Abstract
Social motivation deficit theories suggest that children with autism do not properly anticipate and appreciate the pleasure of social stimuli. In this study, we investigated event-related brain potentials evoked by cues that triggered social versus monetary reward anticipation in children with autism. Children with autism showed attenuated P3 activity in response to cues associated with a timely reaction to obtain a reward, irrespective of reward type. We attribute this atypical P3 activity in response to reward cues as reflective of diminished motivated attention to reward signals, a possible contributor to reduced social motivation in autism. Thus, our findings suggest a general reward processing deficit rather than a specific social reward dysfunction in autism.
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This study was supported by the German Research Foundation (IRTG 1328).
The authors Gregor Kohls and Judith Peltzer contributed equally to this work.
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Kohls, G., Peltzer, J., Schulte-Rüther, M. et al. Atypical Brain Responses to Reward Cues in Autism as Revealed by Event-Related Potentials. J Autism Dev Disord 41, 1523–1533 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-011-1177-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-011-1177-1