Tetsuya Iidaka1,
Makoto Miyakoshi2, Tokiko Harada3, Toshiharu Nakai4
1Department
of Psychiatry, Nagoya University, Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Aichi,
Japan; 2Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience, Institute
for Neural Computation, UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States; 3NIPS,
Okazaki, Aichi, Japan; 4Neuroimaging & Informatics, NCGG,
Ohbu, Aichi, Japan
We performed fMRI in combination with DTI in 30 healthy young subjects. Face-specific brain activation in the superior temporal sulcus (STS) and amygdala (AMG) was identified. Probabilistic tractography indicated a white matter pathway between the face-specific regions of interest in the STS and AMG. The volume of connectivity between the STS and AMG correlated positively with the total AQ score (p<0.05); however, among the AQ subscales, only imagination was significantly associated with the connectivity volume. Healthy subjects with high autistic traits may show an increase in the white matter pathway that connects key regions involved in face processing.