Distinct neural alterations in schizophrenia and autism: a task-based functional neuroimaging meta-analysis of social cognition and emotion processing.

Abstract

Several conditions, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia (SCZ), alter socio-communicative behaviors. However, it remains unclear whether these disorders share similar neural alterations during socio-emotional tasks. Our objectives were to examine neural alterations in ASD and SCZ during emotion processing and social cognition tasks, and determine if these alterations were shared or distinct. Functional neuroimaging studies using emotion processing (implicit and explicit) or social cognition (mental state attribution, social perception and attributional style/bias) paradigms were identified from three databases. Articles reporting whole-brain coordinates of activation differences between cases and controls were included. Using Seed-based d Mapping with Permutation of Subject Images, we analyzed the coordinates of brain activity differences between case and control groups, categorized by diagnosis and paradigm. The meta-analysis aggregated 106 studies in SCZ and 88 studies in ASD. During emotion processing tasks, at a corrected threshold, individuals with ASD showed reduced activity in the left amygdala, while those with SCZ showed reduced activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus. During social cognition tasks, hypoactivation of the right middle temporal gyrus was observed in SCZ only at a corrected threshold. No spatial conjunction was detected between each disorder across tasks under the current analytical framework. These results suggest that socio-emotional processing in ASD and SCZ in adulthood involve distinct patterns of disruption in the limbic system and fronto-temporal regions, respectively.