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. 2009 Mar;51(2):207-11.
doi: 10.1002/dev.20352.

Larger tonic pupil size in young children with autism spectrum disorder

Christa J Anderson  1 , John Colombo
Affiliations

Larger tonic pupil size in young children with autism spectrum disorder

Christa J Anderson et al. Dev Psychobiol. 2009 Mar.

Abstract

The symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have been suggested to manifest from atypical functioning of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), leading to altered arousal and atypical processing of salient stimuli. Coherent with this, persons with ASD show heightened autonomic activity, sleep difficulties, and structural and neurochemical alterations within the ANS. Recently, we observed decreased pupil responses to human faces in children with ASD. In the current study, we found differences in baseline (tonic) pupil size, with the ASD group exhibiting a larger pupil size than age-matched controls. Pupil responses are sensitive and reliable measures of ANS functioning, thus, this finding highlights the role of the ANS, and may provide clues about underlying neuropathology.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Mean pupil size during the nine interstimulus slides for the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), mental age-match (MA), and chronological age-match (CA) groups, presented in the bar graph. Mean pupil size and standard deviation during the nine interstimulus slide for each individual subject, organized by group, presented in the scatterplot
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Mean pupil waveforms from. 12 to .84 s across the nine interstimulus slides for the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), mental age-match (MA), and chronological age-match (CA) groups.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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