Reduced auditory steady state responses in autism spectrum disorder.
R A Seymour, G Rippon, G Gooding-Williams and 2 others
PMID 32611372WHAT IT FOUND
Autistic adolescents showed weaker sustained brain activity in auditory cortex to repeated clicks than controls.
Brief early auditory responses were similar. This is a brain difference, not a treatment result.
Key findings
01During the clicktrain, controls had greater 35-45 Hz power in right primary auditory cortex from 0.50 to 1.5 seconds and in left primary auditory cortex from 0.59 to 1.5 seconds.
02Controls had higher phase consistency in right auditory cortex from 0.64 to 0.82 seconds and in left auditory cortex from 1.04 to 1.22 seconds.
03Brief early transient responses to the clicktrain did not differ between groups.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study included only 18 autistic participants and 18 controls, so it is small. Participants were 14 to 20 years old, so it does not describe younger children or adults. The ASD group had a confirmed clinical diagnosis, but formal clinical assessment such as ADOS was not performed. Participants taking psychiatric medication or reporting epileptic symptoms were excluded, so the sample may not represent all autistic people. Control participants were excluded if a sibling or parent had ASD, which may make the control group less typical of the general population. Nine further participants were excluded because of movement, metal artefacts, intolerance or questionnaire score, which may limit generalisability. The sensory questionnaire scores showed a mixture of hyper- and hypo-sensitivity, and the brain responses did not correlate with questionnaire scores. The study measured responses to clicktrains, not naturalistic auditory stimuli.
Declared interests
No author conflict of interest statement is included in the supplied text. The article is tagged as research support from a non-U.S. government source.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the reduced brain response as a clinical test for autism or a reason to change therapy. The study compared 18 autistic adolescents with 18 controls on magnetoencephalography, and the response did not correlate with autism quotient or sensory questionnaire scores.