# Mental Health in Autistic Adults: An RDoC Approach

> **NIH NIH P50** · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · 2024 · $650,106

## Abstract

Abstract
Autism is frequently characterized by hyper-reactivity to emotional and intense stimuli, but also, apparent
shutting down or blunted reactions, consistent with hypo-reactivity. This project uses neuroimaging to test a
mechanistic model in which the same individuals display hyper-reactivity in brain networks responsible for
perceiving emotional and sensory information, but inability to recruit neural mechanisms responsible for
physiological and behavioral regulatory responses (i.e., apparent hypo-reactivity). This combination yields
inwardly sustained, but outwardly blunted reactions akin to being locked in, “screaming inside” while unable to
use typical executive, motor, and social mechanisms to regulate these experiences. N=200 autistic and 100
non-autistic individuals will complete tasks involving hearing criticism and praise, naming the valence of
emotional words in alternation with cognitive tasks, and seeing visually intense full-field images as well as
resting state assessment. Aims include assessment of early hyper-reactivity in brain systems responsible for
perception and emotion generation, and subsequent hypo-connectivity and hypo-reactivity with regions that
facilitate regulatory control cognitively, socially, and through motor actions. An integrative mechanistic neural
network model will be used to examine whether this formulation could yield individual differences in ecological
momentary assessment, ambulatory psychophysiology, and self-reported suicidality in the other projects. The
potential significance of this work is to dispel the idea that autistic individuals have blunted reactions, and
rather to say that their brains are very reactive, and they cannot effectively express or cope with this reactivity.
This formulation could lead to different approaches to intervention than are currently available to the autistic
community.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10902131
- **Project number:** 5P50MH130957-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
- **Principal Investigator:** GREG J SIEGLE
- **Activity code:** P50 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $650,106
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-09-06 → 2027-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10902131

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10902131, Mental Health in Autistic Adults: An RDoC Approach (5P50MH130957-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10902131. Licensed CC0.

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