Selective deficit in personal moral judgment following damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex

Recent fMRI evidence has detected increased medial prefrontalactivation during contemplation of personal moral dilemmas comparedto impersonal ones, which suggests that this cortical regionplays a role in personal moral judgment. However, functionalimaging results cannot definitively establish that a brain areais necessary for a particular cognitive process. This requiresevidence from lesion techniques, such as studies of human patientswith focal brain damage. Here, we tested 7 patients with lesionsin the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and 12 healthy individualsin personal moral dilemmas, impersonal moral dilemmas and non-moraldilemmas. Compared to normal controls, patients were more willingto judge personal moral violations as acceptable behaviors inpersonal moral dilemmas, and they did so more quickly. In contrast,their performance in impersonal and non-moral dilemmas was comparableto that of controls. These results indicate that the ventromedialprefrontal cortex is necessary to oppose personal moral violations,possibly by mediating anticipatory, self-focused, emotionalreactions that may exert strong influence on moral choice andbehavior.     

Verbal fluency in adults with high functioning autism or Asperger syndrome

The semantic and phonemic fluency performance of adults with high functioning autism (HFA), Asperger syndrome and a neurotypical control group were compared. All participants were matched for age and verbal ability. Results showed that the participants with HFA were significantly impaired in their performance of both semantic fluency tasks and the phonemic fluency task using the letter M. The Asperger group was only impaired in their performance of the semantic fluency task ‘professions’. The social components of the ‘professions’ task may have influenced the performance of the two disorder groups for this subtest negatively. The fluency deficits could not be attributed to a lack of the use of strategies or to difficulties in switching between strategies. The impairment in two of the three verbal fluency subtests in the HFA group can be attributed to the relatively low processing speed found in this group.     

Reading the mind in the voice: a study with normal adults and adults with Asperger syndrome and high functioning autism

People with high functioning autism (HFA) and Asperger syndrome (AS) have deficits in theory of mind (ToM). Traditional ToM tasks are not sensitive enough to measure ToM deficits in adults, so more subtle ToM tests are needed. One adult level test, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test has shown that AS and HFA subjects have measurable deficits in the ability to make ToM inferences. Here we introduce a test that extends the above task into the auditory domain and that can be used with adults with IQ Scores in the normal range. We report the use of the test with an adult sample of people with AS/HFA and with two adult control groups. Results suggest that individuals with AS/HFA have difficulty extracting mental state information from vocalizations. These results are consistent with previous results suggesting that people with HFA and AS have difficulties drawing ToM inferences.     

帕金森病患者道德判断的初步研究

目的探讨帕金森病(PD)患者道德判断功能及其神经机制。方法选取诊断明确的原发性PD患者(PD组)40例以及与其人口学资料相匹配的健康对照(HC组)40例作为研究对象,采用汉译的Joshua D.Greene编写的道德两难问卷,进行道德两难情境决策的实验。结果 PD组在道德判断"个人情感的"情境中做出愿意(功利主义倾向)选择的概率(0.40±0.19)显著高于HC组(0.32±0.11),差异有统计学意义(t=2.244,P0.05)。而两组在"非个人情感的"和"道德无关的"情境中做出愿意选择的概率,差异则均无统计学意义(P0.05)。结论 PD患者在"个人情感的"道德判断中高度倾向于功利主义选择,推测与其额叶-基底节环路异常有关。     

Linguistic characteristics of individuals with high functioning autism and Asperger syndrome

This study examined the linguistic characteristics of high functioning individuals with autism and Asperger syndrome. Each group consisted of 10 participants who were matched on sex, chronological age, and intelligence scores. Participants generated a narrative after watching a brief video segment of the Social Attribution Task video. Each participant was then asked 10 questions related to the stimulus video. The narrative samples and responses to the questions were analysed linguistically. Individuals with high functioning autism and Asperger syndrome performed similarly on most measures of language function; however, results suggest there may be pragmatically‐based differences between the groups in the use of verb tense markers.     

Do individuals with high functioning autism have the IQ profile associated with nonverbal learning disability?

Previously researchers have noted a high level of occurrence of the IQ profile associated with nonverbal learning disability (NLD) in Asperger syndrome (ASP) but not in high functioning autism (HFA). We examined the IQ profile scores of a large sample of children (n = 69) and adults (n = 77) with HFA, stringently diagnosed according to ADOS, ADI-R, and DSM-IV criteria, and a corresponding sample of typical child (n = 72) and adult controls (n = 107). At least one of the three primary components of the Wechsler pattern seen in NLD were found in 17–26% of the children and 20–32% of the adults with HFA. All three components occurred in slightly more than 5% of the children and adults with autism. Overall, the VIQ > PIQ profile seen in NLD occurred in 18% of the sample of individuals stringently diagnosed with HFA. Therefore, obtaining this IQ profile is not a valid clinical discriminator between NLD and HFA.     

Individual differences in moral judgment competence influence neural correlates of socio-normative judgments

To investigate how individual differences in moral judgmentcompetence are reflected in the human brain, we used event-relatedfunctional magnetic resonance imaging, while 23 participantsmade either socio-normative or grammatical judgments. Participantswith lower moral judgment competence recruited the left ventromedialprefrontal cortex and the left posterior superior temporal sulcusmore than participants with greater competence in this domainwhen identifying social norm violations. Moreover, moral judgmentcompetence scores were inversely correlated with activity inthe right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during socio-normativerelative to grammatical judgments. Greater activity in rightDLPFC in participants with lower moral judgment competence indicatesincreased recruitment of rule-based knowledge and its controlledapplication during socio-normative judgments. These data supportcurrent models of the neurocognition of morality according towhich both emotional and cognitive components play an importantrole.     

Age-dependent changes in the neural substrates of empathy in autism spectrum disorder

In typical development, empathic abilities continue to refine during adolescence and early adulthood. Children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) show deficits in empathy, whereas adults with ASD may have developed compensatory strategies. We aimed at comparing developmental trajectories in the neural mechanisms underlying empathy in individuals with ASD and typically developing control (TDC) subjects. Using an explicit empathizing paradigm and functional magnetic resonance imaging, 27 participants with ASD and 27 TDC aged 12–31 years were investigated. Participants were asked to empathize with emotional faces and to either infer the face’s emotional state (other-task) or to judge their own emotional response (self-task). Differential age-dependent changes were evident during the self-task in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, right medial prefrontal cortex, right inferior parietal cortex, right anterior insula and occipital cortex. Age-dependent decreases in neural activation in TDC were paralleled by either increasing or unchanged age-dependent activation in ASD. These data suggest ASD-associated deviations in the developmental trajectories of self-related processing during empathizing. In TDC, age-dependent modulations of brain areas may reflect the ‘fine-tuning’ of cortical networks by reduction of task-unspecific brain activity. Increased age-related activation in individuals with ASD may indicate the development of compensatory mechanisms.     

Outcome in high-functioning adults with autism with and without early language delays: implications for the differentiation between autism and Asperger syndrome

The question of whether Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism should be considered as the same or different conditions has been a source of debate and controversy over recent years. In the present study, 34 adults with autism who had shown early delays in language were compared with 42 individuals who were reported to have had no such delays, either in their use of words or phrases. All participants were at least 18 years of age, had a nonverbal IQ of 70 or above and met ADI-R criteria for age of onset, communication and social impairments, and stereotyped behaviors. Those in the language delay group were diagnosed as having high-functioning autism. The remainder were designated as having Asperger syndrome. The groups were matched for age, nonverbal IQ and gender. No significant differences were found between the groups either in their total ADI-R algorithm scores, or in their algorithm scores on individual domains. Social outcome ratings and ADI-R scores based on current functioning also failed to differentiate between the groups. Scores on tests of language comprehension and expression were also similar, but in both groups language abilities were well below chronological age level. The implications of these results with respect to the differences between Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism are discussed. The poor performance on language tests also challenges the assumption that early language development in Asperger syndrome is essentially normal.     

Increasing the appropriate demonstration of affectionate behavior,in children with Asperger syndrome,high functioning autism,and PDD-NOS: A randomized controlled trial

Individuals with Asperger syndrome (AS) can have difficulty understanding, receiving and expressing appropriate affectionate behavior (Attwood, 2007). The purpose of the current study was to further evaluate the effectiveness of a cognitive–behavioral intervention program aimed at improving affectionate communication and friendship skills in children with AS. The pilot study of this program (Sofronoff, Eloff, Sheffield, & Attwood, 2011) was extended in the current study in a randomized controlled trial. Fifty-eight children with AS (aged 7–12 years) participated in the program and were randomly assigned to the intervention (n = 29) or waitlist (n = 29) condition. Parent-report measures indicated that, relative to the waitlist group, children in the intervention group showed significantly greater improvements in the overall appropriateness of their affectionate behavior to others after the program. Specifically, improvements were reported in the appropriate expression of affection to others and this finding was maintained at three-month follow-up. Parent-report measures further demonstrated significant improvements in children's communication of empathy to others at follow-up. Children's understanding of the purpose of affection approached significance. Overall, this study indicates that children with AS can be taught to interact more appropriately. The limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Cognitive flexibility in adults with high functioning autism

The goal of the current study was to evaluate presetting, response inhibition, set shifting, and a priori planning in autism: abilities that can be lumped together under the term cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility is an aspect of executive functioning, which in turn is mediated by the prefrontal cortical lobes. A group of adults with high-functioning autism (HFA; n = 23) were compared with a normal control group (n = 32), by using a computerized variant of the Sternberg response bias paradigm. Contrary to the results of earlier studies, no deficit was found in presetting, response inhibition, set shifting, and a priori planning in participants with autism, even when the medication factor was taken into account. Methodological issues that could be explanatory for this difference are discussed. An additional finding was, that individuals with HFA (especially those on medication) were slow in reacting. Possible origins and consequences of this slowness, also for cognitive flexibility, are discussed.     

Post-error adaptation in adults with high functioning autism

Deficits in executive function (EF), i.e. function of the prefrontal cortex, may be central in the etiology of autism. One of the various aspects of EF is error detection and adjusting behavior after an error. In cognitive tests, adults normally slow down their responding on the next trial after making an error, a compensatory mechanism geared toward improving performance on subsequent trials, and a faculty critically associated with activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). The current study evaluated post-error slowing in people with high functioning autism (HFA) (n=36), taking symptom severity into account, compared to the performance of a normal control group (n=32). Symptom severity in the HFA group was defined in terms of level of adaptation: living independently (outpatients; n=12) and living residentially (inpatients; n=24). Half the group of inpatients was on medication; the results of their performance were analyzed separately. A computerized version of a memory search task was used with two response probability conditions. The subjects in the control group adjusted their reaction time (RT) substantially after an error, while the group of participants with HFA appeared to be overall slow, with no significant adjustment of RT after an error. This finding remained significant if the medication factor was taken into account, and was independent of the degree of severity of the autistic disorder, as defined by the dichotomy 'inpatient versus outpatient'. Possible causes and implications of the finding are discussed.     

Audiovisual integration in high functioning adults with autism

Autism involves various perceptual benefits and deficits, but it is unclear if the disorder also involves anomalous audiovisual integration. To address this issue, we compared the performance of high-functioning adults with autism and matched controls on experiments investigating the audiovisual integration of speech, spatiotemporal relations, and temporal numerosity. In each experiment, performance for both groups was faster and more accurate when audiovisual information was congruent rather than incongruent. Importantly, audiovisual congruency did not affect the control group more than the autism group. These results suggest that the ability to integrate between the auditory and visual sense modalities is unimpaired among high-functioning adults with autism.     

The neural basis of intuitive and counterintuitive moral judgment

Neuroimaging studies on moral decision-making have thus far largely focused on differences between moral judgments with opposing utilitarian (well-being maximizing) and deontological (duty-based) content. However, these studies have investigated moral dilemmas involving extreme situations, and did not control for two distinct dimensions of moral judgment: whether or not it is intuitive (immediately compelling to most people) and whether it is utilitarian or deontological in content. By contrasting dilemmas where utilitarian judgments are counterintuitive with dilemmas in which they are intuitive, we were able to use functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify the neural correlates of intuitive and counterintuitive judgments across a range of moral situations. Irrespective of content (utilitarian/deontological), counterintuitive moral judgments were associated with greater difficulty and with activation in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, suggesting that such judgments may involve emotional conflict; intuitive judgments were linked to activation in the visual and premotor cortex. In addition, we obtained evidence that neural differences in moral judgment in such dilemmas are largely due to whether they are intuitive and not, as previously assumed, to differences between utilitarian and deontological judgments. Our findings therefore do not support theories that have generally associated utilitarian and deontological judgments with distinct neural systems.     

Social participation and cognitive functioning in older adults

The association between aspects of social participation and components of cognitive functioning and the ability of these aspects to predict cognitive performance was studied in an age and gender stratified sample of 116 individuals aged 55-89 years in the Netherlands. Measures of social participation included questionnaires on societal participation, sociocultural activities and media use. Cognitive functioning was measured by tests of fluid intelligence, processing speed, word learning and recall, and everyday memory. All aspects of social participation showed significant bivariate correlations with all components of cognitive functioning. Independent of age, gender, education and functional limitations, societal participation and sociocultural activities contributed significantly to the prediction of processing speed and of delayed recall. Tendencies of independent association were apparent between both societal participation and sociocultural activities and word learning. No aspect of social participation independently predicted fluid intelligence or everyday memory. The evidence suggests independent associations between social participation characterized by an organizational setting and high level of activity, and basic components of cognitive functioning, such as information-processing speed and measures of learning and delayed recall. Further research needs to clarify the process underlying the causal relation between cognitive functioning and forms of participation.     

Selective difficulty in recognising facial expressions of emotion in boys with ADHD

Research on emotion understanding in ADHD shows inconsistent results. This study uses control methods to investigate two questions about recognition and understanding of emotional expressions in 36 five- to eleven-year-old boys with ADHD: [1] Do they find this task more difficult than judging non-emotional information from faces, thus suggesting a specific social-cognitive impairment? [2] Are their judgements about faces impaired by general limitations on task performance, such as impulsive responding? In Part 1, 19 boys with ADHD and 19 age-matched typically developing boys matched facial expressions of emotion to situations, and did a control non-emotional face-processing task. Boys with ADHD performed more poorly than age-matches on both tasks, but found the emotion task harder than the non-emotion task. In Part 2, 17 boys with ADHD and 13 five-to six-year-old typically developing boys performed the same tasks, but with an ‘inhibitory scaffolding’ procedure to prevent impulsive responding. Boys with ADHD performed as well as the younger controls on the non-emotional task, but still showed impairments in the emotion task. Boys with ADHD may show poorer task performance because of general cognitive factors, but also showed selective problems in matching facial emotions to situations.     

Everyday functioning and cognitive correlates in healthy older adults with subjective cognitive concerns

Objective: Few studies have examined functional abilities and complaints in healthy older adults (HOAs) with subjective cognitive concerns (SCC). The aims of this study were to assess everyday functioning in HOAs reporting high and low amounts of SCC and examine cognitive correlates of functional abilities. Method: Twenty-six HOAs with high SCC and 25 HOAs with low SCC, as well as their knowledgeable informants, completed the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living-Compensation (IADL-C), a questionnaire measure of everyday functioning. Results: After controlling for depression, the high-SCC group self-reported significantly more everyday difficulties on the IADL-C, including all subdomains. Compared to the low-SCC group, informants for the high-SCC group endorsed more difficulties on the IADL-C and specifically the social skills subdomain. For the high-SCC group, poorer self-report of everyday functioning was related to poorer executive functioning and temporal order memory. Conclusions: These findings indicate that there may be subtle functional changes that occur early in the spectrum of cognitive decline in individuals with high SCC, and these functional changes are evident to informants. Further work is needed to investigate whether individuals with both SCC and functional difficulties are at an even higher risk for progression to mild cognitive impairment.     

Mild cognitive impairment and everyday functioning in older adults

The relations between mild cognitive impairment without dementia (MCI/CIND) and everyday functional abilities were examined using data from the Canadian Study of Health and Aging (CSHA). Individuals were identified with MCI/CIND if both caregiver report and clinician judgment agreed on the presence of cognitive impairment in the absence of dementia. Cross-sectional and longitudinal comparisons indicated that individuals with MCI/CIND demonstrated a broad range of impairment in instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) compared to individuals with no cognitive impairment (NCI). In cross-sectional analyses, neuropsychological measures of memory and psychomotor speed were significantly related to impairment in eight areas of functioning. In addition, poorer memory performance was significantly predictive of future impairment in money management.