Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by difficulties in social communication and having repetitive behaviors or interests. Sensory processing disorder (SPD) is a term used to describe a collection of symptoms stemming from atypical neural integration of sensory information. Evidence from animal models suggests a significant role of GABAergic signaling in the amygdala in regulating behaviors related to anxiety. Previous research suggests that an imbalance in inhibitory and excitatory signaling in neural connections is present in ASD, a neurodevelopmental disorder that is associated with high rates of co-morbid anxiety (up to 40%). This current study investigated the relationship between anxiety and neurochemical profiles in high-functioning children between 8 and 12 years of age with ASD and a clinical comparison group, children with SPD. Our hypothesis is that there are underlying biological differences in amygdalar functioning between children with ASD and those with SPD, despite these two groups sharing similarities in sensory sensitivity and comorbid anxiety. To explore this hypothesis, a composite of anxiety symptoms was created (α = 0.790) using questions from the Child Sensory Profile-2, Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, and the DSM-5 Cross-Cutting Symptom Measure. Presence of anxiety was also investigated using the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (KSADS). Using a 3T MR system, brain metabolite concentrations (i.e., γ-Amino Butyric Acid (GABA) levels) in the left amygdala-hippocampal region were measured using single-voxel proton magnetic resonance imaging (1H-MRS). We ran a regression analysis looking at the interaction between anxiety symptoms and amygdalar GABA levels in the ASD and SPD groups while controlling for autism symptoms.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairments in social communication and interaction, as well as restrictive or repetitive behaviors and interests. Some individuals with autism demonstrate deficits in face memory and recognition, which may contribute to overall social impairments. Increasing evidence also suggests that ASD is associated with abnormal sensory processing, including within the olfaction pathway, although results vary as to which components of olfaction, including odor identification, might be affected. Both odor identification and face recognition have been associated with activity in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a brain region possibly implicated in ASD. The current study aims to measure odor identification and face memory performance in children with ASD compared to children who are typically developing (TD) and children with sensory processing difficulties (SPD), and assess whether there is a relationship between performance on face memory and odor identification tasks. Odor identification will be measured using University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT), a 40 item “scratch n’ sniff” activity, and face recognition will be assessed using the Wechsler Memory Scale III (WMS III); children will complete both the Faces I and Faces II subtests, which assess immediate recognition of faces and delayed recognition of faces respectively. Data collection for this study is ongoing; final analyses will consist of a Student’s t-test to assess for group differences on the odor identification and face recognition tasks, and Pearson’s correlation analyses to detect any significant associations between these tasks, using a significance threshold of α=.05. We hypothesize that children with ASD will show reduced performance on both the odor identification task and face recognition tasks compared to the TD and SPD groups, and that performance on the UPSIT will be strongly correlated to WMS III scores, reflecting the shared underlying role of the OFC.

Fear generalization is the process by which conditioned fear spreads to new, objectively non-threatening stimuli, which, when inappropriately avoided, can lead to psychopathology after trauma. Although fear overgeneralization and maladaptive avoidance are implicated in the development of anxiety and stressor-related disorders, there is little evidence that fear overgeneralization and avoidance are associated with each other. Individuals with “high stress load,” characterized by high neuroticism and prior trauma exposure, may be at higher risk for both fear overgeneralization and experiential and behavioral avoidance. Eighty women, 41 with high stress load and 30 with low stress load, completed questionnaires measuring experiential and behavioral avoidance in their lives and completed a novel, ecologically-valid fear generalization paradigm. In this paradigm, two neutral female faces served as conditioned danger and safety cues, and ambiguous faces, morphed on a continuum between the danger and safety cues, served as generalization stimuli. We predict that participants with high stress load will report higher levels of both experiential and behavioral avoidance. We also predict that high self-reported avoidance will be strongly associated with higher fear overgeneralization in the task. This study will examine the extent to which self-reported avoidance maps onto active avoidance, assessing whether experiential and behavioral avoidance are related to avoidance of non-threatening generalization stimuli. Given that gold standard interventions for anxiety and stressor-related disorders target threat cues, this research highlights the potential importance of helping patients learn how to resist avoiding ambiguous and non-threatening cues.