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Cai CQ, Lavan N, Chen SHY, Wang CZX, Ozturk OC, Chiu RMY, Gilbert SJ, White SJ, Scott SK. Mapping the differential impact of spontaneous and conversational laughter on brain and mind: an fMRI study in autism. Cereb Cortex 2024; 34:bhae199. [PMID: 38752979 PMCID: PMC11097909 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhae199] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/24/2024] [Revised: 04/23/2024] [Accepted: 04/26/2024] [Indexed: 05/18/2024] Open
Abstract
Spontaneous and conversational laughter are important socio-emotional communicative signals. Neuroimaging findings suggest that non-autistic people engage in mentalizing to understand the meaning behind conversational laughter. Autistic people may thus face specific challenges in processing conversational laughter, due to their mentalizing difficulties. Using fMRI, we explored neural differences during implicit processing of these two types of laughter. Autistic and non-autistic adults passively listened to funny words, followed by spontaneous laughter, conversational laughter, or noise-vocoded vocalizations. Behaviourally, words plus spontaneous laughter were rated as funnier than words plus conversational laughter, and the groups did not differ. However, neuroimaging results showed that non-autistic adults exhibited greater medial prefrontal cortex activation while listening to words plus conversational laughter, than words plus genuine laughter, while autistic adults showed no difference in medial prefrontal cortex activity between these two laughter types. Our findings suggest a crucial role for the medial prefrontal cortex in understanding socio-emotionally ambiguous laughter via mentalizing. Our study also highlights the possibility that autistic people may face challenges in understanding the essence of the laughter we frequently encounter in everyday life, especially in processing conversational laughter that carries complex meaning and social ambiguity, potentially leading to social vulnerability. Therefore, we advocate for clearer communication with autistic people.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ceci Qing Cai
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom
| | - Nadine Lavan
- Department of Biological and Experimental Psychology, School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom
| | - Sinead H Y Chen
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom
| | - Claire Z X Wang
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom
| | - Ozan Cem Ozturk
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom
| | - Roni Man Ying Chiu
- Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR
| | - Sam J Gilbert
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom
| | - Sarah J White
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom
| | - Sophie K Scott
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom
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Chen HY, Chang EC, Chen SHY, Lin YC, Wu DH. Functional and anatomical dissociation between the orthographic lexicon and the orthographic buffer revealed in reading and writing Chinese characters by fMRI. Neuroimage 2016; 129:105-116. [PMID: 26777478 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.01.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2015] [Revised: 12/29/2015] [Accepted: 01/06/2016] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
The contribution of orthographic representations to reading and writing has been intensively investigated in the literature. However, the distinction between neuronal correlates of the orthographic lexicon and the orthographic (graphemic) buffer has rarely been examined in alphabetic languages and never been explored in non-alphabetic languages. To determine whether the neural networks associated with the orthographic lexicon and buffer of logographic materials are comparable to those reported in the literature, the present fMRI experiment manipulated frequency and the stroke number of Chinese characters in the tasks of form judgment and stroke judgment, which emphasized the processing of character recognition and writing, respectively. It was found that the left fusiform gyrus exhibited higher activation when encountering low-frequency than high-frequency characters in both tasks, which suggested this region to be the locus of the orthographic lexicon that represents the knowledge of character forms. On the other hand, the activations in the posterior part of the left middle frontal gyrus and in the left angular gyrus were parametrically modulated by the stroke number of target characters only in the stroke judgment task, which suggested these regions to be the locus of the orthographic buffer that represents the processing of stroke sequence in writing. These results provide the first evidence for the functional and anatomical dissociation between the orthographic lexicon and buffer in reading and writing Chinese characters. They also demonstrate the critical roles of the left fusiform area and the frontoparietal network to the long-term and short-term representations of orthographic knowledge, respectively, across different orthographies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hsiang-Yu Chen
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Central University, No.300, Zhongda Rd., Zhongli Dist., Taoyuan City 32001, Taiwan; Laboratories for Cognitive Neuroscience, National Yang-Ming University, No.155, Sec. 2, Linong St., Beitou Dist., Taipei City 11221, Taiwan
| | - Erik C Chang
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Central University, No.300, Zhongda Rd., Zhongli Dist., Taoyuan City 32001, Taiwan; Laboratories for Cognitive Neuroscience, National Yang-Ming University, No.155, Sec. 2, Linong St., Beitou Dist., Taipei City 11221, Taiwan
| | - Sinead H Y Chen
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Central University, No.300, Zhongda Rd., Zhongli Dist., Taoyuan City 32001, Taiwan; Laboratories for Cognitive Neuroscience, National Yang-Ming University, No.155, Sec. 2, Linong St., Beitou Dist., Taipei City 11221, Taiwan
| | - Yi-Chen Lin
- Laboratories for Cognitive Neuroscience, National Yang-Ming University, No.155, Sec. 2, Linong St., Beitou Dist., Taipei City 11221, Taiwan; Institute of Neuroscience, National Yang-Ming University, No.155, Sec. 2, Linong St., Beitou Dist., Taipei City 11221, Taiwan
| | - Denise H Wu
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Central University, No.300, Zhongda Rd., Zhongli Dist., Taoyuan City 32001, Taiwan; Laboratories for Cognitive Neuroscience, National Yang-Ming University, No.155, Sec. 2, Linong St., Beitou Dist., Taipei City 11221, Taiwan.
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