Studies of genetics and neural structure and function have implicated reward circuitry in the pathogenesis of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Consequences of atypical reward have been studied most thoroughly in the context of the social motivation theory of autism to describe the lack of development of socio-communicative behaviors in ASD. Recent research indicates alterations in reward processing may also play a role in both the development restricted, repetitive behaviors and interests and the presence of certain co-morbid diagnoses in ASD. My dissertation studies have sought to address how alterations in reward processing may contribute to the development of two such clinical features in ASD, namely, restricted interests, which may be pathognomonic of ASD, and highly prevalent co-morbid diagnoses of depression. To this end, I have worked to modify / develop novel tasks to quantify attentional and motivational biases to specific types of nonsocial and affective information, using behavioral phenotyping, eye-tracking, and EEG. Overall results indicate that reward processing in ASD may be characterized by a nonsocial bias that is present early in development and across a range of functional ability and may interfere with processing of social reward. Further, altered reward processing may guide motivational biases that confer risk for co-morbid depression in ASD.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07192017-095928 |
| Date | 08 August 2017 |
| Creators | Unruh, Kathryn Elaine |
| Contributors | Carissa Cascio, Mark Wallace, Beth Malow, James Bodfish |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07192017-095928/ |
| Rights | restrictone, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
Page generated in 0.0017 seconds