plz replay to this DB
As a therapist, one of the approaches I practice is to apply Behavioral Analysis (ABA) therapy to children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Clinical applications and interventions of ABA are rooted in the reward pathway, which is an integral component of understanding the biology of behaviors in individuals with ASD. From the social cognitive neuroscience perspective of the emotional brain, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) assesses the “motivational value of rewards and changes the value of rewards to context” (Ward, 2017, p.107). OFC connections are also associated with reversal learning, where previously “rewarded or non-rewarded stimuli are reversed” including the process of extinction where a “previously rewarded behavior is no longer rewarded” (Ward, 2017, p.123). This week’s lecture expanded on this pathway by detailing the involvement of emotional mediation of decision-making and social stimuli, which are synonymous with ASD presentations and deficits in conceptualizing rewards and punishments (Leung et al., 2015).
Research has also indicated notable findings regarding atypical neural activity in OFC regions. This is thought to be associated with an impaired ability to appropriately interpret and respond to the social context of the environment due to its role in “mediating emotional behavior, social inhibition, and altering of unstable behavior,” (p. 204) and broadens my understanding to the effectiveness of having evidence-based foundations facilitate to the framework of social interaction training as part of my clinical ASD interventions (Leung et al., 2015) Leung et al. (2015) expanded upon prevalent neural correlates in symptomatology in the context of facial processing, where fMRI imaging has revealed atypical OFC activation within social brain networks “responsible for associating stimuli with outcomes which are integral to outcome predictions for adaptive behavior” including “inferring others’ emotional states where impairments could result in a failure to plan and adjust future behavior” (p.209). If an individual is unable to appropriately interpret the facial expressions of others, I feel that this will inevitably contribute to deficits in social functioning resulting from impairments in interpreting emotional cues from others and the ability to respond accordingly. The current literature supports this, where individuals with ASD exhibit significantly higher deficits in processing the facial affect of others and the potential for misinterpreting “social reward and punishment from positive and negative faces” (Leung et al., 2015, p.210).
These findings highlight a pivotal connection between the OFC and the ventral striatum, nucleus accumbens, and abnormalities associated with dopamine transmission, which can contribute to diminished decision-making in reward-related behaviors. Moreover, this region is notable for ASD symptomatology as it serves as a fundamental component in operant conditioning, learning comprehension of reward processes, and the ability to appropriately respond to actual and anticipatory rewards (Ward, 2017). This week’s lecture expanded upon the cognitive implications of this reward circuit, where the ability to learn the emotional value of an action and reward responses, even if anticipated, highlights the intricate neural variations that define the differences experienced by individuals with ASD and social cognition. I believe our faith informs this process in a way that does not allow us to dismiss the interconnected nature of everything we do; truly understanding physiological origins and behavioral manifestations relies upon the lesson in “the simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps” (King James Bible, 1769/2019, Proverbs 14:15). Step-by-step, we are implementing this guidance by making meaningful connections between neural networks and how we can use these inferences to help others. The relationships between biology and behavior in emotional processing for individuals with ASD are profoundly intricate, but “let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (King James Bible, 1769/2019, Galatians 6:9).
