Replicable, Transdiagnostic Behavioral and Neural Correlates of Sensory Overresponsivity

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Child Psychiatry
• Developmental Psychology

Background:

• Sensory over-responsivity (SOR) is a common condition in children, affecting 15-20% and often co-occurring with autism spectrum disorder and other psychiatric conditions.
• Despite its prevalence, the clinical specificity and underlying neurobiology of SOR remain poorly understood, hindering targeted interventions.
• Existing research often focuses on SOR within specific diagnostic groups, limiting understanding of its broader clinical significance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the specific clinical significance of SOR across diverse child populations.
• To investigate whether SOR is associated with distinct patterns of functional connectivity (FC) in the brain.
• To explore the transdiagnostic nature of SOR and its neurobiological underpinnings.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of a large dataset (n=15,728) including community and autism-enriched samples of children aged 6-17.9 years.
• Bivariate and multivariate statistical models to examine associations between SOR and various psychiatric symptoms (anxiety, ADHD, depression, conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder) and autistic traits.
• Resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study to analyze brain-wide and circuit-specific FC correlates of SOR, with replication in subsamples.

Main Results:

• SOR demonstrated a consistent transdiagnostic profile, significantly associated with higher autistic traits and anxiety symptoms.
• In community samples, SOR was associated with lower conduct disorder symptoms, suggesting a protective effect in certain contexts.
• SOR was linked to specific resting-state functional connectivity (FC) patterns, notably differences between the cingulo-parietal network and the bilateral caudate nucleus, which replicated across independent subsamples.

Conclusions:

• Sensory over-responsivity (SOR) may represent a transdiagnostic latent trait with specific clinical implications, including risk and protection across different conditions.
• Replicable neural correlates of SOR implicate distinct cortico-subcortical circuits, advancing understanding of its neurobiology.
• These findings have the potential to inform clinical practice and guide future research for supporting children with sensory challenges.