Department of Pediatrics, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
Department of Pediatrics, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan; Division of Developmental Neuroscience, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
Clin Neurophysiol. 2018 Sep;129(9):2029-2037. doi: 10.1016/j.clinph.2018.05.014. Epub 2018 Jun 8.
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often show characteristic differences in auditory processing. To clarify the mechanisms underlying communication impairment in ASD, we examined auditory language processing with both anatomical and functional methods.
We assessed the language abilities of adolescents with ASD and typically developing (TD) adolescents, and analyzed the surface-based morphometric structure between the groups using magnetic resonance imaging. Furthermore, we measured cortical responses to an auditory word comprehension task with magnetoencephalography and performed network-based statistics using the phase locking values.
We observed no structural differences between the groups. However, the volume of the left ventral central sulcus (vCS) showed a significant correlation with linguistic scores in ASD. Moreover, adolescents with ASD showed weaker cortical activation in the left vCS and superior temporal sulcus. Furthermore, these regions showed differential correlations with linguistic scores between the groups. Moreover, the ASD group had an atypical gamma band (25-40 Hz) network centered on the left vCS.
Adolescents with ASD showed atypical responses on the auditory word comprehension task and functional brain differences.
Our results suggest that phonological processing and gamma band cortical activity play a critical role in auditory language processing-related pathophysiology in adolescents with ASD.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）个体在听觉处理方面通常表现出特征性差异。为了阐明 ASD 患者交流障碍的潜在机制，我们使用解剖学和功能方法检查了听觉语言处理。
我们评估了 ASD 青少年和典型发育（TD）青少年的语言能力，并使用磁共振成像分析了两组之间的基于表面的形态结构。此外，我们使用脑磁图测量了对听觉单词理解任务的皮质反应，并使用锁相值进行了基于网络的统计分析。
我们没有观察到两组之间存在结构差异。然而，左腹侧中央沟（vCS）的体积与 ASD 中的语言评分呈显著相关。此外，ASD 青少年在左 vCS 和颞上回的皮质激活较弱。此外，这些区域在组间与语言评分存在差异相关性。此外，ASD 组存在以左 vCS 为中心的异常伽马频带（25-40 Hz）网络。
青少年 ASD 患者在听觉单词理解任务中表现出异常反应和功能脑差异。
我们的结果表明，语音处理和伽马频带皮质活动在 ASD 青少年听觉语言处理相关病理生理学中起关键作用。
