ArticleCortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior2023
Elevated and accelerated: Locus coeruleus activity and visual search abilities in autistic children.
Article in Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- Transdiagnostic eye-tracking biomarkers of inattention across psychiatric disorders: a systematic review.BMC psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Neurobiological influences on event perception: the role of catecholamines.The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Trial
- Atypical Attentional Effort During Visual Search in Autistic Adults: Evidence From Task-Evoked Pupillary Responses.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2026Article
- Aperiodic and periodic neural activity during sleep in autism spectrum disorders.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- The Impact of Perceptual Load and Distractors' Perceptual Grouping on Visual Search in ASD.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Introducing the kollaR package: A user-friendly open-access solution for eye-tracking analysis and visualization.Behavior research methods · 2025Article
- Task-evoked pupil responses during free-viewing of hierarchical figures in relation to autistic traits in adults.Scientific reports · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAutistic individuals excel at visual search, however, the neural mechanism(s) underlying this advantage remain unclear. The locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) system, which plays a critical role in sensory perception and selective attention, has been shown to function in a persistently elevated state in individuals on the spectrum. However, the relationship between elevated tonic LC-NE activity and accelerated search in autism has not been explored.
objectiveTo examine the relationship between visual search abilities and resting pupil diameter (an indirect measure of tonic LC-NE activation) in autistic and neurotypical children.
methodsParticipants were 24 school-aged autistic children and 24 age- and IQ-matched neurotypical children aged 8-15 years. Children completed two tasks: a resting eye-tracking task and a visual search paradigm. For the resting eye-tracking task, pupil diameter was monitored while participants fixated a central crosshair. For the visual search paradigm, participants were instructed to find the target (vertical line) embedded within an array of tilted (10°) distractor lines. The target was present on 50% of trials, and displayed within set sizes of 18, 24, and 36 items.
resultsConsistent with previous studies, autistic children had significantly larger resting pupil size and searched faster and more efficiently compared to their neurotypical peers. Eye-tracking findings revealed that accelerated search was associated with fewer, not shorter, fixations in the autism group. Autistic children also showed reduced leftward search bias. Larger resting pupil size, indicative of increased tonic activation of the LC-NE system, was associated with greater search efficiency, longer fixation durations, and reduced leftward bias. Finally, within both groups reduced leftward bias was associated with increased autism symptomatology. DISCUSSION: Together, these findings add to the existing body of research highlighting superior search in autism, suggest that elevated tonic LC-NE activity may contribute to more efficient search, and link non-social visual-spatial processing strengths to autism symptoms.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.