Patients with autism and Asperger's syndrome have poor eye contact with other individuals and apparently do not recognize the distinction between faces and other objects. . . .
Patients with autism and Asperger's syndrome have poor eye contact with other individuals and apparently do not recognize the distinction between faces and other objects. To test for a neurobiological basis of these clinical observations, investigators developed a functional MRI protocol for measuring blood-dependent oxygen levels primarily in the fusiform and inferior temporal gyri, which have been reported to encode facial and object perceptions. MRI was performed on 14 patients (mean age, 18; mean IQ, 109) and 28 matched controls (divided into 2 groups) as they completed visual tests of their ability to determine whether 2 side-by-side images of faces, objects, or patterns were the same or different (each image was presented slightly dif…