Autistic individuals' eye contact avoidance linked to overactive threat processing system.
Originally Published 2 years ago — by PsyPost
A new neuroimaging study provides evidence of increased amygdala and face cortical network activation in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in response to face-like (or pareidolic) stimuli. These findings support the hypothesis of an overly connected subcortical face-processing network in ASD, potentially resulting from an early imbalance between excitatory and inhibitory systems. The researchers propose that the increased sensitivity of the amygdala in ASD for pareidolic objects may be evidence of over-connection between the amygdala and the rest of the face-processing system. This over-connection could result from an early imbalance between excitatory and inhibitory systems in autism.