No Differences in Auditory Steady-State Responses in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typically Developing Children

Seppo P Ahlfors; Steven Graham; Hari Bharadwaj; Fahimeh Mamashli; Sheraz Khan; Robert M Joseph; Ainsley Losh; Stephanie Pawlyszyn; Nicole M McGuiggan; Mark Vangel; Matti S Hämäläinen; Tal Kenet

doi:10.1007/s10803-023-05907-w

No Differences in Auditory Steady-State Responses in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typically Developing Children

J Autism Dev Disord. 2023 Mar 17. doi: 10.1007/s10803-023-05907-w. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Seppo P Ahlfors^{1

2

3}, Steven Graham⁴, Hari Bharadwaj^{4

5

6}, Fahimeh Mamashli^{7

8

4}, Sheraz Khan^{7

8

4}, Robert M Joseph⁹, Ainsley Losh⁴, Stephanie Pawlyszyn⁴, Nicole M McGuiggan⁴, Mark Vangel^{7

8}, Matti S Hämäläinen^{7

8}, Tal Kenet^{7

4}

Affiliations

¹ Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA. sahlfors@mgh.harvard.edu.
² Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA. sahlfors@mgh.harvard.edu.
³ Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, 149 13th Street, Rm. 2301, Charlestown, MA, 02129, USA. sahlfors@mgh.harvard.edu.
⁴ Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
⁵ Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.
⁶ Department of Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences and Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
⁷ Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA.
⁸ Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
⁹ Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.

PMID: 36932270
DOI: 10.1007/s10803-023-05907-w

Abstract

Auditory steady-state response (ASSR) has been studied as a potential biomarker for abnormal auditory sensory processing in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), with mixed results. Motivated by prior somatosensory findings of group differences in inter-trial coherence (ITC) between ASD and typically developing (TD) individuals at twice the steady-state stimulation frequency, we examined ASSR at 25 and 50 as well as 43 and 86 Hz in response to 25-Hz and 43-Hz auditory stimuli, respectively, using magnetoencephalography. Data were recorded from 22 ASD and 31 TD children, ages 6-17 years. ITC measures showed prominent ASSRs at the stimulation and double frequencies, without significant group differences. These results do not support ASSR as a robust ASD biomarker of abnormal auditory processing in ASD. Furthermore, the previously observed atypical double-frequency somatosensory response in ASD did not generalize to the auditory modality. Thus, the hypothesis about modality-independent abnormal local connectivity in ASD was not supported.

Keywords: Auditory Steady-State Response (ASSR); Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD); Gamma-band; Inter-Trial Coherence (ITC); Magnetoencephalography (MEG).

Abstract

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