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- Lassalle, Amandine, et al.
(författare)
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Hypersensitivity to low intensity fearful faces in autism when fixation is constrained to the eyes.
- 2017
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Ingår i: Human brain mapping. - : Wiley. - 1097-0193 .- 1065-9471. ; 38:2, s. 5943-57
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Previous studies that showed decreased brain activation in people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) viewing expressive faces did not control that participants looked in the eyes. This is problematic because ASD is characterized by abnormal attention to the eyes. Here, we collected fMRI data from 48 participants (27 ASD) viewing pictures of neutral faces and faces expressing anger, happiness, and fear at low and high intensity, with a fixation cross between the eyes. Group differences in whole brain activity were examined for expressive faces at high and low intensity versus neutral faces. Group differences in neural activity were also investigated in regions of interest within the social brain, including the amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). In response to low intensity fearful faces, ASD participants showed increased activation in the social brain regions, and decreased functional coupling between the amygdala and the vmPFC. This oversensitivity to low intensity fear coupled with a lack of emotional regulation capacity could indicate an excitatory/inhibitory imbalance in their socio-affective processing system. This may result in social disengagement and avoidance of eye-contact to handle feelings of strong emotional reaction. Our results also demonstrate the importance of careful control of gaze when investigating emotional processing in ASD. Hum Brain Mapp, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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| 2. |
- Åsberg Johnels, Jakob, 1978, et al.
(författare)
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Autism and emotional face-viewing.
- 2017
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Ingår i: Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research. - : Wiley. - 1939-3806. ; 10:5, s. 901-910
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Atypical patterns of face-scanning in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may contribute to difficulties in social interactions, but there is little agreement regarding what exactly characterizes face-viewing in ASD. In addition, little research has examined how face-viewing is modulated by the emotional expression of the stimuli, in individuals with or without ASD. We used eye-tracking to explore viewing patterns during perception of dynamic emotional facial expressions in relatively large groups of individuals with (n=57) and without ASD (n=58) and examined diagnostic- and age-related effects, after subgrouping children and adolescents (≤18 years), on the one hand, and adults (>18 years), on the other. Results showed that children/adolescents with ASD fixated the mouth of happy and angry faces less than their typically developing (TD) peers, and conversely looked more to the eyes of happy faces. Moreover, while all groups fixated the mouth in happy faces more than in other expressions, children/adolescents with ASD did relatively less so. Correlation analysis showed a similar lack of relative orientation toward the mouth of smiling faces in TD children/adolescents with high autistic traits, as measured by the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ). Among adults, participants with ASD attended less to the eyes only for neutral faces. Our study shows that the emotional content of a face influences gaze behavior, and that this effect is not fully developed in children/adolescents with ASD. Interestingly, this lack of differentiation observed in the younger ASD group was also seen in younger TD individuals with higher AQ scores. Autism Res 2016. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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