Age-Related Differences in Brain Response to Biological Motion Stimuli in a Sex-Balanced Sample of Autistic and Typically-Developing Youth

Abstract

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition which affects social behaviors; yet, limited research has addressed the neurodevelopment of social processing systems in ASD. Furthermore, despite documented sex-related differences in social behaviors in ASD samples, age-by-sex interactions in social processing within these samples is not yet understood. The present study used a point-light display paradigm of biological motion to explore brain activation in response to social stimuli in a balanced sample of ASD and typically-developing (TD) male and female individuals aged 8 to 17. We tested for effects related to age, sex, diagnosis, and social symptoms, as well as interactions between these variables. Age was negatively correlated with activation of the action observation network in TD females, and positively correlated with activity in the right anterior insula in TD males. Diagnostic, age, and behavioral effects did not survive non-parametric permutation-based corrections.