Neural mechanisms of negative reinforcement in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders.

Megan Kovac,Gabriel S Dichter,Kaitlyn Dunlap,Lauren Turner-Brown,Cara R Damiano,Joshua Bizzell,Stephanie Miller,John Sideris,Eleanor K Hanna,Dillon C Cockrell,Jessica Kinard

doi:10.1186/s11689-015-9107-8

Abstract

BackgroundPrevious research has found accumulating evidence for atypical reward processing in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), particularly in the context of social rewards. Yet, this line of research has focused largely on positive social reinforcement, while little is known about the processing of negative reinforcement in individuals with ASD.MethodsThe present study examined neural responses to social negative reinforcement (a face displaying negative affect) and non-social negative reinforcement (monetary loss) in children with ASD relative to typically developing children, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).ResultsWe found that children with ASD demonstrated hypoactivation of the right caudate nucleus while anticipating non-social negative reinforcement and hypoactivation of a network of frontostriatal regions (including the nucleus accumbens, caudate nucleus, and putamen) while anticipating social negative reinforcement. In addition, activation of the right caudate nucleus during non-social negative reinforcement was associated with individual differences in social motivation.ConclusionsThese results suggest that atypical responding to negative reinforcement in children with ASD may contribute to social motivational deficits in this population.

Highlights

Previous research has found accumulating evidence for atypical reward processing in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), in the context of social rewards
Anticipation phase: social condition Anticipation of sad faces was associated with relatively reduced activation in two clusters spanning the right putamen/nucleus accumbens, left amygdala, bilateral insula, right frontal pole, right inferior frontal gyrus, and right anterior cingulate cortex in the Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) group compared to the typically developing (TD) group
The results of the present study suggest that children and adolescents with ASD show atypical neural responses to social and non-social negative reinforcement, with more extensive group differences in the social condition

Summary

Introduction

Previous research has found accumulating evidence for atypical reward processing in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), in the context of social rewards. This line of research has focused largely on positive social reinforcement, while little is known about the processing of negative reinforcement in individuals with ASD. Despite the growing body of literature addressing reward processing deficits in ASD, most studies to date have focused only on responses to positive. In a risk-taking task, South and colleagues [13] found that children and adolescents with ASD showed different physiological responses when anticipating possible non-social negative reinforcement and reported evidence that individuals with ASD and high levels of anxiety may be motivated to avoid negative reinforcement. In another study examining electrophysiological responses to nonsocial negative reinforcement in ASD, no group differences were found for feedback-related negativity amplitude, but the amplitude of this ERP component was correlated with age in the ASD group, as younger children with ASD demonstrated more attenuated responses to negative reinforcement [14]

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