Abstract
Individuals with autism spectrum condition (ASC) are known to excel in some perceptual cognitive tasks, but such developed functions have been often regarded as “islets of abilities” that do not significantly contribute to broader intellectual capacities. However, recent behavioral studies have reported that individuals with ASC have advantages for performing Raven's (Standard) Progressive Matrices (RPM/RSPM), a standard neuropsychological test for general fluid intelligence, raising the possibility that ASC′s cognitive strength can be utilized for more general purposes like novel problem solving. Here, the brain activity of 25 adults with high-functioning ASC and 26 matched normal controls (NC) was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine neural substrates of geometric reasoning during the engagement of a modified version of the RSPM test. Among the frontal and parietal brain regions involved in fluid intelligence, ASC showed larger activation in the left lateral occipitotemporal cortex (LOTC) during an analytic condition with moderate difficulty than NC. Activation in the left LOTC and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) increased with task difficulty in NC, whereas such modulation of activity was absent in ASC. Furthermore, functional connectivity analysis revealed a significant reduction of activation coupling between the left inferior parietal cortex and the right anterior prefrontal cortex during both figural and analytic conditions in ASC. These results indicate altered pattern of functional specialization and integration in the neural system for geometric reasoning in ASC, which may explain its atypical cognitive pattern, including performance on the Raven's Matrices test.
Highlights
The exact nature of autistic cognition and intelligence has been a subject of extensive controversy
A two-way ANOVA of Condition6Group revealed a significant main effect of Group (F = 7.06, p = 0.011), but no significant main effect of Condition or interaction. These results show that activity coupling between the left inferior parietal cortex (IPC) and right anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC) is reduced throughout the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) trials irrespective of distinction between figural and analytical items
Among nodes of the brain network of fluid intelligence, autism spectrum condition (ASC) patients showed larger activation in the left lateral occipitotemporal cortex (LOTC) during the easy analytic task than normal controls (NC), whereas both groups showed comparable activation during the difficult analytic task
Summary
The exact nature of autistic cognition and intelligence has been a subject of extensive controversy. Individuals with autism spectrum condition (ASC) sometimes perform better than neurotypical individuals on certain tasks, including visual search and the Block Design and Object Assembly subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale (WAIS) [1,2]. These strengths of autistic ability are often thought to be limited to domain-specific low-level perceptual functions and the ASC9s enhanced sensation of the local information to arise at the sacrifice of high-level integrative and hierarchical processes involving diverse types of computation and information [3,4]. Because the Raven’s Matrices tests critically involve various types of highlevel processes including abstraction, rule inference, and hierarchical goal management [7,8], these findings suggest that perceptual and cognitive strengths of ASC are not limited to simple low-level tasks but are utilized for solving novel problems
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