Atypical Neural Self-Representation

An interesting research article was recently published in Brain: A Journal of Neurology. This research study, by Michael V. Lombardo (Autism Research Centre, Cambridge, UK) and associates, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology to study differences in brain function in areas related to self-representation which are important in social cognitive processing.

We know that one of the defining characteristics of people with autism is impairment in social interactions. The authors of the study wanted to investigate the actual brain function in the areas we know are related to self-referential and other-referential cognitive processing. The theory is that people with autism have impairments in self-awareness which impacts their ability to interact socially. Interestingly, they found that the participants with autism (29 male adults with autism were participants in the study) had significantly different brain function in the middle cingulate cortex and the ventromedial prefontal cortex. These two areas, in neurotypcial individuals, are used preferentially when processing information about the self in relation to processing information about others. In the participants with autism, they found that the neural response to processing information about self and others was similar (no preference shown). Further analysis of the data revealed that participants whose brain processed information with no preference for self were rated as more socially impaired in childhood, and those whose brain processed information with more preference for self were less socially impaired.

The authors state that so far there have been three studies which have shown a reduced or absent self-reference effect in memory in autism (Toichi et al., 2002; Lombardo et al., 2007; Henderson et al., 2009) and that the current study extends this observation by showing a lack of a ‘neural self-reference effect’ in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. It will be interesting to see if there will be studies further extending this research to identify interventions which are able to address this neural processing difference.