Kaddouri Rachida El, Nijhof Annabel D, Brass Marcel, Wiersema Jan R
Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2025 Jan 9. doi: 10.1007/s10803-024-06701-y.
Diminished responding to one's own name is one of the strongest and earliest predictors of autism. However, research on the neural correlates of this response in autism is scarce. Here we investigate neural responses to hearing the own name in school-aged children with and without autism. Thirty-four children with autism and 33 without autism (ages 7-13) were presented with three categories of names (own name, close other's name and unknown other name) as task-irrelevant deviant stimuli in an auditory oddball paradigm, while EEG was recorded. In line with previous findings, parietal P3 amplitudes for the own name were enhanced compared with a close other's name. Older children showed a stronger self-specific effect than younger children. However, this self-preferential effect was not different between groups, despite the fact that parents of children with autism reported significantly less own-name responsiveness in daily life. Neither the N1 component or SON negativity showed self-specific effects. In school-aged children, only the parietal P3 component, and not the N1 or SON negativity, appears to be enhanced for the own name as compared to a close other's name. Age seems to have an effect on the own name modulation of the P3 amplitude, which may explain the relatively small overall effect size. Against expectations, groups did not differ on this self-specific effect. Further research into neural and behavioral responses to hearing one's own name in autism, across different age groups, is warranted.
对自己名字反应减弱是自闭症最强且最早的预测指标之一。然而，关于自闭症中这种反应的神经关联的研究却很匮乏。在此，我们研究了患有和未患自闭症的学龄儿童听到自己名字时的神经反应。在听觉Oddball范式中，向34名自闭症儿童和33名非自闭症儿童（年龄7 - 13岁）呈现三类名字（自己的名字、亲密他人的名字和未知他人的名字）作为任务无关的偏差刺激，同时记录脑电图。与先前的研究结果一致，与亲密他人的名字相比，自己名字的顶叶P3波幅增强。年龄较大的儿童比年龄较小的儿童表现出更强的自我特异性效应。然而，尽管自闭症儿童的父母报告其在日常生活中对自己名字的反应明显较少，但两组之间这种自我偏好效应并无差异。N1成分或SON负波均未表现出自我特异性效应。在学龄儿童中，与亲密他人的名字相比，只有顶叶P3成分，而非N1或SON负波，似乎对自己的名字增强反应。年龄似乎对P3波幅的自己名字调制有影响，这可能解释了总体效应量相对较小的原因。与预期相反，两组在这种自我特异性效应上没有差异。有必要对不同年龄组自闭症患者听到自己名字时的神经和行为反应进行进一步研究。
