Atypical Bilateral Brain Synchronization in the Early Stage of Human Voice Auditory Processing in Young Children with Autism

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 11; no. 4; p. e0153077
• Main Authors: Kurita, Toshiharu, Kikuchi, Mitsuru, Yoshimura, Yuko, Hiraishi, Hirotoshi, Hasegawa, Chiaki, Takahashi, Tetsuya, Hirosawa, Tetsu, Furutani, Naoki, Higashida, Haruhiro, Ikeda, Takashi, Mutou, Kouhei, Asada, Minoru, Minabe, Yoshio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 13.04.2016; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Aberration; Auditory pathways; Auditory Pathways - physiopathology; Auditory processing disorder; Autism; Autism Spectrum Disorder - physiopathology; Autistic Disorder - physiopathology; Biology and Life Sciences; Brain; Brain - physiopathology; Brain Mapping; Brain research; Cerebral hemispheres; Child; Child, Preschool; Children; Children & youth; Circuits; Cognitive ability; Complexity; Complications and side effects; Cortex; Engineering schools; Evoked Potentials, Auditory - physiology; Female; Functional Laterality - physiology; Hemispheres; Hemispheric laterality; Human behavior; Humans; Information processing; Magnetoencephalography; Male; Medical imaging; Medicine and Health Sciences; Multichannel; Neural networks; Neurobiology; Neurophysiology; Neurosciences; NMR; Nuclear magnetic resonance; People and Places; Pervasive developmental disorders; Physiological aspects; Psychiatry; Psychological aspects; Research and Analysis Methods; Science; Social Sciences; Speech Perception - physiology; Studies; Synchronism; Synchronization; Systematic review; Windows (intervals); Japan
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0153077

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been postulated to involve impaired neuronal cooperation in large-scale neural networks, including cortico-cortical interhemispheric circuitry. In the context of ASD, alterations in both peripheral and central auditory processes have also attracted a great deal of interest because these changes appear to represent pathophysiological processes; therefore, many prior studies have focused on atypical auditory responses in ASD. The auditory evoked field (AEF), recorded by magnetoencephalography, and the synchronization of these processes between right and left hemispheres was recently suggested to reflect various cognitive abilities in children. However, to date, no previous study has focused on AEF synchronization in ASD subjects. To assess global coordination across spatially distributed brain regions, the analysis of Omega complexity from multichannel neurophysiological data was proposed. Using Omega complexity analysis, we investigated the global coordination of AEFs in 3-8-year-old typically developing (TD) children (n = 50) and children with ASD (n = 50) in 50-ms time-windows. Children with ASD displayed significantly higher Omega complexities compared with TD children in the time-window of 0-50 ms, suggesting lower whole brain synchronization in the early stage of the P1m component. When we analyzed the left and right hemispheres separately, no significant differences in any time-windows were observed. These results suggest lower right-left hemispheric synchronization in children with ASD compared with TD children. Our study provides new evidence of aberrant neural synchronization in young children with ASD by investigating auditory evoked neural responses to the human voice.