Neurons in Brain’s Amygdala Respond Differently in Those with Autism

A study published in Neuron has demonstrated that neurons in the amygdala, which processes emotions and enables face recognition, function somewhat differently in patients with autism spectrum disorder. Researchers in Cedars-Sinai’s department of neurosurgery and department of neurology, along with colleagues from the California Institute of Technology and Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, recorded the firing activity of individual nerve cells in the amygdalae of two patients with a high-functioning form of autism as they viewed pictures of entire faces or parts of faces on a screen. The research team then compared those recordings to recordings from neurons in patients who did not have autism, which led to the discovery that the “face-part-sensitive” neurons performed atypically in those with autism. The article’s senior author, Ralph Adolphs, PhD, Bren Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Caltech, said that the study presents new insights into mechanisms underlying the symptoms of autism and opens the door for further studies. Click here to read the full article.