Stuart Nicole, Whitehouse Andrew, Palermo Romina, Bothe Ellen, Badcock Nicholas
University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia.
Telethon Kids Institute, Perth Children's Hospital, 15 Hospital Avenue, Nedlands, WA, 6009, Australia.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2023 May;53(5):1884-1905. doi: 10.1007/s10803-022-05443-z. Epub 2022 Feb 4.
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.
生命早期眼神交流减少可能在最终导致自闭症谱系障碍诊断的发育途径中起作用。然而，关于其中涉及的神经机制存在相互矛盾的理论。根据自闭症的杏仁核理论，眼神交流减少是由于杏仁核活动不足，未能将眼睛标记为显著特征。然而，眼神回避假说则提出了相反的观点——杏仁核过度活跃导致眼神回避。这篇综述评估了在观看面部刺激时测量眼神注视与“社交脑”活动之间关系的研究。在所综述的研究中，11项中有8项支持眼神回避假说。这些结果表明，眼神回避可能被用于减少自闭症谱系人群中与杏仁核相关的过度唤醒。
