Error‐related brain activity and anxiety symptoms in youth with autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

The error-related negativity (ERN) is a physiological measure of the brain's response to errors which is thought to reflect threat sensitivity and has been implicated in anxiety disorders in individuals without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study revealed that the ERN is related to social anxiety symptoms, specifically performance fears, in a sample of youth with ASD. Findings suggest that heightened threat sensitivity may be characteristic of individuals with ASD who exhibit social fearfulness.

Let’s face it! The role of social anxiety and executive functions in recognizing others’ emotions from faces: Evidence from autism and specific learning disorders

“…The presence of social anxiety, together with previous negative social experiences, could prevent people from engaging in social situations, reducing the opportunity to practice social skills and to empower social efficacy. Therefore, autistic individuals might have increased social worries as a consequence of the selfawareness of their social problems (internal sources of threat, for example, making a self-identified mistake in social situations) and of rejections or negative judgment from others (external sources of threat) (Rosen & Lerner, 2018;Spain et al, 2018). In this regard, for some autistic individuals, faces may not be perceived as emotionally interesting causing indifference toward social interactions (Ashwin et al, 2007), while for others, faces may be overstimulating, and possibly associated with higher levels of social anxiety (Kleinhans et al, 2010).…”