Auditory Magnetic Mismatch Field Latency: A Biomarker for Language Impairment in Autism

Abstract

Background-Auditory processing abnormalities are frequently observed in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), and these abnormalities may have sequelae in terms of clinical language impairment (LI). The present study assessed associations between language impairment and the amplitude and latency of the superior temporal gyrus magnetic mismatch field (MMF) in response to changes in an auditory stream of tones or vowels.

Atypical Bilateral Brain Synchronization in the Early Stage of Human Voice Auditory Processing in Young Children with Autism

“…Reports have indicated that the ASD population exhibits elevated rates of brain stem or peripheral hearing dysfunction [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] and abnormalities in AEF components (i.e., cortical dysfunction) [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][21][22][23][24][25]. Intriguingly, research has indicated that individuals with ASD may present with peripheral auditory asymmetry [13], which may distort the cortical bilateral synchronization of AEF components in the central nervous system.…”

“…Altered auditory processing systems in children with ASD have been studied as neurological correlates of some phenotypes in ASD, such as inhibited language acquisition [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] and auditory hypersensitivity [9][10][11], and previous studies that have focused on auditory responses of the brain have also demonstrated altered cerebral laterality [2,5,6] and regional connectivity [12] in children with ASD. These studies have indicated alterations in cortical auditory processes in ASD [1,2,4,5,9,10], whereas increased rates of brain stem or peripheral hearing dysfunction have also been reported in the ASD population [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20].…”

“…In the last decade, MEG has emerged as an important investigatory tool in neurodevelopmental studies because MEG has advantages over other neuroimaging techniques for young children, including safety, fewer constraints and less environmental noise. Using MEG, many recent studies have observed aberrant brain activities in children with ASD [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] by investigating brain connectivity [26,[28][29][30] or atypical brain responses to auditory stimuli [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][21][22][23][24][25].…”

“…In previous MEG studies, this component has been alternatively labeled M100 or N100m; we here call this component "N1m." The main sources of the P1m and N1m are the auditory cortex and association cortices, and abnormalities in AEF components have been reported in patients with ASD [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][21][22][23][24][25]. Although many prior studies have focused on the aberrant intensity or latency of AEF components in children with ASD, no investigations have focused on the bilateral synchronization of AEF components in children with ASD.…”

Accessing and Processing MEG Signals in Real-Time: Emerging Applications and Enabling Technologies

“…MEG has also received increasing acceptance as a superb non-invasive tool for localizing eloquent cortices in presurgical www.intechopen.com functional brain mapping in patients with tumors and other operable lesions (Burgess, Barkley, et al 2011). Further efforts of the MEG community are focused on establishing new clinical indications where dementia (Zamrini et al 2011), traumatic brain injury (TBI) (Huang et al 2009;Maruta et al 2010) and autism (Roberts et al 2011;Roberts et al 2010) are considered current front runners among many other neurologic and psychiatric disorders that are being studied (Stufflebeam et al 2009;C. Stam 2010).…”