Researchers studying executive control in adolescents and young adults with autism have published new research that suggests a unique approach, rather than impairment.
Executive control difficulties are common in individuals with autism and are associated with challenges completing tasks and managing time. The study, published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, sought to tease out whether these difficulties represent a disruption in proactive executive control (engaged and maintained before a cognitively demanding event) or in reactive executive control (engaged as the event occurs).
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the researchers took brain scans of 141 adolescents and young adults ages 12-22 (64 with autism, 77 neurotypical controls) enrolled in the Cognitive Control in Autism Study. During the scan, the participants completed a task that required them to adapt their behavior.
They were shown a green or red cue, followed by a white arrow (probe) pointing left or right. In half of the trials participants saw a green cue asking them to push a button that matched the direction of the arrow, and in the other half they saw a red cue that asked to push a button that didn’t match. Trial order was randomized across the experiment.
«Our brains are seemingly hardwired to be able to respond to a probe with a matching action more easily than doing the opposite,» said Andrew Gordon, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the lead author on the paper.
Participants with autism show a unique approach
Analyses of the brain scans during both the cue and probe phases found that participants with autism showed significantly greater brain activity than control participants during the cue in networks associated with proactive control processes, but on the less cognitively demanding trials — the ones with the matching arrow. On the more demanding trials — when the arrow didn’t match — activity was similar across groups.
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