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Query: UMLS:C0004352 (autism)
 32,579 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

It is widely accepted that autism is associated with disordered emotion processing and, in particular, with deficits of emotional reciprocity such as impaired emotion recognition and reduced empathy. However, a close examination of the literature reveals wide heterogeneity within the autistic population with respect to emotional competence. Here we argue that, where observed, emotional impairments are due to alexithymia-a condition that frequently co-occurs with autism-rather than a feature of autism per se. Alexithymia is a condition characterized by a reduced ability to identify and describe one's own emotion, but which results in reduced empathy and an impaired ability to recognize the emotions of others. We briefly review studies of emotion processing in alexithymia, and in autism, before describing a recent series of studies directly testing this 'alexithymia hypothesis'. If found to be correct, the alexithymia hypothesis has wide-reaching implications for the study of autism, and how we might best support subgroups of autistic individuals with, and without, accompanying alexithymia. Finally, we note the presence of elevated rates of alexithymia, and inconsistent reports of emotional impairments, in eating disorders, schizophrenia, substance abuse, Parkinson's Disease, multiple sclerosis and anxiety disorders. We speculate that examining the contribution of alexithymia to the emotional symptoms of these disorders may bear fruit in the same way that it is starting to do in autism.
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PMID:Mixed emotions: the contribution of alexithymia to the emotional symptoms of autism. 2388 Aug 81

Individuals with psychopathy or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can behave in ways that suggest lack of empathy towards others. However, many different cognitive and affective processes may lead to unempathic behavior and the social processing profiles of individuals with high psychopathic vs. ASD traits are likely different. Whilst psychopathy appears characterized by problems with resonating with others' emotions, ASD appears characterized by problems with cognitive perspective-taking. In addition, alexithymia has previously been associated with both disorders, but the contribution of alexithymia needs further exploration. In a community sample (N = 110) we show for the first time that although affective resonance and cognitive perspective-taking are related, high psychopathic traits relate to problems with resonating with others' emotions, but not cognitive perspective taking. Conversely, high ASD traits relate to problems with cognitive perspective-taking but not resonating with others' emotions. Alexithymia was associated with problems with affective resonance independently of psychopathic traits, suggesting that different component processes (reduced tendency to feel what others feel and reduced ability to identify and describe feelings) comprise affective resonance. Alexithymia was not associated with the reduced cognitive perspective-taking in high ASD traits. Our data suggest that (1) elevated psychopathic and ASD traits are characterized by difficulties in different social information processing domains and (2) reduced affective resonance in individuals with elevated psychopathic traits and the reduced cognitive perspective taking in individuals with elevated ASD traits are not explained by co-occurring alexithymia. (3) Alexithymia is independently associated with reduced affective resonance. Consequently, our data point to different component processes within the construct of empathy that are suggestive of partially separable cognitive and neural systems.
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PMID:Dissecting empathy: high levels of psychopathic and autistic traits are characterized by difficulties in different social information processing domains. 2429 97

We developed a new multi-feature mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm with two improvements: Firstly, the standard tone, a pseudoword /ta-ta/ was presented with equal probability to the nine linguistically relevant deviants, reducing the recording time by 45%. Secondly, three rare, emotionally valenced stimuli: happy, angry, and sad utterances of the standard pseudoword were included in the sequence. MMN signals reflecting the perceptual properties of the sounds were observed for all stimuli. In addition, P3a signals were observed for the rare emotionally uttered pseudowords. This 28-min paradigm allows a multi-dimensional evaluation of central speech-sound representations (MMN), and attention allocation (P3a) to emotional information content of speech. We recommend this paradigm for studies on subject groups with impairments in language or emotional information processing, such as autism spectrum disorders, attention disorders, and alexithymia.
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PMID:Fast determination of MMN and P3a responses to linguistically and emotionally relevant changes in pseudoword stimuli. 2492 23

Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) are characterised by deficits in understanding and expressing emotions and are frequently accompanied by alexithymia, a difficulty in understanding and expressing emotion words. Words are differentially represented in the brain according to their semantic category and these difficulties in ASC predict reduced activation to emotion-related words in limbic structures crucial for affective processing. Semantic theories view 'emotion actions' as critical for learning the semantic relationship between a word and the emotion it describes, such that emotion words typically activate the cortical motor systems involved in expressing emotion actions such as facial expressions. As ASC are also characterised by motor deficits and atypical brain structure and function in these regions, motor structures would also be expected to show reduced activation during emotion-semantic processing. Here we used event-related fMRI to compare passive processing of emotion words in comparison to abstract verbs and animal names in typically-developing controls and individuals with ASC. Relatively reduced brain activation in ASC for emotion words, but not matched control words, was found in motor areas and cingulate cortex specifically. The degree of activation evoked by emotion words in the motor system was also associated with the extent of autistic traits as revealed by the Autism Spectrum Quotient. We suggest that hypoactivation of motor and limbic regions for emotion word processing may underlie difficulties in processing emotional language in ASC. The role that sensorimotor systems and their connections might play in the affective and social-communication difficulties in ASC is discussed.
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PMID:Lost for emotion words: what motor and limbic brain activity reveals about autism and semantic theory. 2527 50

Despite increasing empirical and theoretical work on empathy, particularly on the content of empathic representations, there is a relative lack of consensus regarding the information processing necessary for empathy to occur. Here we attempt to delineate a mechanistic cognitive model of empathy in order to provide a framework within which neuroimaging work on empathy can be located, and which may be used in order to understand various disorders characterised by atypical levels of empathy. To this end data from individuals with psychopathy, autism, and alexithymia inform the model, and the model is used to provide a unifying framework for any empathy impairments seen in these disorders. The model adopts a developmental framework and tries to address the four difficult questions of empathy: How do we know what another is feeling? What is the role of theory of mind in empathy? How does the state of another cause a corresponding state in the self? How do we represent another's emotion once emotional contagion has taken place?
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PMID:The self to other model of empathy: providing a new framework for understanding empathy impairments in psychopathy, autism, and alexithymia. 2545 56

According to the social motivation hypothesis of autism, individuals with high levels of autistic traits experience reduced levels of reward from social interactions. However, empirical evidence to date has been mixed, with some studies reporting lower levels of social reward in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and others finding no difference when compared to typically developing controls. Alexithymia, a subclinical condition associated with the reduced ability to identify and describe one's own emotions, has been found to account for other affective difficulties observed inconsistently in individuals with ASD. The current study used a nonclinical sample (N = 472) to explore the associations between autistic traits and the value of six types of social reward, as measured by the Social Reward Questionnaire. In addition, we measured alexithymia to assess if this accounted for associations between autistic traits and social reward. There were three main findings. Firstly, higher levels of autistic traits were associated with significantly less enjoyment of admiration and sociability, and adding alexithymia to these models did not account for any additional variance. Secondly, both autistic traits and alexithymia were uniquely associated with reduced levels of enjoyment of prosocial interactions and sexual relationships. Thirdly, autistic traits were associated with higher levels of enjoyment of passivity and negative social potency, but these associations were no longer significant once alexithymia was taken into account, suggesting that co-occurring alexithymia accounted for these apparent associations. Overall, the current findings provide a novel and more nuanced picture of the relationship between autistic traits and social reward.
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PMID:Common and distinct impacts of autistic traits and alexithymia on social reward. 2585 70

Anatomical, clinical, and neuroimaging evidence implicates the cerebellum in processing emotions and feelings. Moreover recent studies showed a cerebellar involvement in pathologies such as autism, schizophrenia and alexithymia, in which emotional processing have been found altered. However, cerebellar function in the modulation of emotional responses remains debated. In this study, emotions that are involved directly in decision-making were examined in 15 patients (six males; age range 17-60 years) affected by cerebellar damage and 15 well matched healthy controls. We used a gambling task, in which subjects' choices and evaluation of outcomes with regard to their anticipated and actual emotional impact were analyzed. Emotions, such as regret and relief, were elicited, based on the outcome of the unselected gamble. Interestingly, despite their ability to avoid regret in subsequent choices, patients affected by cerebellar lesions were significantly impaired in evaluating the feeling of regret subjectively. These results demonstrate that the cerebellum is involved in conscious recognizing of negative feelings caused by the sense of self-responsibility for an incorrect decision.
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PMID:Cerebellar damage impairs the self-rating of regret feeling in a gambling task. 2599 29

In "Autism, oxytocin and interoception" (Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 47, 410-430) Quattrocki and Friston present their theory of the role of oxytocin in interoception from multiple perspectives. The arguments contained therein are compelling, and highlight the fact that interoception, and the role of oxytocin in interoception, should receive more research attention. However, in addition to outlining the role of oxytocin in interoception the authors also suggest that Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a result of a failure of this system. It is this latter claim that we disagree with, instead suggesting that alexithymia, rather than autism, is most accurately characterised as a general failure of interoception. We review positive evidence that alexithymia produces several of the deficits identified as indicating a failure of interoception, and negative evidence that ASD (in the absence of comorbid alexithymia) is associated with these deficits. We highlight implications for the model, for oxytocin research, and for the clinical management of psychiatric conditions more generally.
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PMID:Commentary on "Autism, oxytocin and interoception": Alexithymia, not Autism Spectrum Disorders, is the consequence of interoceptive failure. 2527 83

One's own emotional response toward a hypothetical action can influence judgments of its moral acceptability. Some individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit atypical emotional processing, and moral judgments. Research suggests, however, that emotional deficits in ASD are due to co-occurring alexithymia, meaning atypical moral judgments in ASD may be due to alexithymia also. Individuals with and without ASD (matched for alexithymia) judged the moral acceptability of emotion-evoking statements and identified the emotion evoked. Moral acceptability judgments were predicted by alexithymia. Crucially, however, this relationship held only for individuals without ASD. While ASD diagnostic status did not directly predict either judgment, those with ASD did not base their moral acceptability judgments on emotional information. Findings are consistent with evidence demonstrating that decision-making is less subject to emotional biases in those with ASD.
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PMID:The impact of autism spectrum disorder and alexithymia on judgments of moral acceptability. 2637 27

The objective of our study was to examine, discuss, and provide proposals on diagnostic comorbidity of depression in children and adolescents with high functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFASD) in the following aspects. (1) Prevalence. It was concluded that there are an elevated depression rate and the need for longitudinal studies to determine prevalence and incidence based on functioning level, autistic symptoms, gender, age, type of depression, prognosis, duration, and treatment. (2) Explicative Hypotheses and Vulnerability. The factors that present the greatest specific risk are higher cognitive functioning, self-awareness of deficit, capacity for introspection, stressful life events, adolescence, quality of social relationships, and alexithymia. (3) Risk of Suicide. The need for control and detection of suicidal tendencies and bullying is emphasised. (4) Depressive Symptoms. Indicators for early detection are proposed and their overlap with HFASD is analysed, examining the assessment techniques used and arguing that specific adapted tests are needed.
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PMID:Risk Factors for Depression in Children and Adolescents with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders. 2641 64


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