Autism autism spectrum disorder
Conditions
Interventions
None listed
Sponsors
Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
Eligibility
Age
18 Years to 64 Years
Inclusion criteria
Inclusion criteria: - Between 18 and 40 years of age - Normal or corrected-to-normal vision - Normal uncorrected hearing - Eligibility for MRI (i.e. no metals in or around the body, metal fragments, pacemakers, claustrophobia) - Body mass index between 18.5 and 30 - Willingness and ability to give written informed consent and willingness and ability to understand the nature and content, to participate and to comply with the study requirements. - Education level MBO-4 or higher - Capable to read and comprehend the Dutch language ASD patients: - Current ASD diagnosis
Exclusion criteria
Exclusion criteria: - Current alcohol or drug abuse - Use of psychotropic medication or systemic glucocorticoids - History of neurological disorders (e.g., traumatic brain injury, seizure history) - Any severe or chronic systemic disease - Severe cognitive impairment or a history of organic mental disorder - Use of recreational drugs over a period of 72 hours prior to MRI scanning, and use of alcohol within the last 24 hours before MRI scanning - History of neurological treatment or current neurological treatment - History of head surgery - Claustrophobia - Epilepsy - Pregnancy - Dyslexia All patients: - Current psychotic, bipolar, substance-related, severe personality disorder, or mental retardation - Current severe depressive disorder - Prominent current suicidal risk or homicidal ideation ASD patients: - Current SAD diagnosis High-socially anxious (SA) individuals: - Current ASD diagnosis Neurotypical participants: - (lifetime history of) ASD or SAD diagnosis - Current DSM-5 axis 1 disorder
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| 1. Differences in communicative success (percentage correct) and behavioral communicative alignment (correspondence in communicative signals between successive interactions) between ASD patients and NT and high-SA controls; 2. Differences in neural communicative alignment (cerebral coherence) between ASD patients and NT and high-SA controls; 3. Between-group differences in successful communicative meaning interpretation (percentage correct); different eye-gaze pattern trajectories and different patterns of brain activity associated communicative meaning interpretation; 4. Spatial overlap in neural communicative alignment in the nonverbal and verbal tasks, and potential between-group differences; 5. Differences in communicative adjustment between ASD patients and NT and high-SA controls as assessed with an online communication game, and whether communicative adjustment is associated with increased grey matter volume in the prefrontal cortex. 6. EEG will be used to provide a fine-grained temporal and spectral characterization of communicative alignment and context-dependent interpretation; and potential between-group differences. | — |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| 1. Answers to various questionnaires (see section 8.3.3) will be used to examine potential associations between the main study outcomes and individual differences in autism and social anxiety symptom severity, (verbal) IQ, alexithymia, social reward sensitivity and demographics (also in the NT controls only). 2. Eye-tracking: we will investigate differences in eye gaze pattern and pupil dilation during task performance (TCG and neuro-CSI) between ASD patients and NT and high-SA controls, and whether this is associated with our main study outcomes. 3. MR-spectroscopy: we will investigate differences in the excitatory-inhibitory balance of the rSTG between ASD patients and NT and high-SA controls, and whether this is associated with our main study outcomes. 4. EEG-fMRI: Investigate whether potential differences in rSTG BOLD activity during communicative alignment are related to differences in electrophysiological activity of the rSTG, as measured with EEG. 5. EEG-study: Investigate how ASD patients process multimodal communicative signs embedded in communicative settings, in particular whether they benefit from the use of co-speech gestures used by the speaker in the same way as high-SA and NT controls. | — |
Countries
Netherlands
Outcome results
None listed