Brain tests have suggested that autistic children shy from eye contact because they perceive even the most familiar face as an uncomfortable threat, US researchers reported Sunday.

    LOS ANGELES, March 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Brain tests have suggested that autistic children shy from eye contact because they perceive even the most familiar face as an uncomfortable threat, US researchers reported Sunday.

    Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that for autistic children, the amygdala, an emotion center in the brain associated with negative feelings, lights up to an abnormal extent during a direct gaze upon even a familiar face. Their findings were published in the March 6 issue of the journal NatureNeuroscience.

    By tracking the correlation between children's eye movements and brain activity, the researchers also found that because autistic children avert eye contact, the brain's fusiform region, which is critical for face perception, is less active than it would be during a normally developing child's stare.

    The work deepens understanding of an autistic brain's function and may one day inform new treatment approaches and augment how teachers interact with their autistic students, scientists said.

    "This is the very first published study that assesses how individuals with autism look at faces while simultaneously monitoring which of their brain areas are active," said Kim Dalton,the first author of the paper. Dalton measured children's eye movements in conjunction with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a sophisticated technology that allows researchers to "see" a brain in action.

    Notably, this study overturns the existing notion that autisticchildren struggle to process faces because of a malfunction in the fusiform area.

    Rather, in autistic children the fusiform "is fundamentally normal" and shows only stunted activity because over-aroused amygdalas make autistic children want to look away, said senior author Richard Davidson, a professor at the university.

    "Imagine walking through the world and interpreting every face that looks at you as a threat, even the face of your own mother," Davidson adds. Scientists have in the past speculated that the amygdala, which has been implicated in certain anxiety and mood disorders, plays a role in autism, but the study directly supportsthat idea for the first time.

    An increasingly publicized developmental disability, autism greatly weakens the capacity to socialize and communicate normally. The tendency to avoid eye contact is one of the most pervasive traits among autistic children, Dalton said.

    In the future, the findings could help scientists "train autistic children to look at a person's eye region in a more strategic way, like when the person may not be looking directly atthem," Davidson said.

    Researchers eventually could assess whether such approaches improve the ability to make eye contact and whether they might even induce positive developmental changes in the brain.

    Because autism is more inheritable than any other psychiatric condition, researchers also could start to explore the genetic mechanisms underlying hyperactive amygdalas. And if the autistic amygdala is found to be overactive from infancy, the knowledge could help doctors implement intervention approaches right from anearly age, according to Davidson.

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