Sensory contributions to autism spectrum disorders and links to social responsiveness

 描述(由申请人提供)：自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)患者对感官输入的反应差异早已被观察到，现在已被纳入ASD的临床诊断标准。尽管对感觉刺激的高反应在ASD的自传式描述中得到了强调，但经验研究表明，低反应更好地将ASD与典型的发育障碍和其他发育障碍区分开来，并与其他ASD症状更密切地联系在一起。这项建议的首要目标是更好地了解非典型感觉加工，因为它与ASD的社会、行为和交流症状有关。由于视觉敏锐度的发展相对缓慢，声音和触觉在早期的社会互动和体验中起到了很大的中介作用。这些与社会相关的听觉-触觉互动 扎根于婴儿期，贯穿整个发展过程。因此，重要的是要考虑ASD的音频-触觉处理可能会受到怎样的影响，以及听觉和触觉功能的变化可能如何与自闭症症状相关。对典型大脑中多感官处理的研究已经证实，将来自多个感官的信号结合起来可以提高行为反应的速度和准确性。此外，当组合的单个信号较弱或不明确时，这种增强效果最好。后一种被称为“反向效应”的概念可能会对自闭症中非典型感觉反应的研究和治疗产生影响。该项目旨在使用严格的心理物理方法和功能磁共振成像描述ASD儿童和典型发育儿童的听觉、触觉和音频-触觉(多感觉)反应的知觉和神经基础。我们假设，对声音和触觉的低反应性将与ASD患者增强的音频-触觉效果相关。如果得到支持，这些发现可能会对未来使用感觉训练的干预措施的设计产生深远的影响。此外，识别可能导致感觉反应改变的大脑区域可以作为早期发现的生物标记物，也可以作为成功补救与感觉相关问题的潜在目标。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Differences in response to sensory input have long been observed in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and are now included among the clinical diagnostic criteria for ASD. Although hyper- responsiveness to sensory stimuli has been emphasized in autobiographical accounts of ASD, empirical research suggests hypo-responsiveness better distinguishes ASD from both typical development and other developmental disabilities, and is more strongly associated with other ASD symptoms. The overarching goal of this proposal is to better understand atypical sensory processing as it relates to the social, behavioral, and communicative symptoms that characterize ASD. Because of the relatively slow development of visual acuity, sound and touch mediate a large proportion of early social interactions and experiences. These socially relevant auditory-tactile interactions rooted in infancy continue throughout development. For this reason, it is important to consider how audio-tactile processing might be affected in ASD and how changes in auditory and tactile function may relate to autism symptoms. The study of multisensory processing in the typical brain has established that combining signals from more than one sense can enhance the speed and accuracy of behavioral responses. Further, this enhancement is greatest when the individual signals being combined are weak or ambiguous. This latter concept, known as "inverse effectiveness", could prove influential for the study and treatment of atypical sensory responsiveness in autism. This project aims to describe the perceptual and neural basis of auditory, tactile and audio-tactile (multisensory) responses in children with ASD and typically developing children using rigorous psychophysical methods and functional magnetic resonance imaging. We hypothesize that hypo-responsiveness to sound and touch will be associated with enhanced audio-tactile effects in ASD. If supported, these findings could have profound implications for the design of future interventions using sensory training. Furthermore, identifying brain regions which may contribute to altered sensory responsiveness could serve as biomarkers for early detection and as potential targets for the successful remediation of sensory related issues.