Guiraud Jeanne A, Kushnerenko Elena, Tomalski Przemyslaw, Davies Kim, Ribeiro Helena, Johnson Mark H
Department of Psychological Science, Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London The Henry Wellcome Building, London WC1E 7HX, UK.
Neuroreport. 2011 Nov 16;22(16):845-9. doi: 10.1097/WNR.0b013e32834c0bec.
It has been suggested that poor habituation to stimuli might explain atypical sensory behaviours in autism. We investigated habituation to repeated sounds using an oddball paradigm in 9-month-old infants with an older sibling with autism and hence at high risk for developing autism. Auditory-evoked responses to repeated sounds in control infants (at low risk of developing autism) decreased over time, demonstrating habituation, and their responses to deviant sounds were larger than responses to standard sounds, indicating discrimination. In contrast, neural responses in infants at high risk showed less habituation and a reduced sensitivity to changes in frequency. Reduced sensory habituation may be present at a younger age than the emergence of autistic behaviour in some individuals, and we propose that this could play a role in the over responsiveness to some stimuli and undersensitivity to others observed in autism.
有人提出，对刺激的适应不良可能解释了自闭症患者的非典型感官行为。我们使用Oddball范式，对9个月大、有患自闭症哥哥/姐姐且因此患自闭症风险较高的婴儿进行了重复声音的适应研究。对照婴儿（患自闭症风险较低）对重复声音的听觉诱发反应随时间下降，表明存在适应，且他们对偏差声音的反应大于对标准声音的反应，表明有辨别能力。相比之下，高风险婴儿的神经反应显示出较少的适应以及对频率变化的敏感性降低。在一些个体中，感觉适应降低可能比自闭症行为出现的年龄更小，我们认为这可能在自闭症患者对某些刺激反应过度和对其他刺激反应不足中起作用。
