Theory of mind and Autism Flashcards
What is Autism or Autism Spectrum DIsorder?
A life long neurodevelopmental condition
How does Autism affect people’s lives?
They have difficulty with social reciporcity, communciation and repetiive or restrictive behaviour
Why do babbies have an innate preference for social stimuli?
- Prefer to look at human face than non social objects, mianly if eyes are open (Batki et al, 2000)
- Enahcned ERPs in occiptial face processing areas for direct eye contact in comparison to averted gaze (Grossman et al, 2007)
When was the earliest manifestation of Theory of Mind in “Joint Attention” by Butterowrh and Jarret (1991)
18 months
What is joint attention?
Spontaneously following pointing gestures and eye gaze direction of others
What challenges do children with autism face with joint attention?
They show atypical joint attention as toddlers
What tasks do children with autism struggle with as they grow from 6 - 7
Unable to understand when someone is jooking or being ironic as to a child that is neurotypical
What tasks do children with austim struggle with from age 9 - 10?
Unable to judge mental states by examining eyes of others compared to neurotypical children
What is Cognitive Theory of Mind?
Ability to identify/recongise antoher person’s mental state
What is Affective Theory of Mind?
Having an appropriate emotional reaction to other people’s thoughts and feelings
Who suggested the congitive and affective Theory of Mind (ToM)?
Baron-Cohen (2009)
Why is eye gaze so important in Theory of Mind?
- People look where they are attending
- Minding reading (looking where others are attending) is important
- Allows to predict others behaviour
- Share others mental state (Joint attention)
What is STS involved in?
Integrating biological motion (e.g gaze direction) with mental states
What does Superior Temporal Sulcus do?
- Interprests meaning of gaze stimuli to determine whether it is goal orintated
What is the result of Superior Temporal Suclus (STS)in people with autism?
- STS is still activated by agaze cues and reproted by people but STS does not differntiate ebtween goal-oriented and non-goal oriented behaviour
What is Menatlizing (shifting mental perspectives)?
- Self: How likely you to think to think
- Other- How likely are others to think
What is physical (doesn’t involve shifting mental perspectives)?
Self - How likely you are to be or have something
- Others - How likely are others to be or have something
What is cognitive empathy?
Understanding what others are feeling
What is cognitive empathy?
Understanding what others are feeling
What is emotional empathy?
Feeling what others are feeling
What happens in the brains of BPD in cognitive and emotional empathy tasks?
Multifaceted empath test
- Cognitive empathy
- Affective empathy (how much are you feeling for the person)
What was concluded in BDP in regards to cognitive empathy
Reduced STS activation - Cognitive impairment
What was concluded in BDP in regards to emotional empathy
- Increased STS and insula activation
- Increased autonomic arousal
What is the Medialprefrontal cortex (MPFC) subdivided into?
- Dorsal MPFC
- Ventral MPFC
What did Mitchell et al 2004 state occured to the Medialprefrontal cortex (MPFC)?
MPFC activates when forming impressions of others
What are the two conditions for MPFC to activate when forming impressions of others?
- Make personality judgement (as in the image)
- Rememebr the order in which the statements were presented
How does the Ventral MPFC and Dorsal MPFC? gets activated?
- Thinking about similar others activated ventral MPFC
- Thinking about dissimilar others activated dorsal MPFC
What does less difference in vMPFC activation between self/other mentalizing conditions?
Causes more impairment
What does anode do in tDCs?
Causes deplorisation of neurons and enhances excitability
What does the cathode do in tDCS?
Causes hyperpolarisation and reduces excitability
What improves Theory of Mind in autisitic children?
tDCs in vMPFC (Salehinejad et al. 2021)
Castelli et al., 2002 – fMRI study show?
- Compared BOLD response in mentalizing condition to when shapes moved at random
What did autisitic P show durng mentalizing condition?
Reduced activity in MPFC and STS
What is the four domains of impairment?
- Emotional
- Behavioural
- Cognitive
- Interpersonal
What is a heterogenous phenotype?
BPD appears differetnly across patients (126 combinations of 5 citera possible)
How many symptoms of BDP needed for diagnosis?
5
What is the Biosocial model?
Acknowledges biological predispositions and interactions with developmental environment in bringing about BPD
What is the equation of the Biosocial model?
Biology (Impulsivity + emotional sensitivity) + Environment (Developmental environmental factors) = BPD
What is hypermentalizing?
Congitive impairment - attributions of mental states to others are negatively biased
What is insula (insular cortex)?
- Involved in emotion procssing located undr the lateral sulcus below the STS
What is the negative vs neutral contract in the fMRI Data discovered by Frick?
In the left amygdala, BPD participants showed greater BOLD activation than the HC group
What is the positive vs neutral contract in the fMRI Data discovered by Frick?
- In the right amygdala BPD participants showed greater BOLD activation than the HC group
What was concluded from Frick’s fMRI data?
- Increased amygdala activation in BPD group
- Increased speed and accuracy in determining mental states in the RMTE task in BPD group
What is the issue with emotional processing tasks?
Low in ecological validity and not arousing
What did Sharp learn about ecological valdity?
Mentalizing under higher ecological validyt have shown hypermentalizing responses
What results did Dziobek obtain in regards to congitive empath against control taks?
Controls: increased activity in left STS (and STG)
BPD: no difference
- Lack of activation in STS negaitvely correlated with degree of intrusive thoughts in BPD group
What results did Dziobek obtain in regards to emotional empathy against control task?
- BPD: increased activation right STS and insula
Controls: no difference
The more arousal (as measured by skin conductance) the greater the insula activity in patients
What did Dziobek conclude about BPD patients?
Under and over activated STS
What was the results Dziobek found about Cognitve Empathy task?
- Under activated STS
- Could contribute to impairments in ToM
What was the results Dziobek found about emotional empathy tasks?
- Over activated STS and insula
- Increased autonomic arousal
- Linked to emotional sensitivity
