ArticleFrontiers in psychiatry2018
Psychophysiological Arousal and Auditory Sensitivity in a Cross-Clinical Sample of Autistic and Non-autistic Anxious Adults.
Article in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Reduced Habituation: A Key to Understanding Sensory Sensitivity in Autism.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Article
- Exploring Alexithymia, Uncertainty, Anxious Arousal, and Social Anxiety as Mediators of the Relationship Between Sensory Processing Differences and Restricted and Repetitive Behaviors in Autistic Adults.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2026Article
- Academic anxiety and cognitive reflection in neurodivergence based on evidence from a large international sample.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Exploring Characteristics, Services And Outcome Indicators Of Global Functioning In Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorders: Insights From A Group Of 503 Patients.Clinical neuropsychiatry · 2025Article
- Altered processing of consecutive changeable emotional voices in individuals with autistic traits: behavioral and ERP studies.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Nutritional Intake and Sensory Processing in School-Aged Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Pupillometry reveals hyper-arousal in response to auditory stimuli in autistic children.Journal of Zhejiang University. Science. B · 2024Article
- Shared and distinct biological mechanisms for anxiety and sensory over-responsivity in youth with autism versus anxiety disorders.Journal of neuroscience research · 2024Article
- Elevated and accelerated: Locus coeruleus activity and visual search abilities in autistic children.Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior · 2023Article
- Speech Reception in Young Children with Autism Is Selectively Indexed by a Neural Oscillation Coupling Anomaly.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Article
- Linehan's biosocial model applied to emotion dysregulation in autism: a narrative review of the literature and an illustrative case conceptualization.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Review
- Pupil-Linked Arousal Response Reveals Aberrant Attention Regulation among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2022Article
- Neural Markers of Auditory Response and Habituation in Phelan-McDermid Syndrome.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Article
- Repetitive and restricted behaviours and anxiety in autism spectrum disorder: protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis.Systematic reviews · 2021Article
- State and Trait Anxiety of Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders.Psychiatry investigation · 2021Article
- Attentional Disengagement and the Locus Coeruleus - Norepinephrine System in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2021Article
- Sensory Sensitivity and Intolerance of Uncertainty Influence Anxiety in Autistic Adults.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Phenotypic Trade-Offs: Deciphering the Impact of Neurodiversity on Drug Development in Fragile X Syndrome.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Many autistic people report overwhelming sensory experiences and also elevated levels of anxiety. Understanding how these experiences are linked to each other can contribute to improved support and intervention for reducing sensory overload and anxiety. This study included 95 young adult participants including autistic adults, non-autistic adults reporting to a psychotherapy clinic with high levels of anxiety, and neurotypical adults with no psychiatric concerns. We measured pupil size using including a baseline task with no auditory stimulus followed by two blocks of simple auditory habituation. In a subset of 80 participants we also measured self-report levels of sensory processing, anxious apprehension, and intolerance of uncertainty. The autism group showed atypical sensory processing on all four measured domains of the Adolescent and Adult Sensory Profile including sensory sensitivity, sensory seeking, sensory avoidance, and low registration subscales. Dimensional analyses across all participants showed significant positive correlations between sensory sensitivity, sensory seeking, and sensory avoidance domains with scores from the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale-Short Form and Penn State Worry Questionnaire. The autism group showed significantly larger pupil size than other groups at baseline, before any auditory stimulation. There were no group differences in the rate of auditory habituation, nonetheless the overall, absolute larger pupil size remained in the autism group throughout the experiment. We suggest that this and other findings could indicate chronic hyperarousal in many autistic people. Treatment for anxiety in autism should be informed by knowledge of unique aspects of anxiety in autism and consider the role of sensory experience and everyday psychophysiological arousal.
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