The role of temporo-parital junction on imlicit mentalizing in autism spectrum disorder: a theta burst stimulation study

 The temporoparietal junction is a key region in the theory of mind process. Numerous brain imaging studies have demonstrated its involvement in the mentalizing process and its under-activation in autism. This stuidy aimed to investigate the causal relationship between rTPJ activation and implicit mentalizing in autism spectrum disorder.

This study is a single-blind Quasi-experimental study with a repetitive measures design. Nine children and adolescents with autism were recruited by convenience sampling method using Gilliam autism rating scale (GARS), Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), and Stanford-Binet (SB). Afterward, they were assigned to three randomly ordered stimulation sessions: cTBS, iTBS, and sham. Immediately after each session indexes related to the subject’s implicit mentalizing were measured by a computer-based task.

repeated-measures ANOVA results demonstrated that the active stimulation sessions improved implicit mentalizing compared to sham sessions.

It seems that there is a causal relation between rTPJ activation and implicit mentalizing.