Eye Gaze in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Review of Neural Evidence for the Eye Avoidance Hypothesis

Reduced eye contact early in life may play a role in the developmental pathways that culminate in a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. However, there are contradictory theories regarding the neural mechanisms involved. According to the amygdala theory of autism, reduced eye contact results from...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Stuart, Nicole, Whitehouse, Andrew, Palermo, Romina, Bothe, Ellen, Badcock, Nicholas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2022
Materias:
Original Paper
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10123036/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35119604
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05443-z
_version_ 1785029612772786176
author Stuart, Nicole
Whitehouse, Andrew
Palermo, Romina
Bothe, Ellen
Badcock, Nicholas
author_facet Stuart, Nicole
Whitehouse, Andrew
Palermo, Romina
Bothe, Ellen
Badcock, Nicholas
author_sort Stuart, Nicole
collection PubMed
description Reduced eye contact early in life may play a role in the developmental pathways that culminate in a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. However, there are contradictory theories regarding the neural mechanisms involved. According to the amygdala theory of autism, reduced eye contact results from a hypoactive amygdala that fails to flag eyes as salient. However, the eye avoidance hypothesis proposes the opposite—that amygdala hyperactivity causes eye avoidance. This review evaluated studies that measured the relationship between eye gaze and activity in the ‘social brain’ when viewing facial stimuli. Of the reviewed studies, eight of eleven supported the eye avoidance hypothesis. These results suggest eye avoidance may be used to reduce amygdala-related hyperarousal among people on the autism spectrum.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10123036
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher Springer US
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-101230362023-04-25 Eye Gaze in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Review of Neural Evidence for the Eye Avoidance Hypothesis Stuart, Nicole Whitehouse, Andrew Palermo, Romina Bothe, Ellen Badcock, Nicholas J Autism Dev Disord Original Paper Reduced eye contact early in life may play a role in the developmental pathways that culminate in a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. However, there are contradictory theories regarding the neural mechanisms involved. According to the amygdala theory of autism, reduced eye contact results from a hypoactive amygdala that fails to flag eyes as salient. However, the eye avoidance hypothesis proposes the opposite—that amygdala hyperactivity causes eye avoidance. This review evaluated studies that measured the relationship between eye gaze and activity in the ‘social brain’ when viewing facial stimuli. Of the reviewed studies, eight of eleven supported the eye avoidance hypothesis. These results suggest eye avoidance may be used to reduce amygdala-related hyperarousal among people on the autism spectrum. Springer US 2022-02-04 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC10123036/ /pubmed/35119604 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05443-z Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Original Paper
Stuart, Nicole
Whitehouse, Andrew
Palermo, Romina
Bothe, Ellen
Badcock, Nicholas
Eye Gaze in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Review of Neural Evidence for the Eye Avoidance Hypothesis
title Eye Gaze in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Review of Neural Evidence for the Eye Avoidance Hypothesis
title_full Eye Gaze in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Review of Neural Evidence for the Eye Avoidance Hypothesis
title_fullStr Eye Gaze in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Review of Neural Evidence for the Eye Avoidance Hypothesis
title_full_unstemmed Eye Gaze in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Review of Neural Evidence for the Eye Avoidance Hypothesis
title_short Eye Gaze in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Review of Neural Evidence for the Eye Avoidance Hypothesis
title_sort eye gaze in autism spectrum disorder: a review of neural evidence for the eye avoidance hypothesis
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10123036/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35119604
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05443-z
work_keys_str_mv AT stuartnicole eyegazeinautismspectrumdisorderareviewofneuralevidencefortheeyeavoidancehypothesis
AT whitehouseandrew eyegazeinautismspectrumdisorderareviewofneuralevidencefortheeyeavoidancehypothesis
AT palermoromina eyegazeinautismspectrumdisorderareviewofneuralevidencefortheeyeavoidancehypothesis
AT botheellen eyegazeinautismspectrumdisorderareviewofneuralevidencefortheeyeavoidancehypothesis
AT badcocknicholas eyegazeinautismspectrumdisorderareviewofneuralevidencefortheeyeavoidancehypothesis

Ejemplares similares