Facial Expression Processing Across the Autism–Psychosis Spectra: A Review of Neural Findings and Associations With Adverse Childhood Events

Samaey, Celine; Donck, Stephanie Van der; Winkel, Ruud van; Boets, Bart

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2020.592937

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 191 publications

(339 reference statements)

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“…Emotion processing, sometimes alternately referred to as “affective theory of mind,” involves emotion recognition, face processing, and prosody recognition, and may represent a lower‐level, earlier‐developing process than ToM (Sasson et al, 2011). Emotion processing is generally impaired in both SCZ and ASD (Samaey et al, 2020), but comparisons between the disorders reveal potential differences. For example, individuals with ASD and SCZ both have difficulty recognizing complex facial emotions (Sachse et al, 2014).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia: An updated conceptual review

2021

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Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia (SCZ) are separate disorders, with distinct clinical profiles and natural histories. ASD, typically diagnosed in childhood, is characterized by restricted or repetitive interests or behaviors and impaired social communication, and it tends to have a stable course. SCZ, typically diagnosed in adolescence or adulthood, is characterized by hallucinations and delusions, and tends to be associated with declining function. However, youth with ASD are three to six times more likely to develop SCZ than their neurotypical counterparts, and increasingly, research has shown that ASD and SCZ converge at several levels. We conducted a systematic review of studies since 2013 relevant to understanding this convergence, and present here a narrative synthesis of key findings, which we have organized into four broad categories: symptoms and behavior, perception and cognition, biomarkers, and genetic and environmental risk. We then discuss opportunities for future research into the phenomenology and neurobiology of overlap between ASD and SCZ. Understanding this overlap will allow for researchers, and eventually clinicians, to understand the factors that may make a child with ASD vulnerable to developing SCZ. Lay Summary Autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia are distinct diagnoses, but people with autism and people with schizophrena share several characteristics. We review recent studies that have examined these areas of overlap, and discuss the kinds of studies we will need to better understand how these disorders are related. Understanding this will be important to help us identify which autistic children are at risk of developing schizophrenia.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia: An updated conceptual review

2021

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“…Similar to ASD, perturbations in lateral prefrontal cortex, fusiform gyrus and amygdala are also shown in schizophrenia during gaze processing tasks 18,34 . Additionally, disruptions in frontolimbic and frontoparietal circuits during social cognition tasks, such as face and eye gaze processing, has been shown in ASD and schizophrenia [51][52][53] . However, no imaging meta-analysis to date has examined if a convergent neural mechanism also underlies gaze dysfunction across these disorders.…”

Section: Eye Gaze Processing Impairments Common To Asd and Schizophreniamentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural circuit disruptions of eye gaze processing in autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia: An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis

Ibrahim,

Iturmendi-Sabater,

Vasishth

et al. 2024

Schizophrenia Research

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“…Event-related potential (ERP) studies indicate difficulties of individuals with ASD in orienting to social stimuli. This was demonstrated by a reduced or delayed N170 response to faces, which may indicate impaired structural processing of faces ( Samaey et al, 2020 ) or diminished emotion recognition ( Chronaki, 2016 ). The N170 is one of the most frequently investigated face-sensitive ERP components, and is also associated with eye gaze processing ( Pelphrey et al, 2005 ; Senju et al, 2005b ; Webb et al, 2006 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multimodal Evidence of Atypical Processing of Eye Gaze and Facial Emotion in Children With Autistic Traits

Bagherzadeh-Azbari

Lau

Ouyang³

et al. 2022

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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According to the shared signal hypothesis (SSH) the impact of facial expressions on emotion processing partially depends on whether the gaze is directed toward or away from the observer. In autism spectrum disorder (ASD) several aspects of face processing have been found to be atypical, including attention to eye gaze and the identification of emotional expressions. However, there is little research on how gaze direction affects emotional expression processing in typically developing (TD) individuals and in those with ASD. This question is investigated here in two multimodal experiments. Experiment 1 required processing eye gaze direction while faces differed in emotional expression. Forty-seven children (aged 9–12 years) participated. Their Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) scores ranged from 0 to 6 in the experiment. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were sensitive to gaze direction and emotion, but emotion processing did not depend on gaze direction. However, for angry faces the gaze direction effect on the N170 amplitude, as typically observed in TD individuals, diminished with increasing ADOS score. For neutral expressions this correlation was not significant. Experiment 2 required explicit emotion classifications in a facial emotion composite task while eye gaze was manipulated incidentally. A group of 22 children with ASD was compared to a propensity score-matched group of TD children (mean age = 13 years). The same comparison was carried out for a subgroup of nine children with ASD who were less trained in social cognition, according to clinician’s report. The ASD group performed overall worse in emotion recognition than the TD group, independently of emotion or gaze direction. However, for disgust expressions, eye tracking data revealed that TD children fixated relatively longer on the eyes of the stimulus face with a direct gaze as compared with averted gaze. In children with ASD we observed no such modulation of fixation behavior as a function of gaze direction. Overall, the present findings from ERPs and eye tracking confirm the hypothesis of an impaired sensitivity to gaze direction in children with ASD or elevated autistic traits, at least for specific emotions. Therefore, we conclude that multimodal investigations of the interaction between emotional processing and stimulus gaze direction are promising to understand the characteristics of individuals differing along the autism trait dimension.

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Facial Expression Processing Across the Autism–Psychosis Spectra: A Review of Neural Findings and Associations With Adverse Childhood Events

Cited by 10 publications

References 191 publications

Autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia: An updated conceptual review

Autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia: An updated conceptual review

Neural circuit disruptions of eye gaze processing in autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia: An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis

Multimodal Evidence of Atypical Processing of Eye Gaze and Facial Emotion in Children With Autistic Traits

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