Abstract
The field of social-affective neuroscience is growing exponentially, fueled by the availability and widespread use of non-invasive neuroimaging techniques, by advances in molecular genetics and by increasing sophistication in the behavioral characterization of social-affective functioning in both typical and atypical human development. In this context there has been a surge of interest in studying neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) as possible windows into the neurogenetic basis of the “social mind”. While holding great promise for advancing our understanding of genotype-phenotype relationships, research on neurogenetic disorders has encountered considerable challenges, ranging from the rarity of many NDDs with known genetic etiology and the considerable heterogeneity in phenotypic expressions within syndromes, to the difficulty of designing studies able to take in account the critical role played by developmental and epigenetic processes in shaping phenotypic outcomes. The articles collected in this e-book illustrate several ways in which researchers who study people with NDDs have attempted to overcome these limitations.
Highlights
The studies selected—both reviews and original research articles—involve populations with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) whose phenotypes include core features related to social behavior, primarily autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and Williams syndrome (WS)
We chose to focus on these NDDs because they have been viewed as opposite extremes on the social spectrum, and are often still portrayed this way in the popular media
Haas and Reiss (2012) provide an integrative review of behavioral and neuroimaging studies with WS individuals, discuss the current status of knowledge about the social brain in WS, suggest a framework for understanding how the social brain develops in WS, and propose combining different neuroimaging techniques with behavioral tasks and neuropsychological assessments in longitudinal studies as directions for future research
Summary
The studies selected—both reviews and original research articles—involve populations with NDDs whose phenotypes include core features related to social behavior, primarily autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and Williams syndrome (WS). In the opening article, Asada and Itakura (2011) review recent research on aspects of social functioning that have received considerable attention in studies of both ASD and WS: face and emotion processing, social cognition, social engagement/motivation, communicative skills and diagnostic assessment outcomes.
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