Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often find it difficult to look others in the eyes. This avoidance has typically been interpreted as a sign of social and personal indifference, but studies have revealed that looking others in the eye is uncomfortable or stressful for them, which points to a neurological cause.
A team of investigators based at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital has shed light on the brain mechanisms involved in this behavior. Findings demonstrate that the avoidance of eye contact, which has generally been taken as a sign of lack of interpersonal interest, is in fact not due to a lack of concern. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Hadjikhani and colleagues measured differences in activation within the face-processing components of the subcortical system in people with autism and in control participants as they viewed faces either freely or when constrained to viewing the eye-region. While activation of these structures was similar for both groups exhibited during free viewing, overactivation was observed in participants with autism when concentrating on the eye-region. This was especially true with fearful faces, though similar effects were observed when viewing happy, angry and neutral faces.
Results of the study show that the behavior is a way to decrease an excessive arousal stemming from over-activation in a particular part of the brain, given that the brain's sub-cortical system can be specifically activated by eye contact.
The study also suggests more effective ways of engaging individuals with autism. Given that the findings indicate that forcing children with autism to look into someone's eyes in behavioral therapy may create a lot of anxiety for them, an approach involving slow habituation to eye contact may help them overcome this overreaction and be able to handle eye contact in the long run.
Category(s):Autism spectrum disorders
Source material from ScienceDaily
