Skip to main content

Spectrum: Autism Research News

Tag: face processing

March 2011

Scientists zap anxiety circuit in mice

by  /  23 March 2011

By shining a beam of light on a single brain circuit, researchers can compel mice to overcome their natural fears and boldly explore a new space, according to a study published 9 March in Nature.

Comments

‘Broken mirror’ concept of autism challenged

by  /  3 March 2011

Several new studies challenge the ‘broken mirror’ hypothesis of autism, which suggests that defects in specialized brain cells called mirror neurons explain why people with the disorder find social interaction difficult.

Comments
February 2011

Bad trip

by  /  22 February 2011

Hallucinogens like LSD and MDMA may help people with autism become more sociable, but negative side effects argue against their use.

Comments

Brain expands too fast, shrinks too soon in autism

by  /  7 February 2011

The brains of people with autism show three distinct periods of abnormal development — overgrowth in infancy, prematurely arrested growth in childhood, and shrinking between adolescence and middle age — according to a study in Brain Research.

Comments
January 2011

Cognition and behavior: Face processing skill runs in families

by  /  18 January 2011

Relatives of individuals with autism recognize faces and emotions better than people with autism do, but not as well as typically developing controls do, according to a study published in December in Autism Research.

Comments

Cognition and behavior: View of new scene same in autism, controls

by  /  14 January 2011

Teenagers with autism look at faces in pictures a little later than controls do, even when the faces are the most striking part of the image, according to a study published in November in Neuropsychologia. They are as likely as healthy controls to look at other prominent aspects of an image, however.

Comments

Cognition and behavior: Children with autism heed irrelevant images

by  /  5 January 2011

Children with autism are less interested in watching an activity, such as a parent and child putting together a puzzle, compared with typically developing controls, according to a study published in November in Brain Research.

Comments
November 2010

People with autism assign negative emotions to photos

by  /  16 November 2010

People with autism take longer to decide whether emotionally ambiguous facial expressions are positive or negative — and are more likely than healthy controls to choose the latter, say researchers who reported their results in a poster Sunday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego in San Diego.

Comments

New imaging method permits direct study of social interaction

by  /  15 November 2010

A new brain imaging technique may provide a powerful tool for understanding social interaction, and how it is disrupted in conditions such as autism, according to a poster presented Sunday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

Comments

Magic touch

by  /  10 November 2010

Despite the impressive stories of people with autism being able to spot fine details, they are surprisingly susceptible to magic tricks, according to a study published in October in Psychological Science.

Comments