Unusual behavioral reactions to sensory stimuli are frequently reported in individuals on the autism spectrum (AS). Despite the early emergence of sensory features (< age 3) and their potential impact on development and quality of life, little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying sensory reactivity in early childhood autism. Here, we used electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate tactile cortical processing in young children aged 3–6 years with autism and in neurotypical (NT) children. Scalp EEG was recorded from 33 children with autism, including those with low cognitive and/or verbal abilities, and 45 age- and sex-matched NT children during passive tactile fingertip stimulation. We compared properties of early and later somatosensory-evoked potentials (SEPs) and their adaptation with repetitive stimulation between autistic and NT children and assessed whether these neural measures are linked to “real-world” parent-reported tactile reactivity. As expected, we found elevated tactile reactivity in children on the autism spectrum. Our findings indicated no differences in amplitude or latency of early and mid-latency somatosensory-evoked potentials (P50, N80, P100), nor adaptation between autistic and NT children. However, latency of later processing of tactile information (N140) was shorter in young children with autism compared to NT children, suggesting faster processing speed in young autistic children. Further, correlational analyses and exploratory analyses using tactile reactivity as a grouping variable found that enhanced early neural responses were associated with greater tactile reactivity in autism. The relatively small sample size and the inclusion of a broad range of autistic children (e.g., with low cognitive and/or verbal abilities) may have limited our power to detect subtle group differences and associations. Hence, replications are needed to verify these results. Our findings suggest that electrophysiological somatosensory cortex processing measures may be indices of “real-world” tactile reactivity in early childhood autism. Together, these findings advance our understanding of the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying tactile reactivity in early childhood autism and, in the clinical context, may have therapeutic implications.

中文翻译：

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自闭症谱系儿童的触觉皮层反应及其与触觉反应的关联

自闭症谱系 (AS) 的个体经常报告对感官刺激的异常行为反应。尽管感觉特征（<3 岁）的早期出现及其对发育和生活质量的潜在影响，但对儿童自闭症早期感觉反应的神经机制知之甚少。在这里，我们使用脑电图 (EEG) 来研究 3-6 岁自闭症儿童和神经典型 (NT) 儿童的触觉皮层处理。在被动触觉指尖刺激期间记录了 33 名自闭症儿童的头皮脑电图，包括认知和/或语言能力低的儿童，以及 45 名年龄和性别匹配的 NT 儿童。我们比较了自闭症儿童和 NT 儿童早期和晚期体感诱发电位 (SEP) 的特性及其对重复刺激的适应性，并评估了这些神经测量是否与“真实世界”父母报告的触觉反应有关。正如预期的那样，我们发现自闭症谱系儿童的触觉反应性升高。我们的研究结果表明，早期和中期体感诱发电位（P50、N80、P100）的幅度或潜伏期没有差异，自闭症儿童和 NT 儿童之间的适应也没有差异。然而，与 NT 儿童相比，自闭症幼儿的触觉信息后期处理延迟 (N140) 更短，表明自闭症儿童的处理速度更快。更远，使用触觉反应性作为分组变量的相关分析和探索性分析发现，增强的早期神经反应与自闭症中更大的触觉反应性相关。相对较小的样本量和广泛的自闭症儿童（例如，认知和/或语言能力低下）的纳入可能限制了我们检测细微的群体差异和关联的能力。因此，需要重复来验证这些结果。我们的研究结果表明，电生理体感皮层处理措施可能是儿童自闭症早期“真实世界”触觉反应的指标。总之，这些发现促进了我们对儿童早期自闭症触觉反应的神经生理机制的理解，并且在临床背景下，可能具有治疗意义。