Seeing Eye to Eye With Threat: Atypical Threat Bias in Children With 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome.
Kids with 22q11DS don’t learn to tune out threat pictures—stretch exposure trials and use pupil size to pace your sessions.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team watched kids with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome look at angry and neutral faces.
They used eye-tracking and tiny pupil cameras to see if the kids learned to look away from threat over time.
Typical kids served as the comparison group.
What they found
Kids with 22q11DS kept staring at threat pictures just as hard on late trials as early ones.
Their pupils stayed wide, showing no habituation.
Typical kids slowly looked away and their pupils calmed down.
How this fits with other research
Sahuquillo-Leal et al. (2022) saw the opposite pattern in autism: kids with ASC jumped to threat faster but then looked away sooner.
The two studies used the same dot-probe task, so the difference is real—22q11DS shows stuck attention, ASC shows quick disengagement.
Kleberg et al. (2017) also found slow disengagement in ASD, but without emotional faces; together the papers suggest different neurodevelopmental roads to attention rigidity.
Why it matters
If a child with 22q11DS locks onto threat and never adjusts, exposure sessions may need more trials at lower intensity.
Start with brief, mild threat cues and build very gradually.
Watch pupil size as a cheap biofeedback meter—when it stays large, the child is still in threat mode.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Individuals with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS) show high rates of anxiety associated with their increased risk of developing schizophrenia. Biased attention is associated with anxiety and is important to investigate in those with 22q11DS given this association. We analyzed attention bias to emotional faces in 7- to 17-year olds with 22q11DS and typically developing controls (TD) using a dot probe threat bias paradigm. We measured response time, eye tracking, and pupilometry. Those with 22q11DS showed no significant changes in early versus late trials, whereas those who were TD showed differing patterns in both gaze and pupilometry over time. The patterns in those who are TD may indicate adaptation that is lacking or slower in individuals with 22q11DS.
American journal on intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2019 · doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2012.09.004