MGH Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging 2017 | Page 26

New research sheds light on why those with autism often won’t look others in
the eye. Hint: It’s not about social indifference.
Understanding
Eye-Contact
Avoidance in
People With Autism
Individuals with autism spectrum
disorder (ASD) often have difficulty
looking others in the eyes. This is
typically interpreted as a sign of
social and personal indifference,
but self-reports from people with
autism suggests otherwise. Many
say that looking others in the eye is
uncomfortable or stressful for them;
some will even tell you “it burns.”
All of which points to a neurological
cause.
to what has been thought, due to
a lack of concern,” says Nouchine
Hadjikhani, director of neurolimbic
research in the Martinos Center
and corresponding author of the
new study. “Rather, they show that
this behavior is a way to decrease an
unpleasant over-arousal stemming
from overactivation in a particular
part of the brain.”
The key to the research is the sub-
cortical system in the brain. This
Now, a team of investigators based system allows orientation toward
at the MGH Martinos Center for faces in newborns and later is
Biomedical Imaging has shed light important for emotion perception.
on the brain mechanisms involved It is also specifically activated by eye
in this behavior. They reported contact. Previous work by Hadjik-
their findings in a Scientific Reports hani and colleagues revealed that the
paper published online in June.
subcortical system was oversensitive
to direct gaze and emotional expres-
“The findings demonstrate that sion in autism. In the present study,
the apparent lack of interpersonal she wanted to take this further. She
interest in autism is not, contrary wanted to see what happens when
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subjects’ gazes are constrained to
the eye-region—that is, when they
are compelled to look people in the
eyes—while viewing images of faces
conveying different emotions.
Using functional magnetic reso-
nance imaging (fMRI), she and
colleagues measured differences
in activation in the components
of the subcortical face process-
ing system—superior colliculus,
pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus,
and amygdala—in people with
autism and in control subjects as
they viewed faces either freely or
with their focus constrained to the
eye-region. They found that, while
the two groups exhibited similar
activation during free viewing, those
with autism showed overactivation
when they were compelled to con-
centrate on the eye-region. This was
especially true with fearful faces,