Autism, Emotional Processing, and the Amygdala

The Hypothesis of Emotional Empathy Imbalance in Autism: Conscious and Non-conscious Processing of Emotional Faces

Empathy imbalance hypothesis suggests that individuals with autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) should have a deficit of cognitive empathy and a surfeit of emotional empathy. Considering that inconsistent amygdala reactivity to emotional faces might be ascribed to aberrant attention in ASD, the investigators hypothesized to investigate if there would be an imbalance between conscious and nonconscious emotional processing. This fMRI study recruited 26 youths and young adults with autism spectrum disorder and 25 matched controls, and measured their amygdala reactivity and functional connectivity in response to conscious and nonconscious (backward masked) perception of threatening faces.

Keywords: Autism Spectrum Disorder; amygdala reactivity; emotional processing; fMRI

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Autism Spectrum Disorder

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Actual): 51

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 13 years to 40 years (Child, Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Autism group: 26 individuals with ASD meeting DSM-V criteria Control group: 25 gender, and age matched healthy controls

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Clinical diagnosis of severity of Autism-Spectrum Disorders
• IQ > 75

Exclusion Criteria:

• Neurological abnormalities,
• A history of epilepsy or seizures, head trauma a
• IQ <75

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Observational Models: Case-Control
• Time Perspectives: Cross-Sectional

Number of groups / cohorts

2

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort
ASD group; There is no intervention to be administered in this study. Here, this fMRI study used the backwardly masked paradigm to elucidate how perceiving emotional expressions affects amygdala engagement and its related functional connectivity across two participant groups: ASD with and controls. All ASD participants were diagnosed using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5th Edition's (DSM-5) diagnostic criteria (APA, 2013) and confirmed by clinical consensus. ASD individuals were recruited from a community autism program and referred to children's health doctors and child psychiatrists. Exclusion criteria for all participants were neurological abnormalities, a history of epilepsy or seizures, head trauma and IQ <75. The subjects did not participate in any intervention or drug programs during the experimental period.
Control group; There is no intervention to be administered in this study. Here, this fMRI study used the backwardly masked paradigm to elucidate how perceiving emotional expressions affects amygdala engagement and its related functional connectivity across two participant groups: ASD with and controls. The participants in the age- and sex-matched control group were recruited from the local community, and screened for major psychiatric illnesses by conducting structured interviews.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Age	Age in years	1 minutes
Anxiety scores	State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI)	10 minutes
Severity of Austism-Spectrum Disorders	Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ)	20 minutes
Color identification task	During fMRI scanning, subjects watched emotional faces and performed the color identification task, in which they were asked to judge the color of each face (pseudo-colored in either red, yellow, or blue) and to indicate the answer by a keypad button press.	10 minutes
Detection task	Immediately after fMRI scanning, participants underwent the detection task, during which they were shown all of the stimuli again and alerted of the presence of fearful faces. The subjects were administered a forced-choice test under the same presentation conditions as those during scanning and asked to indicate whether they observed a fearful face or not.	10 minutes
fMRI response	During fMRI scanning, subjects watched emotional faces and performed the color identification task, in which they were asked to judge the color of each face (pseudo-colored in either red, yellow, or blue) and to indicate the answer by a keypad button press.	10 minutes

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Yawei Cheng

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Liddell BJ, Williams LM, Rathjen J, Shevrin H, Gordon E. A temporal dissociation of subliminal versus supraliminal fear perception: an event-related potential study. J Cogn Neurosci. 2004 Apr;16(3):479-86. doi: 10.1162/089892904322926809.
• Williams LM, Kemp AH, Felmingham K, Liddell BJ, Palmer DM, Bryant RA. Neural biases to covert and overt signals of fear: dissociation by trait anxiety and depression. J Cogn Neurosci. 2007 Oct;19(10):1595-608. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2007.19.10.1595.
• Schumann CM, Amaral DG. Stereological analysis of amygdala neuron number in autism. J Neurosci. 2006 Jul 19;26(29):7674-9. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1285-06.2006.
• Eimer M, Kiss M, Holmes A. Links between rapid ERP responses to fearful faces and conscious awareness. J Neuropsychol. 2008 Mar;2(Pt 1):165-81. doi: 10.1348/174866407X245411.
• Hall GB, Doyle KA, Goldberg J, West D, Szatmari P. Amygdala engagement in response to subthreshold presentations of anxious face stimuli in adults with autism spectrum disorders: preliminary insights. PLoS One. 2010 May 25;5(5):e10804. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0010804.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): April 19, 2014
• Primary Completion (Actual): September 21, 2016
• Study Completion (Actual): June 16, 2017

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 20, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 9, 2020
• First Posted (Actual): September 16, 2020

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): September 16, 2020
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 9, 2020
• Last Verified: September 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Neurodevelopmental Disorders; Child Development Disorders, Pervasive; Autistic Disorder; Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Other Study ID Numbers: YM102035

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: No

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No