Auditory event-related brain potentials in autistic children and three different control groups

doi:10.1016/0006-3223(94)00247-Z

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 38, Issue 3, 1 August 1995, Pages 150-165

https://doi.org/10.1016/0006-3223(94)00247-Z Get rights and content

ERPs to auditory stimuli, generated during an oddball task, were obtained in a group of autistic children and three control groups (normal, ADDH, and dyslectic children, respectively). The task included the presentation of standards, deviants, and novels and had a (between-group) passive vs. active (counting) condition. It was examined whether 1) it was possible to replicate several earlier findings, 2) autistics manifest an abnormal lateralization pattern of ERPs, 3) autistics have an abnormal mismatch negativity (MMN), and 4) differences between autistics and normals are really specific to the autistic group. The only finding that could be replicated was that autistics have a smaller A/Pcz/300. There was no evidence for abnormal lateralization or abnormal MMN; however, there was an unexpected effect of the task manipulation on the amplitude of the P3: in autistics, the occipital P3 to deviant stimuli was significantly larger in the active than in the passive condition, a finding, like the replication of the smaller A/Pcz/300, specific to the autistic group. It was suggested that the auditory occipital task effect is related to understimulation of the occipital lobe by visual stimuli in autistic children.

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Cited by (134)

Cortical Auditory Processing of Simple Stimuli Is Altered in Autism: A Meta-analysis of Auditory Evoked Responses
2021, Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging
Auditory perceptual abnormalities are common in persons on the autism spectrum. The neurophysiologic underpinnings of these differences have frequently been studied using auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) and event-related magnetic fields (ERFs). However, no study to date has quantitatively synthesized this literature to determine whether early auditory ERP/ERF latencies or amplitudes in autistic persons differ from those of typically developing control subjects.
We searched PubMed and ProQuest for studies comparing 1) latencies/amplitudes of P1/M50, N1b, N1c, M100, P2/M200, and/or N2 ERP/ERF components evoked by pure tones and 2) paired-click sensory gating (P1/N1b amplitude suppression) in autistic individuals and typically developing control subjects. Effects were synthesized using Bayesian 3-level meta-analysis.
In response to pure tones, autistic individuals exhibited prolonged P1/M50 latencies (g = 0.341 [95% credible interval = 0.166, 0.546]), prolonged M100 latencies (g = 0.319 [0.093, 0.550]), reduced N1c amplitudes (g = −0.812 [−1.278, −0.187]), and reduced N2 amplitudes (g = −0.374 [−0.633, −0.179]). There were no practically significant group differences in P2/M200 latencies, N2 latencies, P1/M50 amplitudes, N1b amplitudes, M100 amplitudes, or P2/M200 amplitudes. Paired-click sensory gating was also reduced in autistic individuals (g = −0.389 [−0.619, −0.112]), although this effect was primarily driven by smaller responses to the first click stimulus.
Relative to typically developing control subjects, autistic individuals demonstrate multiple alterations in early cortical auditory processing of simple stimuli. However, most group differences were modest in size and based on small numbers of heterogeneous studies with variable quality. Future work is necessary to understand whether these neurophysiologic measures can predict clinically meaningful outcomes or serve as stratification biomarkers for the autistic population.
Mismatch negativity to different deviant changes in autism spectrum disorders: A meta-analysis
2020, Clinical Neurophysiology
Mismatch negativity (MMN) has been continuously used to evaluate the functional integrity of central auditory processing. However, it still remains inconclusive whether patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate reduced MMN responses in all deviant types.
To reconcile the previous controversial findings, we performed a meta-analysis of peer-reviewed MMN articles concerning ASD. The potential moderators regarding different deviant types, diagnosis, and age on the effect sizes (Hedges’ g) were also assessed.
Compared to the controls, ASD patients showed reduced MMN amplitudes (g = −0.37, p = 0.001) and prolonged latencies (g = −0.33, p = 0.041) in response to speech-sound deviants. Children/adolescents with ASD manifested reduced MMN amplitudes in response to tone-duration deviants (g = −0.46, p = 0.014). Furthermore, the results showed significantly shortened MMN latencies to tone-frequency deviants in patients with autism (g = 0.29, p = 0.038) and, in contrast, prolonged MMN latencies (g = −0.74, p = 0.001) in patients with Asperger syndrome.
MMN deficits are robust in ASD patients, suggesting an altered central ability in auditory discrimination.
MMN alterations were displayed in different profiles with respect to frequency, duration and phoneme changes.
Auditory perception is associated with implicit language learning and receptive language ability in autism spectrum disorder
2018, Brain and Language
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with language impairment as well as atypical auditory sensory processing. The current study investigated associations among auditory perception, implicit language learning and receptive language ability in youth with ASD.
We measured auditory event related potentials (ERP) during an artificial language statistical learning task in 76 youth with ASD and 27 neurotypical (NT) controls. Participants with ASD had a broad range of cognitive and language abilities.
NT youth showed evidence of implicit learning via attenuated P1 amplitude in the left hemisphere. In contrast, among youth with ASD, implicit learning elicited bilateral attenuation that was increasingly evident with greater receptive language skill.
Efficient early auditory perception reflects language learning and is a marker of language ability among youth with ASD. Atypical lateralization of word learning is evident in ASD across a broad range of receptive language abilities.
Early enhanced processing and delayed habituation to deviance sounds in autism spectrum disorder
2018, Brain and Cognition
Citation Excerpt :
If a stimulus is sufficiently deviant, such as an unexpected novel stimulus, the MMN is followed by a P3, a frontocentral positive-going ERP component occurring approximately 250–350 ms post stimulus that represents early attention orienting (Friedman, Cycowicz, & Gaeta, 2001; Polich, 2007). Over the past three decades, studies of children and adults with ASD have reported atypical MMN/N1 and P3/P3a/P3b responses to the auditory oddball task (Cléry et al., 2013; Čeponienė et al., 2003; Ferri, et al., 2003a; Gomot et al., 2011; Gomot, Giard, Adrien, Barthélémy, & Bruneau, 2002; Jansson-Verkasalo et al., 2003; Kemner, van der Gaag, Verbaten, & van Engeland, 1999; Kemner, Verbaten, Cuperus, Camfferman, & van Engeland, 1995; Korpilahti et al., 2007; Kujala et al., 2007; Kujala, Lepistö, Nieminen-von Wendt, Näätänen, & Näätänen, 2005; Lepistö, Nieminen-von Wendt, Wendt, Näätänen, & Kujala, 2007; Lepistö et al., 2006; Yu et al., 2015). However, discrepant findings in the literature regarding the timing and magnitude of these responses in ASD have led to different conclusions about how stages of neural processing diverge from typical development and how dysfunctional auditory deviance detection relates to behavioral impairments.
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit difficulties processing and encoding sensory information in daily life. Cognitive response to environmental change in control individuals is naturally dynamic, meaning it habituates or reduces over time as one becomes accustomed to the deviance. The origin of atypical response to deviance in ASD may relate to differences in this dynamic habituation. The current study of 133 children and young adults with and without ASD examined classic electrophysiological responses (MMN and P3a), as well as temporal patterns of habituation (i.e., N1 and P3a change over time) in response to a passive auditory oddball task. Individuals with ASD showed an overall heightened sensitivity to change as exhibited by greater P3a amplitude to novel sounds. Moreover, youth with ASD showed dynamic ERP differences, including slower attenuation of the N1 response to infrequent tones and the P3a response to novel sounds. Dynamic ERP responses were related to parent ratings of auditory sensory-seeking behaviors, but not general cognition. As the first large-scale study to characterize temporal dynamics of auditory ERPs in ASD, our results provide compelling evidence that heightened response to auditory deviance in ASD is largely driven by early sensitivity and prolonged processing of auditory deviance.
Meta-analysis and systematic review of the literature characterizing auditory mismatch negativity in individuals with autism
2018, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
A number of past studies have used mismatch negativity (MMN) to identify auditory processing deficits in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Our meta-analysis compared MMN responses for individuals with ASD and typically developing controls (TD). We analyzed 67 experiments across 22 publications that employed passive, auditory-based MMN paradigms with ASD and TD participants. Most studies lacked design characteristics that would lead to an accurate description of the MMN. Variability between experiments measuring MMN amplitude was smaller when limited to studies that counterbalanced stimuli. Reduced MMN amplitude was found among young children with ASD compared to controls and in experiments that used nonspeech sounds. Still, few studies included adolescents or those with below-average verbal IQ. Most studies suffered from small sample sizes, and aggregating these data did not reveal significant group differences. This analysis points to a need for research focused specifically on understudied ASD samples using carefully designed MMN experiments. Study of individual differences in MMN may provide further insights into distinct subgroups within the heterogeneous ASD population.
Magnetoencephalography reveals an increased non-target P3a, but not target P3b, that is associated with high non-clinical psychosocial deficits
2018, Psychiatry Research - Neuroimaging
Auditory processing deficits are frequently identified in autism and schizophrenia, and the two disorders have been shown to share psychosocial difficulties. This study used magnetoencephalography to investigate auditory processing differences for those with a high degree of a non-clinical autistic and schizotypal trait phenotype, Social Disorganisation (SD). Participants were 18 low (9 female) and 19 high (9 female) SD scorers (18–40 years) who completed a three-stimulus auditory oddball paradigm of speech sounds (standard: 100 ms ‘o’, deviant: 150 ms ‘o’, novel: 150 ms ‘e’). Spatio-temporal cluster analysis revealed increased amplitude for the high SD group in a left (p = 0.006) and a right (p = 0.020) hemisphere cluster in response to the novel non-target. No cluster differences were found in response to the target deviant. These findings suggest that those with a high degree of the SD phenotype recruit more cortical resources when processing unattended, novel speech stimuli, which may lead to psychosocial deficits.

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Original articleAuditory event-related brain potentials in autistic children and three different control groups

Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol

Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol

Electroenceophalogr Clin Neurophysiol

Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol

Psychiatry Res

Int J Psychophysiology

J Am Acad Child Psychiatry

Biol Psychol

Biol Psychol

Biol Psychol

Genetic influences in autism

Int Rev Psychiatry

A teacher rating scale for use in drug-studies with children

Am J Psychiatry

A neurophysiological view of autism

Event-related brain correlates of the processing of novel visual and auditory information processing in autism

J Autism Dev Disord

Pathophysiologic findings in nonretarded autism and receptive developmental disorder

J Autism Dev Disord

Parietal lobe abnormalities detected with MR in patients with infantile autism

Am J Roentgenol

Hemispheric specialization and the language abilities of autistic children

Child Dev

Reduced P3 amplitude of the event-related brain potential: its relationship to language ability in autism

J Autism Dev Disord

Original article
Auditory event-related brain potentials in autistic children and three different control groups