Rutgers University researchers use AI and video analysis to track micromovement spikes—rapid, microscopic facial muscle activations. This Rutgers University breakthrough reveals that autistic individuals express emotions like neurotypical people, but their microexpressions are often too subtle or fall outside the intensity range recognized by the human eye. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Led by Dr. Elizabeth Torres at the Rutgers Sensory Motor Integration Lab, the ongoing research aims to bridge communication gaps to help prevent social isolation. The system can record short 5-to-6-second smartphone videos and convert them into raw, objective motor data. The researchers have also found that these tiny facial movements track heart rate variability, offering a groundbreaking method to objectively track facial micromovements to measure pain.