Atypical pupil-linked arousal induced by low-risk probabilistic choices, and intolerance of uncertainty in adults with ASD.

Adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience stress when operating in a probabilistic environment, even if it is familiar, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Their decision-making may be affected by the uncertainty aversion implicated in ASD and associated with increased autonomic arousal. Previous studies have shown that in neurotypical (NT) people, decisions with predictably better outcomes are less stressful and elicit smaller pupil-linked arousal than those involving exploration.

Losses resulting from deliberate exploration trigger beta oscillations in frontal cortex.

We examined the neural signature of directed exploration by contrasting MEG beta (16-30 Hz) power changes between disadvantageous and advantageous choices in the two-choice probabilistic reward task. We analyzed the choices made after the participants have learned the probabilistic contingency between choices and their outcomes, i.e.

[Efficiency of the attention networks and severity of positive and negative symptoms in schizophrenia].

Objective: To examine the characteristics of the event related potentials during the attention network test in patients with schizophrenia depending on the severity of positive and negative symptoms.

Material And Methods: The study included 20 patients with schizophrenia, 10 of them with a predominance of positive symptoms and 10 patients with a predominance of negative symptoms. All patients were diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia (F20.