This article discussed the relation of people who are socially impaired with autism and the size of their amygdala. They are suggesting that autism is the “most severe expression of a broad spectrum of genetically-influenced characteristics” one of which is social impairment. The amygdala, which is responsible for feelings of emotion, in this case fear, is said to be smaller in individuals that are socially impaired with autism. It is suggested the “social fear” originally triggers hyperactivity which causes an abnormally large amygdala. The body then responds and kills brain cells, which shrinks the amygdala to an abnormally small size. They measured social impairment by the method of “eye-tracking”. This was done by observing the duration in which a subject looked into the eyes of another person to identify different types of emotion. They found that autistic subjects with the most nonverbal social impairment as children had small amygdalae. I thought this article was interesting because in class we have discussed brain mapping and how different parts of a person’s brain are responsible for different functions. This is an application where they have found a relationship which could be useful in further understanding of physiological problems which many people face. They were also able to see a relationship between siblings suggesting a possible genetic link between autism. However it must be remembered that this is one study. It did mention in this article that other studies have found results that were inconsistent, However the article claims that their study resolved the inconsistencies by taking into account the “wide variability of the autism spectrum.”

http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/dec2006/nimh-04b.htm