Differential Maturation of Auditory Cortex Activity in Young Children with Autism and Typical Development

• Published in: Journal of autism and developmental disorders Vol. 53; no. 10; pp. 4076 - 4089
• Main Authors: Green, Heather L., Shen, Guannan, Franzen, Rose E., Mcnamee, Marybeth, Berman, Jeffrey I., Mowad, Theresa G., Ku, Matthew, Bloy, Luke, Liu, Song, Chen, Yu-Han, Airey, Megan, McBride, Emma, Goldin, Sophia, Dipiero, Marissa A., Blaskey, Lisa, Kuschner, Emily S., Kim, Mina, Konka, Kimberly, Roberts, Timothy P. L., Edgar, J. Christopher
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.10.2023; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Age; Analysis; Auditory cortex; Auditory Perception; Autism; Autism Spectrum Disorders; Autistic children; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Brain Hemisphere Functions; Brain research; Child and School Psychology; Child development; Children; Cognitive Processes; Cortex; Cortex (auditory); Demographic aspects; Development and progression; Diagnosis; Electroencephalography; Encoding; Hearing; Individual Development; Maturation; Neural coding; Neurosciences; Pediatrics; Pervasive developmental disorders; Physiological aspects; Psychology; Public Health; S:I: .Developmental Approach and Targeted Treatment of Sensory Alterations; Stimulus; Time use; Young Children; United States; M50; Auditory; Maturation; Magnetoencephalography; Autism spectrum disorder; M100
• ISSN: 0162-3257; 1573-3432; 1573-3432
• DOI: 10.1007/s10803-022-05696-8

Maturation of auditory cortex neural encoding processes was assessed in children with typical development (TD) and autism. Children 6–9 years old were enrolled at Time 1 (T1), with follow-up data obtained ~ 18 months later at Time 2 (T2), and ~ 36 months later at Time 3 (T3). Findings suggested an initial period of rapid auditory cortex maturation in autism, earlier than TD (prior to and surrounding the T1 exam), followed by a period of faster maturation in TD than autism (T1-T3). As a result of group maturation differences, post-stimulus group differences were observed at T1 but not T3. In contrast, stronger pre-stimulus activity in autism than TD was found at all time points, indicating this brain measure is stable across time.