childhood and adolescence is associated with altered subcortical to cortical network connectivity, and that within-VAN hyperconnectivity, in particular, is associated with clinically-significant GAD-specific symptoms.</p>","PeriodicalId":93900,"journal":{"name":"Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143485031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Differential Insular Cortex Activation During Reward Anticipation in Major Depressive Disorder with and without Anxiety.","authors":"Xi Ren, Evan J White, Rayus Kuplicki, Martin P Paulus, Maria Ironside, Robin L Aupperle, Jennifer L Stewart","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.02.001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.02.001","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Anticipation involves preparatory resource allocation to optimize upcoming responses, linked to insular cortex function. Although major depressive disorder (MDD) shows impairments in anticipatory processing and blunted insula activation, it is unclear whether this pattern holds across MDD with and without comorbid anxiety disorders (MDD+ANX). The Monetary Incentive Delay task (MID), combined with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided electroencephalogram (EEG) source localization, offers a robust approach to study anticipatory mechanisms in MDD subtypes.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>Participants with MDD (n=53) or MDD+ANX (n=108) and healthy controls (CTL; n=38) completed the MID task during simultaneous EEG-MRI recording. Stimulus-preceding negativity event-related potentials were source-localized to identify insular cortical activity differences across groups (MDD, MDD+ANX, CTL), sex (male, female), MID conditions (gain, loss), hemisphere (left, right), and six insular subregions.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Behavioral performance revealed that the CTL group reacted faster than the MDD+ANX in both gain and loss conditions (p=.03). Insular source analysis showed lower activity in MDD+ANX (p<.001) and MDD (p=.06) compared to CTL during gain anticipation, and lower activity in MDD+ANX than both CTL (p=.003) and MDD (p<.001) during loss anticipation.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Results highlight potential intervention targets for improving anticipatory deficits in MDD+ANX. The MDD+ANX group exhibited distinctive patterns of insular cortical activity, with lower activity during the anticipation of both gain and loss feedback compared to the control and MDD groups, suggesting significant neural alterations. Moreover, in MDD+ANX, higher anxiety severity was linked to increased insula activity during loss anticipation, indicating a specific neural correlate of anxiety in this comorbid condition.</p>","PeriodicalId":93900,"journal":{"name":"Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143470148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Multivariate links between the developmental timing of adversity exposure and white matter tract connectivity in adulthood.","authors":"Lucinda M Sisk, Taylor J Keding, Emily M Cohodes, Sarah McCauley, Jasmyne C Pierre, Paola Odriozola, Sahana Kribakaran, Jason T Haberman, Sadie J Zacharek, Hopewell R Hodges, Camila Caballero, Gillian Gold, Audrey Y Huang, Ashley Talton, Dylan G Gee","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.02.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.02.003","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Early-life adversity is pervasive worldwide and represents a potent risk factor for increased mental health burden across the lifespan. However, there is substantial individual heterogeneity in associations between adversity exposure, neurobiological changes, and mental health problems. Accounting for key features of adversity such as the developmental timing of exposure may clarify associations between adversity, neurodevelopment, and mental health.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>The present study leverages sparse canonical correlation analysis to characterize modes of covariation between adversity exposure across development and the connectivity of white matter tracts throughout the brain in a sample of 107 adults.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We found that adversity exposure during preschool-age and middle childhood (ages 4-5 and 8 in particular) were consistently linked across diffusion metrics with alterations in white matter tract connectivity. Whereas tracts supporting sensorimotor functions displayed higher connectivity with higher preschool-age and middle childhood adversity exposure, tracts supporting cortico-cortical communication displayed lower connectivity. Further, latent patterns of tract connectivity linked with adversity experienced across preschool-age and middle childhood (ages 3-8) were associated with post-traumatic stress symptoms in adulthood.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Our findings underscore that adversity exposure may differentially affect white matter in a function- and developmental-timing specific manner and suggest that adversity experienced between ages 3-8 may shape the development of white matter tracts across the brain in ways that are relevant for mental health in adulthood.</p>","PeriodicalId":93900,"journal":{"name":"Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143470212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Predicting Treatment Response of rTMS in Major Depressive Disorder Using a Explainable Machine Learning Model Based on EEG and Clinical Features.","authors":"Zongya Zhao, Xiangying Ran, Yanxiang Niu, Mengyue Qiu, Shiyang Lv, Mingjie Zhu, Junming Wang, Mingcai Li, Zhixian Gao, Chang Wang, Yongtao Xu, Wu Ren, Xuezhi Zhou, Xiaofeng Fan, Jinggui Song, Mingchao Qi, Yi Yu","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.02.002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.02.002","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objective: </strong>Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is highly heterogeneous in response to rTMS, and identifying predictive biomarkers is essential for personalized treatment. However, current researches either only uses EEG or clinical features, lacks interpretability, or have small sample sizes.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>This study included 74 MDD patients who responded (Responder) and 43 MDD who did not respond (NonResponder) to rTMS. Eight baseline EEG metrics and clinical features were sent to seven machine learning models to classify Responder from NonResponder. SHAP was used to interpret feature contributions.</p><p><strong>Result: </strong>Combining phase locking value (PLV) and clinical features with Support Vector Machine (SVM) achieved optimal classification performance (accuracy=97.33%). SHAP revealed that delta and beta band functional connectivity (F3-P7, F3-P4, P3-P8, T7-Cz) significantly influenced predictions and differed between groups.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>This study developed an explainable predictive framework to predict rTMS response in MDD, enhancing the accuracy of rTMS response prediction and supporting personalized treatment in MDD.</p>","PeriodicalId":93900,"journal":{"name":"Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143470225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Representing brain-behavior associations by retaining high-motion minoritized youth.","authors":"Jivesh Ramduny, Lucina Q Uddin, Tamara Vanderwal, Eric Feczko, Damien A Fair, Clare Kelly, Arielle Baskin-Sommers","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.01.014","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.01.014","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Population neuroscience datasets provide an opportunity for researchers to estimate reproducible effect sizes for brain-behavior associations because of their large sample sizes. However, these datasets undergo strict quality control to mitigate sources of noise, such as head motion. This practice often excludes a disproportionate number of minoritized individuals.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We employ motion-ordering and motion-ordering+resampling (bagging) to test if these methods preserve functional MRI (fMRI) data in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development^SM Study (N = 5,733). For the two methods, brain-behavior associations were computed as the partial Spearman's Rank correlations (R_s) between functional connectivity and cognitive performance (NIH Cognition Toolbox) as well as externalizing and internalizing psychopathology (Child Behavior Checklist [CBCL]) while adjusting for participant sex assigned at birth and head motion.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Black and Hispanic youth exhibited excess head motion relative to data collected from White youth, and were discarded disproportionately when using conventional approaches. Motion-ordering and bagging methods retained more than 99% of Black and Hispanic youth. Both methods produced reproducible brain-behavior associations across low-/high-motion racial/ethnic groups based on motion-limited fMRI data.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The motion-ordering and bagging methods are two feasible approaches that can enhance sample representation for testing brain-behavior associations and result in reproducible effect sizes in diverse populations.</p>","PeriodicalId":93900,"journal":{"name":"Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143375044","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Decoding obsessive-compulsive disorder: Regional Vulnerability Index and its Association with Clinical Symptoms.","authors":"Kathrin Koch, Daniela Rodriguez Manrique, Sandra Gigl, Hanyang Ruan, Deniz A Gürsel, Georgiana Rus-Oswald, Tim Reess, Götz Berberich","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.01.013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.01.013","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) exhibit notable alterations in brain structure, which are likely to be of clinical relevance. Recently, in schizophrenia, the regional vulnerability index (RVI) was introduced to translate findings from Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) studies to the individual level. Building on this framework, the present study sought to investigate whether the RVI might also serve as a vulnerability index for OCD.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>To this aim, we asssessed subcortical volume and cortical thickness in a sample of 250 participants (140 patients with OCD, 110 healthy volunteers) and calculated the RVI by leveraging ENIGMA-derived deficits as the \"ground truth\" for expected regional brain alterations.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Subcortical volume and cortical thickness RVI values were significantly different in patients compared to healthy controls. In addition, RVI values based on subcortical volume were significantly correlated with the severity of clinical symptoms. Moreover, RVI values for both subcortical volume and cortical thickness were significantly different in medicated subgroups while there was no significant difference in unmedicated patients.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The present results suggest that RVI may represent an individual characteristic reflecting the degree of correspondence between individual patterns of structural alterations and disease-characteristic patterns of structural alterations. However, our findings also indicate that relatively large effect sizes in the meta-analytic \"ground truth\" are a prerequisite for obtaining a meaningful RVI parameter that can also be related to clinical severity. Hence, present findings require further validation through additional research to confirm the RVI's robustness and to determine its predictive value.</p>","PeriodicalId":93900,"journal":{"name":"Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143367121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From Confound to Clinical Tool: Mindfulness and the Observer Effect in Research and Therapy.","authors":"Clemens C C Bauer, Daniel A Atad, Norman Farb, Judson A Brewer","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.01.012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.01.012","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The observer effect (OE), the idea that observing a phenomenon changes it, has important implications across scientific disciplines involving measurement and observation. While often viewed as a confounding variable to control for, this paper argues that the OE should be seriously accounted for, explored and systematically leveraged in research and clinical settings. Specifically, mindfulness practices that cultivate present-moment, non-judgmental awareness are proposed as a platform to account for, explore and intentionally harness the OE. In research contexts, mindfulness training may allow participants to provide more precise self-reports by minimizing reactive biases that perturb the observed phenomena. Empirical evidence suggests mindfulness enhances interoceptive awareness and reduces automatic judgment, potentially increasing measurement sensitivity, specificity and validity. Clinically, psychotherapies often aim to make unconscious patterns explicitly observable to the client, capitalizing on the transformative potential of observation. Mindfulness directly cultivates this capacity for meta-awareness, allowing individuals to \"de-center\" from rigid cognitive-emotional patterns fueling psychopathology. Rather than avoiding unpleasant experiences like cravings or anxiety, mindfulness guides individuals to simply observe these phenomena, reducing identification and reactivity. Mindfulness practices may leverage components of the OE, facilitating lasting psychological change. To further study the OE, developing an \"Observer Effect Index\" to code observer influence is proposed. Overall, this paper highlights the ubiquity of the OE and advocates developing methods to intentionally account for and apply observer influences across research and therapeutic contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":93900,"journal":{"name":"Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143082558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Associations of Child Amygdala Development with Borderline Personality Symptoms in Adolescence.","authors":"Anna Constantino-Pettit, Kirsten Gilbert, Kiran Boone, Katherine Luking, Benjamin Geselowitz, Rebecca Tillman, Diana Whalen, Joan Luby, Deanna M Barch, Alecia Vogel","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.01.010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.01.010","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>The understanding of the neural correlates of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is limited, but suggests alterations in limbic structures play a role in adult BPD. The developmental course of structural neural differences in BPD is unknown. Whether there is specificity for structural alterations in BPD compared with other psychiatric presentations, such as major depressive disorder (MDD), remains unexplored. The current study examined childhood trajectories of two limbic regions implicated in BPD, hippocampal and amygdala volume, as they relate to adolescent BPD symptoms as compared with MDD symptoms.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Participants (N =175; 85 [48.6%] female) were from a 17-year longitudinal study of preschool depression. Participants completed up to 5 MRI scans from late childhood through adolescence. General linear models assessed the relationship between gray matter volume intercepts/slopes and BPD symptoms to understand the influence of the developmental trajectory of brain regions on BPD. Separate models assessed the relationship between MDD symptoms and volume intercepts to assess diagnostic specificity.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Lower childhood amygdala volume (intercept; age 13 centered) across scans was associated with higher adolescent BPD symptoms (β=-0.25, adj. p=.015). There was no relationship between the slope of amygdala volume and BPD symptoms. There was no relationship between hippocampal volume and BPD, nor any relationship between amygdala or hippocampal volume and MDD symptoms in adolescence.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Our findings add evidence for the role of alterations in amygdala structure in BPD development. Decreased amygdala volume as early as age 13 may be an early indicator for the development of BPD in adolescence.</p>","PeriodicalId":93900,"journal":{"name":"Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143070127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Gamma oscillations and excitation/inhibition imbalance: parallel effects of N-methyl D-aspartate receptor antagonism and psychosis.","authors":"Brian J Roach, Judith M Ford, Spero Nicholas, Jamie M Ferri, Handan Gunduz-Bruce, John H Krystal, Judith Jaeger, Daniel H Mathalon","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.01.008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.01.008","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Auditory steady-state response (ASSR) abnormalities in the 40-Hz (gamma band) frequency have been observed in schizophrenia and rodent studies of N-methyl D-aspartate glutamate receptor (NMDAR) hypofunction. However, the extent to which 40-Hz ASSR abnormalities in schizophrenia resemble deficits in 40-Hz ASSR induced by acute administration of ketamine, an NMDAR antagonist, is not yet known.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>To address this knowledge gap, we conducted parallel EEG studies: a crossover, placebo-controlled ketamine drug challenge study in healthy subjects (Study 1) and a comparison of patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls subjects (Study 2). Time-frequency analysis of the ASSR was used to calculate baseline, broadband gamma power, evoked power, total power, phase-locking factor, and phase-locking angle.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Relative to healthy controls, schizophrenia patients exhibited increases in pre-stimulus broadband gamma power and reductions in 40-Hz ASSR evoked power, total power, and phase-locking factor, replicating prior studies. However, we failed to replicate previous findings of 40-Hz ASSR phase delay in schizophrenia. Relative to placebo, ketamine: increased pre-stimulus broadband gamma power, reduced 40-Hz ASSR evoked power, total power, and phase-locking factor, and advanced the phase of the 40-Hz ASSR.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Normalized by their respective control groups/conditions, direct comparison of these measures between schizophrenia and ketamine data only revealed significant differences in phase, supporting the role of NMDAR hypofunction in mediating gamma oscillation abnormalities in schizophrenia.</p>","PeriodicalId":93900,"journal":{"name":"Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143017344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Alexithymia Hypothesis of Autism Revisited: Alexithymia Modulates Social Brain Activity During Facial Affect Recognition in Autistic Adults.","authors":"Simon Kirsch, Simon Maier, Muyu Lin, Simón Guendelman, Christian Kaufmann, Isabel Dziobek, Ludger Tebartz van Elst","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.01.007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.01.007","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and alexithymia are both linked to difficulties in facial affect recognition (FAR) alongside differences in social brain activity. According to the Alexithymia Hypothesis, difficulties in emotion processing in ASD can be attributed to increased levels of co-occurring alexithymia. Despite substantial evidence supporting the hypothesis at the behavioral level, the effects of co-occurring alexithymia on brain function during FAR remain unexplored.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Data from 120 participants (60 ASD, 60 controls) who completed an FAR task were analyzed using functional magnetic resonance imaging and behavioral measures. The task included both explicit and implicit measures of FAR. Autistic participants were further categorized based on their alexithymia status. Group differences in FAR performance and associated brain activation were investigated.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Autistic participants showed lower FAR performance compared to controls, regardless of alexithymia status. Imaging revealed three cortical clusters with reduced activation in alexithymic compared to non-alexithymic ASD participants during explicit FAR, including the left inferior parietal gyrus, cuneus, and middle temporal gyrus. During implicit FAR, alexithymic ASD participants showed three cortical clusters of increased activation, including the left precentral gyrus, right precuneus, and temporoparietal junction.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>Our study shows an unexpected dissociation between behavior and brain response: While ASD affects FAR performance, only co-occurring alexithymia modulates corresponding social brain activations. Though not supporting the Alexithymia Hypothesis on the behavioral level, the study highlights the complex relationship between ASD and co-occurring alexithymia, emphasizing the significance of co-occurring conditions in understanding emotion processing in ASD.</p>","PeriodicalId":93900,"journal":{"name":"Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143017767","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}