Abnormal auditory mismatch fields in adults with autism spectrum disorder

• Published in: Neuroscience letters 2019-04, Vol.698, p.140-145
• Main Authors: Matsuzaki, Junko, Ku, Matthew, Berman, Jeffrey I., Blaskey, Lisa, Bloy, Luke, Chen, Yu-han, Dell, John, Edgar, J. Christopher, Kuschner, Emily S., Liu, Song, Saby, Joni, Brodkin, Edward S., Roberts, Timothy P.L.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acoustic Stimulation; Adult; Adults; Auditory language discrimination process and laterality; Auditory Perception; Autism spectrum disorder; Autism Spectrum Disorder - physiopathology; Autism Spectrum Disorder - psychology; Humans; Magnetoencephalography; Male; Vowel mismatch fields; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0304-3940; 1872-7972
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2018.12.043

•Delayed vowel discrimination process in adults with autism spectrum disorder.•Abnormal rightward lateralization in adults with autism spectrum disorder.•Delayed MMF response was decoupled from the earlier auditory M100 response delay. The auditory mismatch field (MMF) is a pre-attentive processing component, reflecting neural discrimination and inhibitory processing. Abnormal MMFs have been reported in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) along with an association with abnormal language comprehension; however, relatively little is known about MMF abnormalities to contrasting vowel stimuli in adults with ASD. To better understand the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying auditory language discrimination of vowel stimuli in individuals with ASD, magnetoencephalography was used to measure MMFs during an auditory oddball paradigm with vowel stimuli (/a/ and /u/) in adults with ASD. MMFs arising from left and right superior temporal gyrus are reported from nine high-functioning right handed males with ASD (22.22 ± 5.74yrs) and sixteen typically developing (TD) right handed males (27.25 ± 6.63yrs). The MMF was delayed in adults with ASD (188.90 ± 5.8 ms) as compared to the TD participants (173.08 ± 4.31 ms, p