Abstract
Williams-Beuren syndrome (WBS), caused by a microdeletion of approximately 21 genes on chromosome 7q11.23, is characterized by unique hypersociability combined with increased non-social anxiety. Using functional neuroimaging, we found reduced amygdala activation in individuals with WBS for threatening faces but increased activation for threatening scenes, relative to matched normal controls. Activation and interactions of prefrontal regions linked to amygdala, especially orbitofrontal cortex, were abnormal, suggesting a genetically controlled neural circuitry for regulating human social behavior.
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Acknowledgements
We thank N. Dixit, A. Bonner-Jackson, R. Olsen and J. Holt for research assistance; A. Goldman and Q. Chen for single-subject analyses and D. Weinberger for helpful discussion. This work was supported by the US National Institute of Mental Health intramural program and National Institute on Neurological Disorders and Stroke grant NS35102 to C.B.M.
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Supplementary information
Supplementary Fig. 1
Single-subject analyses in native space of activation during the face-matching task. (PDF 3219 kb)
Supplementary Fig. 2
Single-subject analyses in native space of activation during the scene-matching task. (PDF 3325 kb)
Supplementary Table 1
Demographics and behavioral data. (PDF 50 kb)
Supplementary Table 2
Amygdala activation in the faces and IAPS matching tasks. (PDF 40 kb)
Supplementary Table 3
Cortical activation in the faces and IAPS matching tasks. (PDF 55 kb)
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Meyer-Lindenberg, A., Hariri, A., Munoz, K. et al. Neural correlates of genetically abnormal social cognition in Williams syndrome. Nat Neurosci 8, 991–993 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1494
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1494
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