An amygdala-centered hyper-connectivity signature of threatening face processing predicts anxiety in youths with autism spectrum conditions.
Hidden-threat face viewing reveals an amygdala wiring pattern that spots anxiety inside autistic youth.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team scanned autistic youths with fMRI while they looked at angry faces. Some faces popped up quickly and briefly (hidden threat). Others stayed on screen (clear threat).
They tracked how the amygdala talked to the rest of the brain during both tasks. Then they asked which wiring pattern best matched each teen’s anxiety level.
What they found
Autistic youths with high anxiety showed a unique amygdala “chat” pattern. The signature only appeared during the hidden-threat task, not the clear-threat task.
That pattern let the researchers sort anxious from non-anxious autistic teens with good accuracy.
How this fits with other research
Eussen et al. (2016) already showed that autistic people’s amygdalas take longer to calm down after seeing scary faces. Yu-Chun’s group moves the story forward: within autism, anxiety has its own extra signature.
Mason et al. (2021) seems to disagree at first glance. They found no link between fear-startle size and anxiety in autistic kids. But they measured amygdala volume, not wiring. Size and connectivity tell different stories, so the papers don’t clash.
Spackman et al. (2022) add the behavioral view. They split autistic youth into mild, moderate, and severe anxiety profiles. Pairing those profiles with Yu-Chun’s brain signature could give you a fuller picture than either method alone.
Why it matters
You now have an objective brain marker for anxiety inside autism. If a teen can’t label their worry, a quick hidden-face fMRI task could flag it. Until that scan is clinic-ready, use the finding as a reminder: anxiety in autism can hide under “behavior” and may need its own plan.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Anxiety is exceedingly prevalent among individuals with an autism spectrum condition (ASC). While recent literature postulates anxiety as a mechanism encompassing an underlying amygdala-related elevated baseline level of arousal even to nonthreatening cues, whether this same mechanism contributes to anxiety in those with an ASC and supports the transdiagnostic nature of anxiety remains elusive. In this case-control study of 51 youths (26 ASC), we assessed autism and anxiety via the Autism-Spectrum Quotient and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, respectively. Hemodynamic responses, including amygdala reactivity, to explicit and implicit (backwardly masked) perception of threatening faces were acquired using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). For explicit fear, ASC individuals showed significantly greater negative correlations between the amygdala and the attentional deployment-parietal network. For implicit fear, ASC individuals showed significantly stronger correlations of the amygdala with the prefrontal networks, temporal pole, and hippocampus. Additionally, an fMRI-based neurologic signature for anxiety in ASCs was identified via the LibSVM machine learning model using amygdala-centered functional connectivity during the emotional processing of explicit and implicit stimuli. Hypervigilance to implicit threat in ASCs comorbid with anxiety might exacerbate explicit threat reactivity; hence the use of attentional avoidance patterns to restrict affective hyperarousal for explicitly perceived socioemotional stimuli. Consequently, developing an attention-independent behavioral/neural marker identifying anxiety in ASCs is highly warranted. LAY SUMMARY: This study identifies a dissociation of amygdala reactivity dependent on explicit and implicit threat processing. Implicit anxiety in individuals with an autism spectrum condition (ASC) could outweigh explicitly induced threat. When explicitly perceiving socioemotional stimuli, ASC individuals with anxiety might use attentional avoidance patterns to restrict affective hyperarousal.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2021 · doi:10.1002/aur.2595