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Bianco V, Finisguerra A, D'Argenio G, Boscarol S, Urgesi C. Contextual expectations shape the motor coding of movement kinematics during the prediction of observed actions: A TMS study. Neuroimage 2024; 297:120702. [PMID: 38909762 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2024.120702] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/09/2024] [Revised: 06/17/2024] [Accepted: 06/21/2024] [Indexed: 06/25/2024] Open
Abstract
Contextual information may shape motor resonance and support intention understanding during observation of incomplete, ambiguous actions. It is unclear, however, whether this effect is contingent upon kinematics ambiguity or contextual information is continuously integrated with kinematics to predict the overarching action intention. Moreover, a differentiation between the motor mapping of the intention suggested by context or kinematics has not been clearly demonstrated. In a first action execution phase, 29 participants were asked to perform reaching-to-grasp movements towards big or small food objects with the intention to eat or to move; electromyography from the First Dorsal Interosseous (FDI) and Abductor Digiti Minimi (ADM) was recorded. Depending on object size, the intentions to eat or to move were differently implemented by a whole-hand or a precision grip kinematics, thus qualifying an action-muscle dissociation. Then, in a following action prediction task, the same participants were asked to observe an actor performing the same actions and to predict his/her intention while motor resonance was assessed for the same muscles. Of note, videos were interrupted at early or late action phases, and actions were embedded in contexts pointing toward an eating or a moving intention, congruently or incongruently with kinematics. We found greater involvement of the FDI or ADM in the execution of precision or whole-hand grips, respectively. Crucially, this pattern of activation was mirrored during observation of the same actions in congruent contexts, but it was cancelled out or reversed in the incongruent ones, either when videos were interrupted at either early or long phases of action deployment. Our results extend previous evidence by showing that contextual information shapes motor resonance not only under conditions of perceptual uncertainty but also when more informative kinematics is available.
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Affiliation(s)
- Valentina Bianco
- Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy; Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Languages and Literatures, Communication, Education and Society, University of Udine, Udine, Italy.
| | | | - Giulia D'Argenio
- Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Languages and Literatures, Communication, Education and Society, University of Udine, Udine, Italy; Fondazione Progettoautismo FVG Onlus, Feletto Umberto, Udine, Italy
| | - Sara Boscarol
- Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Pasian di Prato, Udine, Italy; University of Camerino, Center for Neuroscience, Camerino, Italy
| | - Cosimo Urgesi
- Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Languages and Literatures, Communication, Education and Society, University of Udine, Udine, Italy; Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Pasian di Prato, Udine, Italy
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Oldrati V, Butti N, Ferrari E, Strazzer S, Romaniello R, Borgatti R, Urgesi C, Finisguerra A. Neurorestorative effects of cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation on social prediction of adolescents and young adults with congenital cerebellar malformations. Neuroimage Clin 2024; 41:103582. [PMID: 38428326 PMCID: PMC10944181 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2024.103582] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/14/2023] [Revised: 02/14/2024] [Accepted: 02/25/2024] [Indexed: 03/03/2024]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Converging evidence points to impairments of the predictive function exerted by the cerebellum as one of the causes of the social cognition deficits observed in patients with cerebellar disorders. OBJECTIVE We tested the neurorestorative effects of cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation (ctDCS) on the use of contextual expectations to interpret actions occurring in ambiguous sensory sceneries in a sample of adolescents and young adults with congenital, non-progressive cerebellar malformation (CM). METHODS We administered an action prediction task in which, in an implicit-learning phase, the probability of co-occurrence between actions and contextual elements was manipulated to form either strongly or moderately informative expectations. Subsequently, in a testing phase, we probed the use of these contextual expectations for predicting ambiguous (i.e., temporally occluded) actions. In a sham-controlled, within-subject design, participants received anodic or sham ctDCS during the task. RESULTS Anodic ctDCS, compared to sham, improved patients' ability to use contextual expectations to predict the unfolding of actions embedded in moderately, but not strongly, informative contexts. CONCLUSIONS These findings corroborate the role of the cerebellum in using previously learned contextual associations to predict social events and document the efficacy of ctDCS to boost social prediction in patients with congenital cerebellar malformation. The study encourages the further exploration of ctDCS as a neurorestorative tool for the neurorehabilitation of social cognition abilities in neurological, neuropsychiatric, and neurodevelopmental disorders featured by macro- or micro-structural alterations of the cerebellum.
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Affiliation(s)
- Viola Oldrati
- Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Via Don Luigi Monza 20, 23842 Bosisio Parini (LC), Italy.
| | - Niccolò Butti
- Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Via Don Luigi Monza 20, 23842 Bosisio Parini (LC), Italy; PhD Program in Neural and Cognitive Sciences, Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Via Edoardo Weiss 2, 34128 Trieste, Italy
| | - Elisabetta Ferrari
- Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Via Don Luigi Monza 20, 23842 Bosisio Parini (LC), Italy
| | - Sandra Strazzer
- Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Via Don Luigi Monza 20, 23842 Bosisio Parini (LC), Italy
| | - Romina Romaniello
- Child Neurology and Psychiatry Unit, IRCCS Mondino Foundation, Via Mondino 2, 27100 Pavia, Italy
| | - Renato Borgatti
- Child Neurology and Psychiatry Unit, IRCCS Mondino Foundation, Via Mondino 2, 27100 Pavia, Italy; Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Via Agostino Bassi 21, 27100 Pavia, Italy
| | - Cosimo Urgesi
- Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Languages and Literatures, Communication, Education and Society, University of Udine, Via Margreth, 3, 33100 Udine, Italy; Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Via Cialdini 29, 33037 Pasian di Prato (UD), Italy
| | - Alessandra Finisguerra
- Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Via Cialdini 29, 33037 Pasian di Prato (UD), Italy
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Bianco V, Finisguerra A, Urgesi C. Contextual Priors Shape Action Understanding before and beyond the Unfolding of Movement Kinematics. Brain Sci 2024; 14:164. [PMID: 38391738 PMCID: PMC10887018 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci14020164] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/02/2024] [Revised: 01/29/2024] [Accepted: 02/02/2024] [Indexed: 02/24/2024] Open
Abstract
Previous studies have shown that contextual information may aid in guessing the intention underlying others' actions in conditions of perceptual ambiguity. Here, we aimed to evaluate the temporal deployment of contextual influence on action prediction with increasing availability of kinematic information during the observation of ongoing actions. We used action videos depicting an actor grasping an object placed on a container to perform individual or interpersonal actions featuring different kinematic profiles. Crucially, the container could be of different colors. First, in a familiarization phase, the probability of co-occurrence between each action kinematics and color cues was implicitly manipulated to 80% and 20%, thus generating contextual priors. Then, in a testing phase, participants were asked to predict action outcome when the same action videos were occluded at five different timeframes of the entire movement, ranging from when the actor was still to when the grasp of the object was fully accomplished. In this phase, all possible action-contextual cues' associations were equally presented. The results showed that for all occlusion intervals, action prediction was more facilitated when action kinematics deployed in high- than low-probability contextual scenarios. Importantly, contextual priors shaped action prediction even in the latest occlusion intervals, where the kinematic cues clearly unveiled an action outcome that was previously associated with low-probability scenarios. These residual contextual effects were stronger in individuals with higher subclinical autistic traits. Our findings highlight the relative contribution of kinematic and contextual information to action understanding and provide evidence in favor of their continuous integration during action observation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Valentina Bianco
- Department of Brain and Behavioural Sciences, University of Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy
- Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Languages and Literatures, Communication, Education and Society, University of Udine, 33100 Udine, Italy
| | | | - Cosimo Urgesi
- Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Languages and Literatures, Communication, Education and Society, University of Udine, 33100 Udine, Italy
- Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Pasian di Prato, 33037 Udine, Italy
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Angeletos Chrysaitis N, Seriès P. 10 years of Bayesian theories of autism: A comprehensive review. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2023; 145:105022. [PMID: 36581168 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.105022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 18.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/11/2022] [Accepted: 12/24/2022] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
Ten years ago, Pellicano and Burr published one of the most influential articles in the study of autism spectrum disorders, linking them to aberrant Bayesian inference processes in the brain. In particular, they proposed that autistic individuals are less influenced by their brains' prior beliefs about the environment. In this systematic review, we investigate if this theory is supported by the experimental evidence. To that end, we collect all studies which included comparisons across diagnostic groups or autistic traits and categorise them based on the investigated priors. Our results are highly mixed, with a slight majority of studies finding no difference in the integration of Bayesian priors. We find that priors developed during the experiments exhibited reduced influences more frequently than priors acquired previously, with various studies providing evidence for learning differences between participant groups. Finally, we focus on the methodological and computational aspects of the included studies, showing low statistical power and often inconsistent approaches. Based on our findings, we propose guidelines for future research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nikitas Angeletos Chrysaitis
- Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, University of Edinburgh, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, United Kingdom.
| | - Peggy Seriès
- Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, University of Edinburgh, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, United Kingdom.
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Scandola M, Cross ES, Caruana N, Tidoni E. Body Form Modulates the Prediction of Human and Artificial Behaviour from Gaze Observation. Int J Soc Robot 2023. [DOI: 10.1007/s12369-022-00962-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/25/2023]
Abstract
AbstractThe future of human–robot collaboration relies on people’s ability to understand and predict robots' actions. The machine-like appearance of robots, as well as contextual information, may influence people’s ability to anticipate the behaviour of robots. We conducted six separate experiments to investigate how spatial cues and task instructions modulate people’s ability to understand what a robot is doing. Participants observed goal-directed and non-goal directed gaze shifts made by human and robot agents, as well as directional cues displayed by a triangle. We report that biasing an observer's attention, by showing just one object an agent can interact with, can improve people’s ability to understand what humanoid robots will do. Crucially, this cue had no impact on people’s ability to predict the upcoming behaviour of the triangle. Moreover, task instructions that focus on the visual and motor consequences of the observed gaze were found to influence mentalising abilities. We suggest that the human-like shape of an agent and its physical capabilities facilitate the prediction of an upcoming action. The reported findings expand current models of gaze perception and may have important implications for human–human and human–robot collaboration.
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Updating implicit contextual priors with explicit learning for the prediction of social and physical events. Brain Cogn 2022; 160:105876. [DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2022.105876] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2021] [Revised: 03/16/2022] [Accepted: 04/12/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
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Tidoni E, Holle H, Scandola M, Schindler I, Hill L, Cross ES. Human but not robotic gaze facilitates action prediction. iScience 2022; 25:104462. [PMID: 35707718 PMCID: PMC9189121 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104462] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/15/2022] [Revised: 05/05/2022] [Accepted: 05/17/2022] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Do people ascribe intentions to humanoid robots as they would to humans or non-human-like animated objects? In six experiments, we compared people’s ability to extract non-mentalistic (i.e., where an agent is looking) and mentalistic (i.e., what an agent is looking at; what an agent is going to do) information from gaze and directional cues performed by humans, human-like robots, and a non-human-like object. People were faster to infer the mental content of human agents compared to robotic agents. Furthermore, although the absence of differences in control conditions rules out the use of non-mentalizing strategies, the human-like appearance of non-human agents may engage mentalizing processes to solve the task. Overall, results suggest that human-like robotic actions may be processed differently from humans’ and objects’ behavior. These findings inform our understanding of the relevance of an object’s physical features in triggering mentalizing abilities and its relevance for human–robot interaction. People differently ascribe mental content to human-like and non-human-like agents A human-like shape may automatically engage mentalizing processes Human actions are interpreted faster than non-human actions
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Soto-Icaza P, Beffara-Bret B, Vargas L, Aboitiz F, Billeke P. Differences in cortical processing of facial emotions in broader autism phenotype. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0262004. [PMID: 35041646 PMCID: PMC8765621 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0262004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/12/2021] [Accepted: 12/15/2021] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a heterogeneous condition that affects face perception. Evidence shows that there are differences in face perception associated with the processing of low spatial frequency (LSF) and high spatial frequency (HSF) of visual stimuli between non-symptomatic relatives of individuals with autism (broader autism phenotype, BAP) and typically developing individuals. However, the neural mechanisms involved in these differences are not fully understood. Here we tested whether face-sensitive event related potentials could serve as neuronal markers of differential spatial frequency processing, and whether these potentials could differentiate non-symptomatic parents of children with autism (pASD) from parents of typically developing children (pTD). To this end, we performed electroencephalographic recordings of both groups of parents while they had to recognize emotions of face pictures composed of the same or different emotions (happiness or anger) presented in different spatial frequencies. We found no significant differences in the accuracy between groups but lower amplitude modulation in the Late Positive Potential activity in pASD. Source analysis showed a difference in the right posterior part of the superior temporal region that correlated with ASD symptomatology of the child. These results reveal differences in brain processing of recognition of facial emotion in BAP that could be a precursor of ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Patricia Soto-Icaza
- Laboratorio de Neurociencia Social y Neuromodulación, Centro de Investigación en Complejidad Social (neuroCICS), Facultad de Gobierno, Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile
| | | | | | - Francisco Aboitiz
- Laboratorio de Neurociencias Cognitivas, Departamento de Psiquiatría, Centro Interdisciplinario de Neurociencias, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Pablo Billeke
- Laboratorio de Neurociencia Social y Neuromodulación, Centro de Investigación en Complejidad Social (neuroCICS), Facultad de Gobierno, Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile
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Urgesi C, Butti N, Finisguerra A, Biffi E, Valente EM, Romaniello R, Borgatti R. Social prediction in pediatric patients with congenital, non-progressive malformations of the cerebellum: From deficits in predicting movements to rehabilitation in virtual reality. Cortex 2021; 144:82-98. [PMID: 34662720 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2021.08.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/07/2021] [Revised: 07/19/2021] [Accepted: 08/05/2021] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
It has been proposed that impairments of the predictive function exerted by the cerebellum may account for social cognition deficits. Here, we integrated cerebellar functions in a predictive coding framework to elucidate how congenital, non-progressive cerebellar alterations could affect the predictive processing of others' behavior. Experiment 1 demonstrated that cerebellar patients were impaired in relying on contextual information during prediction of other persons' movement, and this impairment was significantly associated with social cognition abilities. Experiment 2 indicated that children and adolescents with congenital, non-progressive cerebellar malformation showed a domain-general deficit in using contextual information to predict both others' movements and physical events, and that this impairment was independent from patients' cognitive abilities. Experiment 3 provided first evidence that a social-prediction training in virtual reality could boost the ability to use context-based predictions to understand others' intentions. These findings shed new light on the predictive role of the cerebellum and its contribution to social cognition, paving the way for new approaches to the rehabilitation of the Cerebellar Cognitive Affective Syndrome.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cosimo Urgesi
- Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Neuropsychiatry and Neurorehabilitation Unit, Bosisio Parini, Lecco, Italy; Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Languages and Literatures, Communication, Education and Society, University of Udine, Italy
| | - Niccolò Butti
- Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Neuropsychiatry and Neurorehabilitation Unit, Bosisio Parini, Lecco, Italy; PhD Program in Neural and Cognitive Sciences, Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Italy.
| | | | - Emilia Biffi
- Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Bioengineering Lab, Bosisio Parini, Lecco, Italy
| | - Enza Maria Valente
- IRCCS Mondino Foundation, Pavia, Italy; Department of Molecular Medicine, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
| | - Romina Romaniello
- Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Neuropsychiatry and Neurorehabilitation Unit, Bosisio Parini, Lecco, Italy
| | - Renato Borgatti
- IRCCS Mondino Foundation, Pavia, Italy; Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
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Betti S, Finisguerra A, Amoruso L, Urgesi C. Contextual Priors Guide Perception and Motor Responses to Observed Actions. Cereb Cortex 2021; 32:608-625. [PMID: 34297809 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab241] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2021] [Revised: 06/14/2021] [Accepted: 06/18/2021] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
In everyday-life scenarios, prior expectations provided by the context in which actions are embedded support action prediction. However, it is still unclear how newly learned action-context associations can drive our perception and motor responses. To fill this gap, we measured behavioral (Experiment 1) and motor responses (Experiment 2) during two tasks requiring the prediction of occluded actions or geometrical shapes. Each task consisted of an implicit probabilistic learning and a test phase. During learning, we exposed participants to videos showing specific associations between a contextual cue and a particular action or shape. During the test phase, videos were earlier occluded to reduce the amount of sensorial information and induce participants to use the implicitly learned action/shape-context associations for disambiguation. Results showed that reliable contextual cues made participants more accurate in identifying the unfolding action or shape. Importantly, motor responses were modulated by contextual probability during action, but not shape prediction. Particularly, in conditions of perceptual uncertainty the motor system coded for the most probable action based on contextual informativeness, regardless of action kinematics. These findings suggest that contextual priors can shape motor responses to action observation beyond mere kinematics mapping.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sonia Betti
- Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Languages and Literatures, Communication, Education and Society, University of Udine, 33100 Udine, Italy.,Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
| | | | - Lucia Amoruso
- BCBL, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, 20009 Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain.,IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, 48009 Bilbao, Spain
| | - Cosimo Urgesi
- Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Languages and Literatures, Communication, Education and Society, University of Udine, 33100 Udine, Italy.,Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, 33037 Pasian di Prato, Udine, Italy
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Oldrati V, Ferrari E, Butti N, Cattaneo Z, Borgatti R, Urgesi C, Finisguerra A. How social is the cerebellum? Exploring the effects of cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation on the prediction of social and physical events. Brain Struct Funct 2021; 226:671-684. [DOI: 10.1007/s00429-020-02198-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2020] [Accepted: 12/16/2020] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
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12
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The Challenging Heterogeneity of Autism: Editorial for Brain Sciences Special Issue "Advances in Autism Research". Brain Sci 2020; 10:brainsci10120948. [PMID: 33297430 PMCID: PMC7762320 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci10120948] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2020] [Accepted: 11/30/2020] [Indexed: 02/07/2023] Open
Abstract
My personal experience as Guest Editor of the Special Issue (SI) entitled "Advances in Autism Research" began with a nice correspondence with Andrew Meltzoff, from the University of Washington, Seattle (WA, USA), which, in hindsight, I consider as a good omen for the success of this Special Issue: "Dear Antonio… [...].
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