BACKGROUND Maladaptive reactivity to sensory inputs is commonly observed in neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g., autism, ADHD). Little is known, however, about the underlying neural mechanisms. For some children, atypical sensory reactivity is the primary complaint, despite absence of another identifiable neurodevelopmental diagnosis. Studying Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) may well provide a window into the neuropathology of these symptoms. It has been proposed that a deficit in sensory integration underlies the SPD phenotype, but objective quantification of sensory integration is lacking. Here we used neural and behavioral measures of multisensory integration (MSI), which would be affected by impaired sensory integration and for which there are well accepted objective measures, to test whether failure to integrate across the senses is associated with atypical sensory reactivity in SPD. An autism group served to determine if observed differences were unique to SPD. METHODS We tested whether children aged 6-16 years with SPD (N = 14) integrate multisensory inputs differently from age-matched typically developing controls (TD: N = 54), or from children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD: N = 44). Participants performed a simple reaction-time task to the occurrence of auditory, visual, and audiovisual stimuli presented in random order, while high-density recordings of electrical brain activity were made. RESULTS Children with SPD showed large reductions in the extent to which they benefited from multisensory inputs compared to TDs. The ASD group showed similarly reduced response speeding to multisensory relative to unisensory inputs. Neural evidence for MSI was seen across all three groups, with the multisensory response differing from the sum of the unisensory responses. Post hoc tests suggested the possibility of enhanced MSI in SPD in timeframes consistent with cortical sensory registration (∼60 ms), followed by reduced MSI during a timeframe consistent with object formation (∼130 ms). The ASD group also showed reduced MSI in the later timeframe. CONCLUSION Children with SPD showed reduction in their ability to benefit from redundant audio-visual inputs, similar to children with ASD. Neurophysiological recordings, on the other hand, showed that major indices of MSI were largely intact, although post hoc testing pointed to periods of potential differential processing. While these exploratory electrophysiological observations point to potential sensory-perceptual differences in multisensory processing in SPD, it remains equally plausible at this stage that later attentional processing differences may yet prove responsible for the multisensory behavioral deficits uncovered here.

中文翻译：

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感官处理障碍儿童的多感官视听处理（I）：快速反应条件下的行为和电生理指标。

背景技术在神经发育障碍（例如，自闭症、ADHD）中通常观察到对感觉输入的不适应反应。然而，人们对潜在的神经机制知之甚少。尽管没有其他可识别的神经发育诊断，但对于一些儿童来说，非典型的感觉反应是主要的抱怨。研究感觉处理障碍 (SPD) 可能会为了解这些症状的神经病理学提供一个窗口。有人提出，感觉整合的缺陷是 SPD 表型的基础，但缺乏感觉整合的客观量化。在这里，我们使用了多感觉整合（MSI）的神经和行为测量，这会受到感觉整合受损的影响，并且有公认的客观测量，测试未能整合感官是否与 SPD 中的非典型感觉反应有关。自闭症小组用于确定观察到的差异是否是 SPD 独有的。方法 我们测试了 6-16 岁的 SPD 儿童 (N = 14) 整合多感官输入的方式是否与年龄匹配的正常发育对照 (TD: N = 54) 或患有自闭症谱系障碍的儿童 (ASD: N = 44) 不同）。参与者对以随机顺序呈现的听觉、视觉和视听刺激的发生执行简单的反应时间任务，同时对脑电活动进行高密度记录。结果 与 TD 相比，患有 SPD 的儿童从多感官输入中受益的程度大大降低。相对于非感觉输入，ASD 组对多感觉输入的响应速度同样降低。在所有三组中都看到了 MSI 的神经证据，多感觉反应不同于非感觉反应的总和。事后测试表明，在与皮层感觉注册一致的时间范围内（~60 ms），SPD 中的 MSI 可能增强，然后在与对象形成一致的时间范围内（~130 ms）减少 MSI。ASD 组在后期也显示出 MSI 减少。结论 患有 SPD 的儿童表现出从冗余视听输入中受益的能力下降，这与患有 ASD 的儿童相似。另一方面，神经生理学记录显示 MSI 的主要指标基本完好无损，尽管事后测试指出了潜在的差异处理时期。