AI Article Synopsis
- The study explores how Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) may be connected to problems with the autonomic nervous system (ANS), affecting arousal levels and sensory processing.
- Children with ASD show increased baseline pupil size and decreased responses to human faces compared to their peers without ASD, suggesting differences in ANS activity.
- These variations in pupil responses could indicate important insights into the neurological processes associated with ASD and the functioning of the ANS.
Article Abstract
The symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have been suggested to manifest from atypical functioning of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), leading to altered arousal and atypical processing of salient stimuli. Coherent with this, persons with ASD show heightened autonomic activity, sleep difficulties, and structural and neurochemical alterations within the ANS. Recently, we observed decreased pupil responses to human faces in children with ASD. In the current study, we found differences in baseline (tonic) pupil size, with the ASD group exhibiting a larger pupil size than age-matched controls. Pupil responses are sensitive and reliable measures of ANS functioning, thus, this finding highlights the role of the ANS, and may provide clues about underlying neuropathology.
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Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3744086 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/dev.20352 | DOI Listing |
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