{ "abstract": "Social anxiety (SA) frequently co-occurs with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but it remains unclear whether SA in ASD reflects greater symptom severity or a distinct subtype. Across two complementary studies, we characterized the behavioral and neural correlates of SA in ASD using a naturalistic social navigation task measuring affiliative and power-related behaviors. In Study 1 (ASD = 575; controls = 357), autistic individuals with SA exhibited significantly reduced task-derived power behaviors (e.g., compliance with others' requests) compared to those without SA-a pattern not observed in non-autistic individuals. In Study 2 (ASD = 72; controls = 72), individuals with both ASD and SA showed enlarged amygdala volumes relative to both ASD without SA and non-autistic individuals. These behavioral and neural differences found in Study 1 and Study 2 were not observed in ASD with co-occurring depression or generalized anxiety disorder. Moreover, in Study 2, larger amygdala volume in the ASD group was associated with reduced task-derived power behaviors, indicating a neural signature linking social-behavioral differences and anxiety-related features. Together, these findings point to a distinct ASD phenotype marked by social anxiety, altered interpersonal dynamics, and amygdala enlargement, with implications for diagnosis and tailored intervention.", "abstract_shown": true, "affiliations": [ "Department of Psychology, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang, China. haoyu@nbu.edu.cn.", "Nash Family Department of Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. haoyu@nbu.edu.cn.", "Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. haoyu@nbu.edu.cn.", "Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. haoyu@nbu.edu.cn.", "Center for Computational Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. haoyu@nbu.edu.cn.", "Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. haoyu@nbu.edu.cn.", "Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA.", "School of Medicine, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.", "School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.", "Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA.", "Department of Psychology, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA.", "Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Cook County, IL, USA.", "Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY, USA.", "Psychiatry and Biomedical Informatics & Data Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.", "Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. jfoss-feig@simonsfoundation.org.", "Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. jfoss-feig@simonsfoundation.org.", "Mindich Child Health and Development Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. jfoss-feig@simonsfoundation.org.", "Nash Family Department of Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. daniela.schiller@mssm.edu.", "Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. daniela.schiller@mssm.edu.", "Center for Computational Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. daniela.schiller@mssm.edu.", "Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. daniela.schiller@mssm.edu." ], "article_type": "research article", "arxiv": null, "author_total": 12, "authors": [ { "affs": [ 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ], "name": "Yu Hao", "orcid": "0000-0002-3342-9132" }, { "affs": [ 6 ], "name": "Sarah M Banker" }, { "affs": [ 7 ], "name": "Matthew Schafer" }, { "affs": [ 8 ], "name": "Ember Zhang" }, { "affs": [ 9 ], "name": "Sarah Barkley" }, { "affs": [ 9 ], "name": "Jadyn Trayvick", "orcid": "0000-0003-1193-9745" }, { "affs": [ 10 ], "name": "Arabella W Peters", "orcid": "0009-0002-5648-5767" }, { "affs": [ 11 ], "name": "Abigaël A Thinakaran" }, { "affs": [ 12 ], "name": "Christopher McLaughlin" }, { "affs": [ 13 ], "name": "Xiaosi Gu", "orcid": "0000-0002-9373-987X" }, { "affs": [ 14, 15, 16 ], "name": "Jennifer H Foss-Feig", "orcid": "0000-0002-1491-8248" }, { "affs": [ 17, 18, 19, 20 ], "name": "Daniela Schiller", "orcid": "0000-0002-0357-7724" } ], "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/d0mt6q0vgf6zh.bib", "cited_by": 0, "doi": "10.1038/s41398-026-04179-z", "fulltext_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13686959", "id": "d0mt6q0vgf6zh", "issns": [ "2158-3188" ], "landing_url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42907464", "language": "eng", "licence": "CC-BY-NC-ND", "licence_label": "CC BY-NC-ND", "licence_source": "article", "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/", "metadata_licence": null, "native_subjects": [ [ "lcc", "RC321-571" ], [ "openalex", "2805|Autism Spectrum Disorder Research" ] ], "openalex": "W7171325480", "pdf_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13686959?pdf=render", "pmcid": "PMC13686959", "pmid": "42907464", "published": "2026-07-01", "publisher": "Nature Publishing Group", "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/d0mt6q0vgf6zh.ris", "sources": [ { "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:19:57Z", "native_id": "MED:42907464", "source": "europepmc", "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42907464" }, { "first_seen": "2026-10-30T13:46:20Z", "native_id": "4918eee5ff5f400780ed0a8e306a849d", "source": "doaj", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-026-04179-z" } ], "subjects": [ { "field": "biology", "origin": "openalex:2805|Autism Spectrum Disorder Research", "subfield": "neuroscience" } ], "title": "Autism with social anxiety is associated with acquiescent behaviors and enlarged amygdala volume.", "title_text": "Autism with social anxiety is associated with acquiescent behaviors and enlarged amygdala volume.", "type": "peer-reviewed", "updated_at": "2026-10-30T13:46:20Z", "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/d0mt6q0vgf6zh", "venue": "Translational psychiatry", "versions": [] }