Martha D Kaiser

• PhD
• Yale University

Importance: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is marked by social disability and is associated with dysfunction in brain circuits supporting social cue perception. The degree to which neural functioning reflects individual-level behavioral phenotype is unclear, slowing the search for functional neuroimaging biomarkers of ASD. Objective: To examine...

This study was conducted to identify a potential neuroendophenotype for autism using diffusion tensor imaging. Whole-brain, voxel-based analysis of fractional anisotropy was conducted in 50 children: 19 with autism, 20 unaffected siblings, and 11 controls. Relative to controls, participants with autism exhibited bilateral reductions in fractional a...

Despite substantial clinical and anecdotal evidence for emotion dysregulation in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), little is known about the neural substrates underlying this phenomenon. We sought to explore neural mechanisms for cognitive reappraisal in children and adolescents with ASD using functional magnetic resonance imaging (f...

This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study examined experiencing and imagining gentle arm and palm touch to determine whether these processes activate overlapping or distinct brain regions. Although past research shows brain responses to experiencing and viewing touch, this study investigates neural processing of touch absent of visual...

Affective tactile stimulation plays a key role in the maturation of neural circuits, but the development of brain mechanisms processing touch is poorly understood. We therefore used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study brain responses to soft brush stroking of both glabrous (palm) and hairy (forearm) skin in healthy children (5-13...

Given that all faces share the same set of features-two eyes, a nose, and a mouth-that are arranged in similar configuration, recognition of a specific face must depend on our ability to discern subtle differences in its featural and configural properties. An enduring question in the face-processing literature is whether featural or configural info...

Disorders related to social functioning including autism and schizophrenia differ drastically in incidence and severity between males and females. Little is known about the neural systems underlying these sex-linked differences in risk and resiliency. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a task involving the visual perception of point-li...

Supplementary material 1 Online Resource 1. Activation in participant-specific structurally defined regions of superior temporal sulcus for Oxy-Hb and Deoxy-Hb fNIRS measurements. Waveforms depict brain responses to biological (top) and scrambled motion (bottom) collapsed across all 3 runs (baseline, post-inclusion, post-exclusion). Stimulus onset...

Despite the crucial role of touch in social development, there is very little functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research on brain mechanisms underlying social touch processing. The "skin as a social organ" hypothesis is supported by the discovery of C-tactile (CT) nerves that are present in hairy skin and project to the insular cortex. C...

Touch plays a crucial role in social–emotional development. Slow, gentle touch applied to hairy skin is processed by C-tactile (CT) nerve fibers. Furthermore, ‘social brain’ regions, such as the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) have been shown to process CT-targeted touch. Research on the development of these neural mechanisms is scant, ye...

Pivotal response treatment (PRT) is an empirically validated behavioral treatment that has widespread positive effects on communication, behavior, and social skills in young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). For the first time, functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to identify the neural correlates of successful response to PRT...

Humans are especially tuned to the movements of other people. Neural correlates of this social attunement have been proposed to lie in and around the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) region, which robustly responds to biological motion in contrast to a variety of non-biological motions. This response persists even when no form informa...

Background: Although impaired social-emotional ability is a hallmark of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the perceptual skills and mediating strategies contributing to the social deficits of autism are not well understood. A perceptual skill that is fundamental to effective social communication is the ability to accurately perceive and interpret fa...

Disruptions in the visual perception of biological motion are emerging as a hallmark of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), consistent with the pathognomonic social deficits of this neurodevelopmental disorder. Accumulating evidence suggests an early and marked divergence in ASD from the typical developmental tuning of brain regions to process social i...

Background: Social, or affective, touch plays a critical role in early development and interpersonal interactions throughout the lifespan. A special class of nerve fibers, C-tactile afferents, which are present only in hairy skin, has been found to respond to such slow, gentle touch. We recently identified a network of brain regions involved in pro...

Background: Processing others’ goals and intentions is critical for engaging in and understanding communicative interactions. The neural mechanisms for processing communicative intent are not well known, and may be disrupted in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who show deficits in social and communicative abilities. The posterior superi...

'Social brain' circuitry has recently been implicated in processing slow, gentle touch targeting a class of slow-conducting, unmyelinated nerves, CT afferents, which are present only in the hairy skin of mammals. Given the importance of such 'affective touch' in social relationships, the current functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study ai...

In the face literature, it is debated whether the identification of facial expressions requires holistic (i.e., whole face) or analytic (i.e., parts-based) information. In this study, happy and angry composite expressions were created in which the top and bottom face halves formed either an incongruent (e.g., angry top + happy bottom) or congruent...

Typical adult observers demonstrate enhanced behavioral sensitivity to human movement compared to animal movement. Yet, the neural underpinnings of this effect are unknown. We examined the tuning of brain mechanisms for the perception of biological motion to the social relevance of this category of motion by comparing neural response to human and n...

There is mounting evidence suggesting widespread aberrations in neural connectivity as the underlying neurobiology of autism. Using DTI to assess white matter abnormalities, this study implemented a voxelwise analysis and tract-labeling strategy to test for a structural neural phenotype in autism. Subjects included 15 boys with autism and 8 control...

The ability to regulate one's emotions is critical to mental health and well-being, and is impaired in a wide range of psychopathologies, some of which initially manifest in childhood or adolescence. Cognitive reappraisal is a particular approach to emotion regulation frequently utilized in behavioral psychotherapies. Despite a wealth of research o...

The present study aimed to explore the neural correlates of two characteristic deficits in autism spectrum disorders (ASD); social impairment and restricted, repetitive behavior patterns. To this end, we used comparable experiences of social exclusion and rule violation to probe potentially atypical neural networks in ASD. In children and adolescen...

Background: Disrupted social perception and cognition is a core feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Social interactions begin with the approach of one person towards another; biological motion (eye, face or whole body motion) typically conveys this intent for social engagement. Researchers have documented ASD-related disruption in the brain...

Background: Recent discoveries of the neural mechanisms underlying social dysfunction in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have highlighted visual social perception (e.g., faces, biological motion, and social scenes). Despite the critical role of proximity seeking and touch hedonics in social development, and known associated deficits in ASD, the neu...

Background: Childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD) is a rare developmental disorder characterized by at least two years of normal development, followed by a loss of language, social and motor skills. Little research on the disorder exists, due mostly to its rare occurrence, with estimates ranging from .11 to .64 per 10,000. The unique natural hist...

Background: Childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD) is defined by normal development for at least two years of life, followed by regression of social and language development, and the onset of repetitive behavior patterns. During the period of acute regression, behavioral dysregulation occurs characterized by severe anxiety that may reflect disrupt...

Background: Cyberball, a virtual ball-tossing game, elicits feelings of social exclusion in typically developing (TD) children, adolescents, and adults. One behavioral study exploring the psychological effects of social exclusion in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) found that arousal but not mood was modulated by exclusion in adolesc...

Background: Numerous studies have been published using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to demonstrate white matter abnormalities in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, only one study to date has used DTI to assess whether white matter abnormalities exist in unaffected siblings (US) of those with ASD, reporting similar aberrations in a group of...

Functional magnetic resonance imaging of brain responses to biological motion in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), unaffected siblings (US) of children with ASD, and typically developing (TD) children has revealed three types of neural signatures: (i) state activity, related to the state of having ASD that characterizes the nature of di...

This research examines the effects of prosopagnosia on the processing of featural and configural information in faces. Featural and configural information was manipulated in a face matching task by incrementally varying the size and distance of the eyes and mouth features respectively. In a control study with visually normal adults, the featural an...

Successful social behavior requires the accurate detection of other people's movements. Consistent with this, typical observers demonstrate enhanced visual sensitivity to human movement relative to equally complex, nonhuman movement [e.g., Pinto & Shiffrar, 2009]. A psychophysical study investigated visual sensitivity to human motion relative to ob...

An emerging body of evidence indicates that relative to typically developing children, children with autism are selectively impaired in their ability to recognize facial identity. A critical question is whether face recognition skills can be enhanced through a direct training intervention. In a randomized clinical trial, children diagnosed with aut...

Traditionally, psychological research on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has focused on social and cognitive abilities. Vision provides an important input channel to both of these processes, and, increasingly, researchers are investigating whether observers with ASD differ from typical observers in their visual percepts. Recently, significant contro...

Background: Previous research has shown that typical adults demonstrate an “anger superiority effect” in their heightened visual sensitivity to potentially threatening human actions. For example, typical adults are more sensitive to the presence of angry human gaits than to the presence of happy, fearful, sad, or neutral gaits. The visual perceptio...

Background: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is associated with difficulties in social behavior and gesture comprehension-two processes that depend upon the perception of other people’s movements. This raises the question of whether ASD is associated with decrements in visual sensitivity to human movement. Past research indicates that observers with...

A recent study published in this journal has shown an abnormal performance at discriminating differences with respect to the eyes of unfamiliar faces in two acquired prosopagnosic patients, but preserved processing of the mouth region. Here we extend these findings by showing a similar lack of sensitivity to the eyes in the very same face matching...

Although it has been well established that individuals with autism exhibit difficulties in their face recognition abilities, it has been debated whether this deficit reflects a category-specific impairment of faces or a general perceptual bias toward the local-level information in a stimulus. In this study, the Let's Face It! Skills Battery [Tanaka...

Background: Studies in our lab indicate that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) show equivalent visual sensitivity to human and object movement, while typical controls demonstrate heightened visual sensitivity to human movement. These findings suggest that perceptual processes may contribute to social deficits in ASD. Notably, autistic...

Although most adults are considered experts in face recognition, brain trauma can produce a selective loss in this ability, a condition referred to as prosopagnosia. This study examined the processing strategies of prosopagnosic patients LR and HH using the Face Dimensions Test. In this test, featural and configural information in the upper and low...