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A Semantic Priming Event-related Potential ERP Task to Study Lexico-semantic and Visuo-semantic Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder
Published on: April 12, 2018
Brain activations while processing degraded speech in adults with autism spectrum disorder
I-Fan Lin1, Takashi Itahashi2, Makio Kashino3
1Communication Science Laboratories, NTT Corporation, Atsugi, Kanagawa, 243-0124, Japan; Department of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan, 11031; Department of Occupational Medicine, Shuang Ho Hospital, New Taipei City, Taiwan, 23561.
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience challenges with speech comprehension in noisy environments. This study found reduced neural connectivity in the ASD group, linking brain function to auditory processing difficulties.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Auditory Processing
- Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
Background:
- Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often exhibit difficulties understanding speech, particularly in noisy or adverse conditions.
- The neural mechanisms underlying these auditory processing challenges in ASD are not fully understood.
- Investigating speech processing in degraded auditory environments can provide insights into ASD-related neural differences.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the neural processing of degraded speech in adults with ASD using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
- To compare brain activity and functional connectivity between individuals with ASD and typically developing controls (TDC) during auditory tasks.
- To explore the relationship between neural connectivity, task difficulty, and autism symptom severity.
Main Methods:
- fMRI experiments were conducted on 21 adult males with ASD and 24 age-matched TDC males.
- Participants listened to clear speech (CS), noise-vocoded intelligible speech (VS), and spectrally rotated unintelligible speech (SRVS).
- Functional connectivity (FC) was analyzed, focusing on the difference between processing VS and a combination of CS and SRVS to assess task difficulty.
Main Results:
- The ASD group showed reduced functional connectivity (FC) between the left dorsal premotor cortex and left temporoparietal junction compared to the TDC group, specifically related to task difficulty in speech processing.
- This reduced FC in individuals with ASD was negatively correlated with their Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) scores.
- These findings suggest a disruption in the dorsal stream network crucial for attentive processing of degraded speech.
Conclusions:
- Disrupted functional connectivity within the dorsal stream network may underlie the difficulties individuals with ASD face in understanding speech in adverse conditions.
- The study highlights the importance of the dorsal auditory pathway in speech processing for individuals with ASD.
- These findings contribute to understanding the neural basis of auditory challenges in autism spectrum disorder.
