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Pain Anticipation in High Functioning Autism: Physiological Evidence from a Skin Conductance Study
Previous research showed the existence of brain areas dedicated to pain processing in self and others. These areas were demonstrated to respond both to actual pain stimulation and to pain anticipation (i.e. when the painful stimulus approaches participant skin without touching it). A very few studies have investigated pain anticipation patterns in people with High Functioning Autism (HFA), even though hyper/hyporeactivity to sensory input has become one of the key DSM-5 criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorders diagnosis.
Objectives:
The present study was aimed at investigating psychophysiological responses in people with HFA when observing a painful stimulus approaching their or other participants skin.
Methods:
Skin Conductance Responses (SCR) were measured in a group of participants with HFA diagnosis and a control group including participants without any psychiatric or neurological diagnosis. All the HFA participants obtained ADOS - 2 scores above the diagnostic cut-off (Level 1). Moreover, both the HFA and the control group participants filled out the Autism Quotient before taking part in the study, which served as an additional group manipulation check. During the experimental session, participants observed, respectively, a painful (sterilized needle) or a neutral (cotton bad) stimulus that could approach their own hand, the hand of another person or the hand of a robot.
Results:
SCR results showed that – regardless of the experimental condition – in general HFA participants exhibited greater physiological responses than control group participants. Interestingly, we also found that HFA participants showed greater pain anticipation responses when observing the painful stimulus approaching the skin of the human hand. In addition, lower responses in HFA compared to control group participants were observed when the robotic hand was approached by the needle.
Conclusions:
Taken together, our results indicate a substantial physiological hyperactivation in HFA participants when observing a noxious stimulus approaching another human being compared to the control group participants, who exhibited a lower activation pattern. These findings are in line with previous evidence showing that the affective component of empathy would be preserved in HFA and it might at the basis of an overreaction when observing others in pain. These results are expected to shed light on the pain processing patterns in people with HFA and to better clarify how social signals coming from the social world are processed by this population.