Recent research has highlighted atypical reactivity to sensory stimulation as a core symptom in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, little is known about the dysfunctional neurological mechanisms underlying these aberrant sensitivities. Here we tested the hypothesis that the ability to filter out auditory repeated information is deficient in children with ASD already from subcortical levels, yielding to auditory sensitivities. We recorded the frequency-following response (FFR), a non-invasive measure of the neural tracking of the periodic characteristics of a sound in the subcortical auditory system, to compare repetition-related effects in children with ASD and typically developing children. Results revealed an increase of the FFR with stimulus repetition in children with ASD compared to their peers. Moreover, such defective early sensory encoding of stimulus redundancy was associated with sensory overload. These results highlight that auditory sensitivities in ASD emerge already at the level of the subcortical auditory system.

中文翻译：

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自闭症谱系障碍儿童对重复听觉刺激的皮层下神经反应增加

最近的研究强调了对感觉刺激的非典型反应是自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) 儿童的核心症状。然而，人们对这些异常敏感性背后的功能失调神经机制知之甚少。在这里，我们测试了这样一个假设，即在皮层下水平的 ASD 儿童中，过滤掉听觉重复信息的能力是有缺陷的，从而产生听觉敏感性。我们记录了频率跟随响应 (FFR)，这是一种对皮层下听觉系统中声音周期特征的神经跟踪的非侵入性测量，以比较 ASD 儿童和正常发育儿童的重复相关效应。结果显示，与同龄人相比，ASD 儿童的 FFR 随着刺激重复而增加。而且，刺激冗余的这种有缺陷的早期感觉编码与感觉超负荷有关。这些结果强调 ASD 的听觉敏感性已经出现在皮层下听觉系统的水平。