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Brief Report: Evidence for Normative Resting-State Physiology in Autism

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Abstract

Although the conception of autism as a disorder of abnormal resting-state physiology has a long history, the evidence remains mixed. Using state-of-the-art eye-tracking pupillometry, resting-state (tonic) pupil size was measured in children with and without autism. No group differences in tonic pupil size were found, and tonic pupil size was not related to age or cognitive ability in either group, and nor was it related to autistic symptoms. We suggest that previous findings of hyper-arousal in autism at baseline may be a product of different recording methods, in particular different movement-artifact removal techniques. These results question the notion that autism is associated with a fundamental dysregulation in resting-state physiology. Further research, employing such techniques is needed to confirm these findings.

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. If cognitive ability is controlled for in this analysis, the results are unchanged; a univariate ANCOVA on baseline pupil diameter, controlling for cognitive ability (Mullen standard score), shows the groups are still indistinguishable on resting-state physiological activity F(1,43) = 0.02, p = 0.90, η 2 < 0.001. The effect of the cognitive ability covariate was not significant F(1,43) < 0.001, p = 0.993, η 2 < 0.001.

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Acknowledgments

First and foremost, the authors would like to thank the families who took part in this study. The authors are also extremely grateful to Kavi Jayasinghe for his invaluable help with testing, to the wonderful staff at the Community Children’s Centre and Victorian ASELCC at La Trobe University (especially Jenny Reynolds, Ed Duncan, Jess Feary, Kristy Capes, Dianna Pell, Shannon Upson, Sue Schoene, Danni Dart and Sanji Ahsan), and to Russell Beaton for his ingenious work on programming for data reduction.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre, School of Psychological Science, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, 3086, Australia

    Heather J. Nuske, Giacomo Vivanti & Cheryl Dissanayake

  2. Victorian Autism Specific Early Learning and Care Centre, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Giacomo Vivanti

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  1. Heather J. Nuske
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  2. Giacomo Vivanti
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  3. Cheryl Dissanayake
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Correspondence to Cheryl Dissanayake.

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Nuske, H.J., Vivanti, G. & Dissanayake, C. Brief Report: Evidence for Normative Resting-State Physiology in Autism. J Autism Dev Disord 44, 2057–2063 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-014-2068-z

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