Elevated amygdala response to faces and gaze aversion in autism spectrum disorder.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are often associated with impairments in judgment of facial expressions. This impairment is often accompanied by diminished eye contact and atypical amygdala responses to face stimuli. The current study used a within-subjects design to examine the effects of natural viewing and an experimental eye-gaze manipulation on amygdala responses to faces.

Temperament: then and now.

One of many publications emanating from the New York Longitudinal Study (NYLS), the prospective study of Stella Chess, Alexander Thomas, and Mahin Hassibi of six cases of depression during childhood and adolescence, which appeared in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease in 1983, provides an opportunity to reflect on the climate in which the NYLS was conceived and conducted. Its methodology is reviewed, and principle findings are summarized. In the more than 50 years since the inception of the NYLS, the attention of temperament investigators has shifted from a focus on definition and measurement to the examination of relations between temperament and psychopathology, including the exploration of the neurocircuitry underlying different dimensions of temperament and their contributions to the etiology, pathogenesis, and treatment of axis I disorders in developing children.

Brief report: Platelet-poor plasma serotonin in autism.

Possible explanations for the well-replicated platelet hyperserotonemia of autism include an alteration in the platelet's handling of serotonin (5-hydroxyserotonin, 5-HT) or an increased exposure of the platelet to 5-HT. Measurement of platelet-poor plasma (PPP) levels of 5-HT appears to provide the best available index of in vivo exposure of the platelet to 5-HT. Mean (± SD) concentrations of PPP 5-HT observed in the autism (N = 18), hyperserotonemic subgroup (N = 5) and control (N = 24) groups were 0.