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Lay Abstract Autism spectrum disorders are reported to affect nearly one out of every one hundred children, with over 90% of these children showing behavioral disturbances related to the processing of basic sensory information. Behavioral sensitivity to light touch, such as profound discomfort with clothing tags and physical contact, is a ubiquitous finding in children on the autism spectrum. In this study, we investigate the strength and timing of brain activity in response to simple, light taps to the fingertip. Our results suggest that children with autism show a diminished early response in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1). This finding is most evident in the left hemisphere. In exploratory analysis, we also show that tactile sensory behavior, as measured by the Sensory Profile, may be a better predictor of the intensity and timing of brain activity related to touch than a clinical autism diagnosis. We report that children with atypical tactile behavior have significantly lower amplitude somatosensory cortical responses in both hemispheres. Thus sensory behavioral phenotype appears to be a more powerful strategy for investigating neural activity in this cohort. This study provides evidence for atypical brain activity during sensory processing in autistic children and suggests that our sensory behavior based methodology may be an important approach to investigating brain activity in people with autism and neurodevelopmental disorders. Scientific Abstract The neural underpinnings of sensory processing differences in autism remain poorly understood. This prospective magnetoencephalography (MEG) study investigates whether children with autism show atypical cortical activity in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) in comparison to matched controls. Tactile stimuli were clearly detectable, painless taps applied to the distal phalanx of the second (D2) and third (D3) fingers of the right and left hands. Three tactile paradigms were administered: an oddball paradigm (standard taps to D3 at an inter-stimulus interval (ISI) of 0.33 and deviant taps to D2 with ISI ranging from 1.32–1.64s); a slow-rate paradigm (D2) with an ISI matching the deviant taps in the oddball paradigm; and a fast-rate paradigm (D2) with an ISI matching the standard taps in the oddball. Study subjects were boys (age 7–11 years) with and without autism disorder. Sensory behavior was quantified using the Sensory Profile questionnaire. Boys with autism exhibited smaller amplitude left hemisphere S1 response to slow and deviant stimuli during the right hand paradigms. In post-hoc analysis, tactile behavior directly correlated with the amplitude of cortical response. Consequently, the children were re-categorized by degree of parent-report tactile sensitivity. This regrouping created a more robust distinction between the groups with amplitude diminution in the left and right hemispheres and latency prolongation in the right hemisphere in the deviant and slow-rate paradigms for the affected children. This study suggests that children with aut...

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