Distinct Patterns of Neural Habituation and Generalization in Children and Adolescents With Autism With Low and High Sensory Overresponsivity

What is it about?

Strong negative reactions to sensory stimuli are highly prevalent in autism. Brain imaging research suggests that this sensory over-responsivity is related to increased response in sensory and attention brain regions. The authors further investigated these atypical responses using fMRI to determine how they change over time during sensory stimulation and how the brain responds to new but similar stimuli. Children and adolescents who were typically developing and who had autism with or without high levels of sensory over-responsivity participated in an fMRI scan where they were exposed to two sets of mildly aversive auditory and tactile stimuli. Across repeated sensory stimulation, youth with autism with high sensory over-responsivity show less reduction in their brain responses than youth with low sensory over-responsivity. Conversely, the youth with low sensory over-responsivity showed less responsiveness to new but similar stimuli and increased prefrontal regulation of their brain response. Results suggest that all children with autism have sensory abnormalities as related to brain function, but whether it is expressed behaviorally depends on top-down regulation strategies.

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