While it is generally accepted that structural and functional brain deficits underlie the behavioral deficits associated with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD), the degree to which these problems are expressed in sensory pathology is unknown. Electrophysiological measures indicate that neural processing is delayed in visual and auditory domains. Furthermore, multiple reports of white matter deficits due to prenatal alcohol exposure indicate altered cortical connectivity in individuals with FASD. Multisensory integration requires close coordination between disparate cortical areas leading us to hypothesize that individuals with FASD will have impaired multisensory integration relative to healthy control (HC) participants. Participants' neurophysiological responses were recorded using magnetoencephalography (MEG) during passive unisensory or simultaneous, spatially congruent or incongruent multisensory auditory and somatosensory stimuli. Source timecourses from evoked responses were estimated using multi-dipole spatiotemporal modeling. Auditory M100 response latency was faster for the multisensory relative to the unisensory condition but no group differences were observed. M200 auditory latency to congruent stimuli was earlier and congruent amplitude was larger in participants with FASD relative to controls. Somatosensory M100 response latency was faster in right hemisphere for multisensory relative to unisensory stimulation in both groups. FASD participants' somatosensory M200 responses were delayed by 13 ms, but only for the unisensory presentation of the somatosensory stimulus. M200 results indicate that unisensory and multisensory processing is altered in FASD; it remains to be seen if the multisensory response represents a normalization of the unisensory deficits.

中文翻译：

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胎儿酒精频谱异常（FASD）中的单感觉和多感觉反应：空间一致性的影响。

虽然公认结构性和功能性脑缺损是与胎儿酒精谱异常（FASD）相关的行为缺损的基础，但这些问题在感觉病理学中的表达程度尚不清楚。电生理学指标表明神经处理在视觉和听觉方面被延迟。此外，多份因产前酒精暴露引起的白质缺乏的报告表明，FASD患者的皮质连接性改变。多感官整合需要不同皮质区域之间的紧密协调，这使我们假设相对于健康对照（HC）参与者，FASD患者的多感官整合受损。参加者 在被动单感觉或同时，空间一致或不一致的多感觉听觉和体感刺激期间，使用磁脑描记术（MEG）记录神经生理反应。使用多偶极时空模型估算诱发反应的源时程。相对于单一感觉条件，多感觉听觉M100反应潜伏期较快，但未观察到组间差异。相对于对照组，FASD参与者的M200听觉潜伏期对全等刺激较早，全等振幅更大。相对于单感觉刺激，两组的右半球体感M100反应潜伏期都快。FASD参与者的M200体感反应延迟了13毫秒，但仅适用于体感刺激的单感表现。M200结果表明，FASD中单感和多感处理发生了变化；多感反应是否代表单感缺陷的归一化还有待观察。