Mentaliseren en hersenactivatie bij autisme

In recent years, there has been growing attention for the hypothesis that individuals with autism show difficulties in spontaneously representing others’ mental states, an ability referred to as spontaneous mentalizing. By testing adults with and without autism on a newly developed task, we found further evidence of differences in spontaneous mentalizing in autism, which could be linked to a decreased activation of the right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ). The rTPJ appears to be crucial for mentalizing, and for social differences in autism. It is highly recommended to further test this in future studies.