One Biological Explanation: Amygdala

Question 1

What is the amygdala

Answer 1

Consists of 13 densely packed cell bodies with connections to hypothalamus and prefrontal cortex and controls behaviours such as emotion, communication and social interaction and motivation

Question 2

Facts

Answer 2

Amygdala growth is much faster in children with ASD - 6-9% larger from 2yrs of age, but with increasing age, volume growth stalls and by adolescence, no difference in amygdala size with children of ASD and not. Early development may be responsible for abnormal neural organisation

Question 3

Link to the prefrontal cortex

Answer 3

Due to highly networked structure, conventions with prefrontal cortex in influencing the social brain - due to amygdala weird growth, social and behaviour deficits in ASD - impairments of social and emotional reciprocity

Question 4

Baron Cohen et al. (1999)

Answer 4

People with ASD do not fully understand the emotional expression of others.
Eye test = gave participants with and without ASD face cars show sing only their eyes and children had to decide on the emotion from their facial expressions
People with ASD found it hard to choose the correct facial expression
FMRI scans showed that relative to controls, people with ASD had smaller amygdalas

Question 5

Support form clinical studies

Answer 5

Kennedy et al, SM had a rare genetic disorder that impaired the functioning of her amygdala. Her personal space preference was half of controls showing social deficits similar to ASD

Question 6

Findings of amygdala are inconsistent

Answer 6

Herbert et al, found smaller amygdala volumes in children with ASD - casts doubt on validity of hypothesis

Question 7

Weakness = Comorbid with anxiety

Answer 7

People with amygdala damage cannot process anxiety related information, so social functioning is impaired. There may be a link with amygdala processing and social behaviour defects that are due to abnormal processing due to anxiety. So role of amygdala is more complex than this hypothesis.

Question 8

Paul et al

Answer 8

2 women with amygdala damage only studied and their social behaviour was not as impaired as people with ASD. This suggest there must be other factors linked to amygdala dysfunction to fully account for ASD.

Question 9

Application

Answer 9

Target for treatment = mor error h must be done to identify the biochemical abnormality linked to ASD but amygdala dysfunction can be corrected by a drug treatment if it is reliably linked. This could held the diagnostic journey which is a stressful and drawn out process for families.