Determine the neural networks involved in three aspects of nonverbal and social communication: affective prosody, perception of facial expression, and response to emotionally laden scenes. We examine each category of cognitive task from three levels to address the following questions. a. Perceptual: is the basic apparatus for visual and auditory perception of emotional, versus non-emotional, sensory information intact? b. affective; does perception of affect produce appropriate emotional arousal as evidenced by activation of emotion-mediated brain centers in the limbic circuit? c. executive: are the neural networks involved . in utilizing and making judgments about perceived and experienced affect intact? 2. Determine differences in these neural networks in higher functioning autistic individuals, which are specific to autism, in comparison to a non-autistic, language impaired population, along the following dimensions: a. regional dvsfunction: do autistic and control subjects differ in their ability to activate key brain regions associated with the above levels of processing? b. functional connectivity: do autistic and control subjects differ in the functional connections between critical brain regions, and how do these regions interact during task performance? c. anatomical underpinnings of specific symptons: can we identify regional and functional connectivity differences associated with specific symptoms of autism?
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