Research Abstract:
The Cognitive & Perceptual Development Lab, which opened in February 2008, has three primary areas of interest: (1) visual attention to social and non-social stimuli, (2) fMRI and fcMRI studies of brain systems involved in these and other operations in autism and related disorders, and (3) comparative cognition studies of relational reasoning and reasoning about unobservable phenomena (mental states, physical causal relations).
Visual attention studies
Problems with eye-gaze, joint attention, and attention to social versus non-social stimuli may be central to autism. This line of research employs a modified Covert Orienting of Attention Task to examine the automatic and voluntary redirection of attention to social and non-social stimuli in autistic and non-autistic subjects. Other experiments explore the effects of age, sex, and stimulus parameters on attentional cueing with eye gaze shifts. Parallel studies of visual search for social and non-social stimuli explore attentional capture for these different classes of stimuli.
Brain functional connectivity studies
Evidence is increasing that autism may, at a fundamental level, result from alterations in brain growth and interregional connectivity. Functional connectivity MRI (fcMRI) looks for interregional correlations between low frequency fluctuations in the BOLD signal that define functional connections between brain regions. fcMRI is an ideal method for testing the connectivity hypothesis of autism. My colleagues in Steve Petersen’s Lab and Brad Schlaggar’s Lab have used fcMRI and developed powerful network analysis methods, based in part on graph theory, to explore functional networks of brain regions involved in task control, developmental changes in these networks, and aberrations in these networks in neurodevelopmental disorders. My lab is beginning fcMRI studies of autism. In addition, Washington University School of Medicine is an Autism Center of Excellence site – Dr. Kelly Botteron, site PI (Dr. Joseph Piven, project PI). Along with Drs. Petersen, Schlaggar, and colleagues, my lab will be working with Dr. Botteron and colleagues to acquire resting-state fcMRI data on these infants (age 6-24 months).
Comparative cognition studies of fluid intelligence and social functioning
Individuals with autism typically have difficulty with Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks. In comparative studies of reasoning about unobservable phenomena (ToM and physical causal reasoning studies in chimpanzees and human toddlers), Daniel Povinelli and colleagues have shown that chimps lack the ability to reason about unobservable phenomena, whether mental or physical. Derek Penn, Keith Holyoak, and Daniel Povinelli have recently argued that the broader construct of analogical reasoning accounts for these species differences. Analogical reasoning and reasoning about unobservable physical phenomena are poorly understood in autism. Autism would benefit greatly from the insights that comparative cognition and analogical reasoning experts may bring, and comparative cognition research would, in turn, be informed by studies of autism, as autism provides a unique opportunity to test hypotheses about the domain-specificity of reasoning about unobservable phenomena (can ToM reasoning be impaired while physical causal reasoning is intact in humans?). I am involved – with Daniel Povinelli (U. Louisiana at Lafayette), Derek Penn (Louisiana/UCLA), Keith Holyoak (UCLA), Steve Petersen (Wash U), and John Constantino (Wash U) – in a collaborative effort to dissect the cognitive contributions to species-typical social functioning in normal human children, children with autism, their unaffected siblings, children with Down syndrome, and chimpanzees. We are constructing a non-verbal test battery appropriate for all subject groups that includes experiments on visual, social, and affective perception; executive functioning; relational, analogical, and causal reasoning; theory of mind, imitation, inference of goals; and reciprocal social behavior. A major thrust of this collaborative involves the creation of a cross-species social functioning measure (currently under initial development at a chimp refuge site in Kentucky) modeled after John Constantino’s Social Responsiveness Scale. |
Selected Publications:
Pruett JR, Jr., Constantino JN, Todd RD and Petersen S. Attention to eye gaze in autistic and non-autistic children. Poster at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 54th Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, October 2007.
Pruett JR, Jr., Sinclair RJ, and Burton H. Neural correlates for roughness choice in monkey second somatosensory cortex (SII). Journal of Neurophysiology 2001; 86: 2069-2080.
Pruett JR, Jr., Sinclair RJ, and Burton H. Response patterns in monkey second somatosensory cortex (SII) during a passive touch roughness classification task. Journal of Neurophysiology 2000; 84: 780-797.
Burton H, Sinclair RJ, Hong SY, Pruett JR, Jr., and Whang KC. Tactile-spatial and cross-modal attention effects in the second somatosensory and 7b cortical areas of rhesus monkeys. Somatosensory and Motor Research 1997; 14: 237-267.
Sinclair RJ, Pruett JR, Jr., and Burton H. Responses in primary somatosensory cortex of rhesus monkey to controlled application of embossed grating and bar patterns. Somatosensory and Motor Research 1996; 13: 287-306. |