City College of New York, The Children's Research Unit, Program in Cognitive Neuroscience, Departments of Psychology & Biology, New York, USA.
Autism Res. 2010 Oct;3(5):253-67. doi: 10.1002/aur.152.
Successful integration of signals from the various sensory systems is crucial for normal sensory-perceptual functioning, allowing for the perception of coherent objects rather than a disconnected cluster of fragmented features. Several prominent theories of autism suggest that automatic integration is impaired in this population, but there have been few empirical tests of this thesis. A standard electrophysiological metric of multisensory integration (MSI) was used to test the integrity of auditory-somatosensory integration in children with autism (N=17, aged 6-16 years), compared to age- and IQ-matched typically developing (TD) children. High-density electrophysiology was recorded while participants were presented with either auditory or somatosensory stimuli alone (unisensory conditions), or as a combined auditory-somatosensory stimulus (multisensory condition), in randomized order. Participants watched a silent movie during testing, ignoring concurrent stimulation. Significant differences between neural responses to the multisensory auditory-somatosensory stimulus and the unisensory stimuli (the sum of the responses to the auditory and somatosensory stimuli when presented alone) served as the dependent measure. The data revealed group differences in the integration of auditory and somatosensory information that appeared at around 175 ms, and were characterized by the presence of MSI for the TD but not the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children. Overall, MSI was less extensive in the ASD group. These findings are discussed within the framework of current knowledge of MSI in typical development as well as in relation to theories of ASD.
各种感觉系统的信号成功整合对于正常的感觉知觉功能至关重要，使人们能够感知到连贯的物体，而不是不相关的碎片化特征的集群。几种著名的自闭症理论表明，该人群的自动整合受损，但对此理论的实证检验很少。使用多感觉整合（MSI）的标准电生理度量标准来测试自闭症儿童（N=17，年龄 6-16 岁）的听觉-躯体感觉整合的完整性，与年龄和智商匹配的典型发育（TD）儿童进行比较。在参与者接受单独的听觉或躯体感觉刺激（单感觉条件）或随机顺序的组合听觉-躯体感觉刺激（多感觉条件）时，记录高密度电生理学。参与者在测试期间观看无声电影，忽略并发刺激。作为因变量，对多感觉听觉-躯体感觉刺激的神经反应与单感觉刺激之间的显著差异（当单独呈现时听觉和躯体感觉刺激的反应之和）。数据显示，听觉和躯体感觉信息的整合存在组间差异，大约在 175ms 时出现，其特征是 TD 儿童存在 MSI，但自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童不存在。总体而言，ASD 组的 MSI 范围较小。这些发现是在典型发育中 MSI 的现有知识框架内以及与 ASD 理论相关的背景下进行讨论的。
