Objective:

Sensory overresponsivity (SOR), an atypical negative reaction to sensory stimuli, is highly prevalent in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Previous work has related SOR to increased brain response in sensory-limbic regions. This study investigated where these atypical responses fall in three fundamental stages of sensory processing: arousal (i.e., initial response), habituation (i.e., change in response over time), and generalization of response to novel stimuli. Different areas of atypical response would require distinct intervention approaches.

Methods:

Functional MRI was used to examine these patterns of neural habituation to two sets of similar mildly aversive auditory and tactile stimuli in 42 high-functioning children and adolescents with ASD (21 with high levels of SOR and 21 with low levels of SOR) and 27 age-matched typically developing youths (ages 8–17). The relationship between SOR and change in amygdala-prefrontal functional connectivity across the sensory stimulation was also examined.

Results:

Across repeated sensory stimulation, high-SOR participants with ASD showed reduced ability to maintain habituation in the amygdala and relevant sensory cortices and to maintain inhibition of irrelevant sensory cortices. These results indicate that sensory habituation is a dynamic, time-varying process dependent on sustained regulation across time, which is a particular deficit in high-SOR participants with ASD. However, low-SOR participants with ASD also showed distinct, nontypical neural response patterns, including reduced responsiveness to novel but similar stimuli and increases in prefrontal-amygdala regulation across the sensory exposure.

Conclusions:

The results suggest that all children with autism have atypical brain responses to sensory stimuli, but whether they express atypical behavioral responses depends on top-down regulatory mechanisms. Results are discussed in terms of targeted intervention approaches.

中文翻译：

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具有低和高感觉过度反应性的自闭症儿童和青少年神经习惯和泛化的不同模式

客观的：

感觉过度反应 (SOR) 是一种对感觉刺激的非典型负面反应，在自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) 中非常普遍。以前的工作将 SOR 与感觉边缘区域的大脑反应增加联系起来。这项研究调查了这些非典型反应在感觉加工的三个基本阶段中的哪些方面：唤醒（即初始反应）、习惯（即反应随时间的变化）和对新刺激反应的泛化。非典型反应的不同领域需要不同的干预方法。

方法：

功能 MRI 用于检查 42 名患有 ASD 的高功能儿童和青少年（21 名 SOR 水平高，21 名 SOR 水平低）和 27 岁的两组相似的轻度厌恶听觉和触觉刺激的神经习惯模式- 匹配的典型发展青年（8-17 岁）。还检查了 SOR 与跨感觉刺激的杏仁核-前额叶功能连接变化之间的关系。

结果：

在反复的感觉刺激中，患有 ASD 的高 SOR 参与者表现出维持杏仁核和相关感觉皮层的习惯化以及维持对无关感觉皮层的抑制的能力降低。这些结果表明，感觉习惯是一个动态的、随时间变化的过程，它依赖于跨时间的持续调节，这是患有 ASD 的高 SOR 参与者的一个特殊缺陷。然而，患有 ASD 的低 SOR 参与者也表现出独特的、非典型的神经反应模式，包括对新奇但相似的刺激的反应降低，以及在整个感觉暴露过程中前额叶 - 杏仁核调节增加。

结论：

结果表明，所有自闭症儿童对感官刺激都有非典型的大脑反应，但他们是否表现出非典型的行为反应取决于自上而下的调节机制。结果根据有针对性的干预方法进行讨论。