The Laboratory for Affective Sensory Research is looking for individuals 8-60 years old (with or without autism) who are willing to have an MRI brain scan to help researchers understand how connections between the brain and the body relate to sensory issues in people with autism.
Altered sensory experiences are prevalent in autism and have been implicated in not only the core behavioral characteristics of impaired social communication and repetitive behaviors, but in a range of associated conditions including sleep disturbances and anxiety. Recent work strongly suggests that the predictability, or lack thereof, of sensory stimuli may influence the link between sensory sensitivity, anxiety and social motivation in autism.
Most sensory research thus far has emphasized exteroceptive sensation-sensory signals that originate in the external environment — with less work on interoceptive sensation-sensory signals that arise from the internal organs and skin to signal the brain about the physiological condition of the body. These interoceptive cues are often the precursors of emotional experience and thus are relevant to several conditions in psychiatry or psychology. Social stimuli are embedded in the external environment, but understanding their emotional significance requires a continuous exchange of information between exteroceptive and interoceptive processing streams. In other words, successful navigation of the social world depends on multisensory integration across the body boundary.
Critically for autism, many visceral interoceptive signals tend to be very rhythmic (e.g., cardiac signals), and/or are under voluntary control (e.g., respiratory signals) and are thus far more predictable than environmental exteroceptive cues. This predictability is enhanced on average in individuals with autism, who tend to have higher heart rates and lower heart rate variability than controls. In the current project period, we found evidence for profoundly disrupted temporal integration of visceral interoceptive and exteroceptive signals, without clear evidence of disrupted interoception alone. We now propose to isolate and test potential neural drivers and clinical sequelae of this disrupted integration. The proposed work will provide important new insights into the consequences of sensory processing deficits in autism that go beyond exteroceptive sensation, incorporating a sensory milieu that has high relevance for social-emotional functioning.
Participants will be paid $15 per hour plus a $25 bonus for completion of all questionnaires.
Interested participants can reach out at 615-936-7220 or autismlasr@vumc.org.