Altered Orbitofrontal Cortex Activation and Gaze Patterns to Happy Faces in Autistic Children Predict Adaptive Difficulties but Challenge the Social Motivation Hypothesis
Mengyuan Yang, Lan Zhang, Zijie Wei, Pingping Zhang, Lei Xu, Lihui Huang, Hong Li, Yi Lei, Keith Maurice Kendrick, Juan Kou
This study finds that autistic children show different gaze patterns and heightened arousal and brain reward responses to happy faces, which are linked to adaptive difficulties and symptom severity, contradicting the social motivation hypothesis.
bioRxiv · Dec 4, 2023 · PreprintNeuroscience