Late Positive Potential ERP Responses to Social and Nonsocial Stimuli in Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Stephen D Benning; Megan Kovac; Alana Campbell; Stephanie Miller; Eleanor K Hanna; Cara R Damiano; Antoinette Sabatino-DiCriscio; Lauren Turner-Brown; Noah J Sasson; Rachel V Aaron; Jessica Kinard; Gabriel S Dichter

doi:10.1007/s10803-016-2845-y

Late Positive Potential ERP Responses to Social and Nonsocial Stimuli in Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder

J Autism Dev Disord. 2016 Sep;46(9):3068-77. doi: 10.1007/s10803-016-2845-y.

Authors

Stephen D Benning¹, Megan Kovac², Alana Campbell³, Stephanie Miller⁴, Eleanor K Hanna⁵, Cara R Damiano^{3

6}, Antoinette Sabatino-DiCriscio^{6

7}, Lauren Turner-Brown⁸, Noah J Sasson⁹, Rachel V Aaron¹⁰, Jessica Kinard³, Gabriel S Dichter^{11

12

13}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, University of Nevada at Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, USA. stephen.benning@unlv.edu.
² New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York, NY, USA.
³ Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
⁴ University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
⁵ Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
⁶ Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
⁷ Geisinger Autism Center, 120 Hamm Drive, Lewisburg, PA, USA.
⁸ UNC TEACCH, 100 Renee Lynne Court, Carrboro, NC, USA.
⁹ School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, 75080-3021, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
¹¹ Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. dichter@med.unc.edu.
¹² Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA. dichter@med.unc.edu.
¹³ Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. dichter@med.unc.edu.

Abstract

We examined the late positive potential (LPP) event related potential in response to social and nonsocial stimuli from youths 9 to 19 years old with (n = 35) and without (n = 34) ASD. Social stimuli were faces with positive expressions and nonsocial stimuli were related to common restricted interests in ASD (e.g., electronics, vehicles, etc.). The ASD group demonstrated relatively smaller LPP amplitude to social stimuli and relatively larger LPP amplitude to nonsocial stimuli. There were no group differences in subjective ratings of images, and there were no significant correlations between LPP amplitude and ASD symptom severity within the ASD group. LPP results suggest blunted motivational responses to social stimuli and heightened motivational responses to nonsocial stimuli in youth with ASD.

Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder; Late positive potential; Motivation; Restricted interests; Social.

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Attention*
Autism Spectrum Disorder / physiopathology*
Case-Control Studies
Child
Electroencephalography
Evoked Potentials / physiology*
Facial Expression*
Female
Humans
Male
Motivation*
Photic Stimulation
Social Perception
Young Adult

Abstract

MeSH terms

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