Scientists tested whether a special technique could help children and adolescents with autism: imagining themselves as an objective news reporter and mentally describing an unpleasant sensation without emotion. It turned out that after a short training session, activity decreased in the brain areas responsible for processing touch and sounds. However, according to the participants themselves, the subjective unpleasantness of textures did not change immediately.
Many people with developmental or mental disorders, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and anxiety disorders, experience sensory hypersensitivity. This is when ordinary stimuli - a scratchy clothing label or background humming - cause a strong and distressing reaction. In autism this occurs especially often and interferes with daily life, communication and emotional well-being. At the same time, there are almost no proven methods of help.
The new work involved 47 autistic children and adolescents and 45 of their peers without autism aged 8 to 15, with a mean age of 13. The groups did not differ in age or intelligence quotient (a mean of 110 on the Wechsler scale). Parents filled out questionnaires about their children's sensitivity and anxiety. Among the autistic participants, the mean sensory hypersensitivity score was 77.98 versus 40.95 in the control group, and anxiety was 26.02 versus 7.33.
Before the brain scan, participants received brief training in a cognitive reappraisal technique. This is a strategy from talk therapy: a person deliberately changes their view of an unpleasant stimulus in order to change their emotional reaction. In the MRI scanner (functional magnetic resonance imaging tracks brain activity by changes in blood flow), the experimenter rubbed the inner side of the left forearm with two materials: artificial grass and scratchy wool. There were twelve 20-second segments in total, with pauses of 13.5 seconds.
Before each segment, a cue appeared on the screen and in headphones. In six cases, participants simply had to feel ("feel"); in the other six, they had to mentally describe the sensation objectively, like a reporter ("reporter"). After each segment, participants rated the unpleasantness on a scale from 1 to 4.
Artificial grass felt more unpleasant than wool: mean rating 2.34 versus 1.44. A reduction in discomfort during reappraisal was noticed only by participants without autism, and only for the grass - by about 0.15 points (from 2.38 to 2.23). In the autistic group, the difference in self-ratings was statistically insignificant.
However, the brain scans showed changes. During the natural reaction, autistic children had increased activity in the cerebellum - a structure at the base of the brain involved in coordination and predicting sensations. During reappraisal, activity decreased in the somatosensory cortex (a strip of tissue along the top and sides of the brain that registers touch) and in the insula (a deep fold that integrates signals from the body and sensations). Typically developing peers did not show such a decrease, and activity in the somatosensory cortex even increased slightly.
In addition, autistic participants showed reduced activity in the primary auditory cortex, even though only the arm was touched. It is possible that the objective mindset helped them distract themselves from the noise of the scanner itself.
The authors emphasize that this is a correlation between thinking strategy and brain activity, not proof that the technique directly causes lasting relief. The training was short, whereas therapy usually requires weeks of practice. In addition, many autistic participants were excluded because of movement in the scanner, and those included had IQs from 75 to 146 and were able to respond to instructions. Therefore, the results may not generalize to people with intellectual disabilities or limited speech. Further trials should test the method outside the MRI and assess whether multi-day training produces an effect in everyday life.