Atypical Scene‐Selectivity in the Retrosplenial Complex in Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder

A small behavioral literature on individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has shown that they can be impaired when navigating using map‐based strategies (i.e., memory‐guided navigation), but not during visually‐guided navigation. Meanwhile, there is neuroimaging evidence in typically developing (TD) individuals demonstrating that the retrosplenial complex (RSC) is part of a memory‐guided navigation system, while the occipital place area (OPA) is part of a visually‐guided navigation system. A key identifying feature of the RSC and OPA is that they respond significantly more to pictures of places compared to faces or objects—i.e., they demonstrate scene‐selectivity. Therefore, we predicted that scene‐selectivity would be weaker in the RSC of individuals with ASD compared to a TD control group, while the OPA would not show such a difference between the groups. We used functional MRI to scan groups of ASD individuals and matched TD individuals while they viewed pictures of places and faces and performed a one‐back task. As predicted, scene‐selectivity was significantly lower in the RSC, but not OPA, in the ASD group compared to the TD group. These results suggest that impaired memory‐guided navigation in individuals with ASD may, in part, be due to atypical functioning in the RSC.