Study supports existence of autism-specific types of anxiety
Washington [US], February 11 : A long-term study involving hundreds of brain scans finds changes in the amygdala linked to the development of anxiety in autistic children. The study by UC Davis MIND Institute researchers also provides evidence of distinct types of anxiety specific to autism.
The work was published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.
"I believe this is the first study that's found any kind of biological association with these autism-distinct anxieties," said Derek Sayre Andrews, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and co-first author on the paper.
"Anxiety is really salient right now with the pandemic, and it's potentially debilitating to autistic individuals, so it's important to understand what's happening in the brain," Andrews added.
The amygdala is a small, almond-shaped structure in the brain. It plays a key role in processing emotion, particularly fear, and have linked it to both autism and anxiety.
"We have known for some time that dysregulation of the amygdala is implicated in anxiety," said David G. Amaral, UC Davis distinguished professor, Beneto Foundation Endowed Chair and co-senior author on the paper.
"We've also shown previously that the growth trajectory of the amygdala is altered in many autistic individuals," Amaral added.
Anxiety commonly occurs with autism. Previous research by Amaral and other MIND Institute researchers has found that the rate of anxiety is.
But until now, no one had looked at the development of the amygdala over time in autistic individuals, in relation to different forms of anxiety.
The research team used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of 71 autistic and 55 non-autistic children between the ages of 2 and 12. Children were scanned up to four times. All were participants in the Autism Phenome Project, a longitudinal study that started in 2006 at the MIND Institute.
Clinical psychologists with expertise in autism interviewed the parents about their child. The interviews were done when children were 9-12 years old. They included questions about traditional anxiety, as defined by the DSM-5, a manual used to diagnose mental health conditions.
The psychologists used the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule (ADIS) as well as the Autism Spectrum Addendum (ASA), a tool developed to tease out autism-specific anxieties.
The results showed that nearly half of the autistic children had traditional anxiety or autism-distinct anxiety, or both. Autistic children with traditional anxiety had significantly larger amygdala volumes compared to non-autistic children.
( Details and picture courtesy ANI, the content is auto-generated from feed.)
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