Investigating the Contributions of Physiological Arousal and Emotion Regulation to Anxiety in Autism Spectrum Disorder
Year: 2021
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Up to 84% of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience clinically significant anxiety, negatively impacting their academic achievement, employment outcomes, and health. Despite its significance, few evidence-based interventions exist for anxiety in ASD. A key challenge is that underlying factors remain largely unknown. Two mechanisms suggested to underlie anxiety in ASD are difficulties with emotion regulation (ER) and atypical physiological arousal.I investigate physiological arousal, indexing overall arousal and parasympathetic nervous system activity, during resting state and emotionally-arousing tasks in a sample of children with ASD as well as a typically developing (TD) sample. I then explore associations between arousal and ER in these samples. Finally, I test potential relational models explaining associations between arousal, ER, and anxiety. Results display differences in arousal within the ASD sample, associations between arousal and ER, as well as initial support for the proposed models explaining anxiety in ASD.
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: Syed, Bilal Hussain
Institution: University of Toronto
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7001270890