Maturation of sensory gating performance in children with and without sensory processing disorders

Abstract

Recent interest in sensory gating in children with and without neuropsychological disorders has resulted in a number of studies and the results regarding the developmental trajectory of sensory gating are inconsistent. We investigated the maturational course of sensory gating in samples of typically developing children and children with sensory processing deficits (SPD) and compared their performance to adults. Besides gating ratios, we also examined the brain responses to conditioning and test click stimuli in the sensory gating paradigm separately to clarify if the changes in click amplitudes could explain the maturational change in the T/C ratio in children. Eighteen adults with no known disorders, 25 typical children, and 28 children with SPD participated in this study. The children ranged in ages between 5 and12 years. The three groups differed in their P50 and N100 ERP components. Both child groups displayed significantly less gating than the adults. Children with SPD demonstrated significantly less gating and more within-group variability compared to typical children. There were significant relationships between age and T/C ratios and between age and peakto-peak amplitude of the conditioning click in typical children but not in children with SPD. Typical children demonstrated significantly smaller brain response amplitudes to the clicks as compared to adults . These findings suggest that there is a maturational course of sensory gating in typical children and if there is a maturational trajectory in children with SPD it appears to be different than typical children. In addition, children with SPD were found to be lacking in their ability to filter out repeated auditory input and failed to selectively regulate their sensitivity to sensory stimuli. KeywordsSensory Gating; EEG/ERP; Children; Development; Sensory Processing Deficits Sensory gating is the brain's natural response to attenuate redundant or irrelevant sensory stimuli (Adler et al., 1982;Braff, Swerdlow, & Geyer, 1995;Freedman, Adler, & Waldo, 1987). The gating response is conceptualized as the brain's capacity to selectively regulate its sensitivity to sensory stimuli. Sensory Gating is a critical underlying psychophysiological and protective mechanism of brain function which directs processing resources to important environmental stimuli (Myles-Worsley et al., 1996). A number of neurotransmitters and Corresponding Author: Patricia L. Davies, 219 Occupational Therapy, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523;; email address -E-mail: pdavies@lamar.colostate.edu. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to ...

P50 Suppression in Children with Selective Mutism: a Preliminary Report

“…Our cohort of healthy children also exhibited smaller suppression scores relative to the scores of healthy adults. This result is in agreement with the reported maturational course of P50 suppression characterized by increasing suppression effects and diminished variability with age (Brinkman and Stauder 2007;Freedman et al 1987;Marshall et al 2004;Davies et al 2009). The frontal cortex has been implicated as one of the key brain areas contributing to P50 suppression (Brinkman and Stauder 2007;Grunwald et al 2003;Knight et al 1999;Weisser et al 2001), and it has been speculated that the maturation pattern of the of P50 suppression effect is related to the documented maturation processes of the frontal cortex during childhood and preadolescence.…”

“…The interplay between deficient efferent brainstem activity and enhanced cortical suppression should be further studied to clarify the full nature of auditory aberrations in SM. Future research on the developmental course of P50 suppression, and possibly other auditory cortical potentials such as N1 (Davies et al 2009), in children with SM may shed light on the potential contribution of inhibitory mechanisms to the process of outgrowing SM during adolescence and early adulthood. …”

Sensory processing disorders – diagnostic and therapeutic controversies

“…Brain activity correctly differentiated children with SPD from normally developing children with 86% precision. These results are evidence that children with SPD have different mechanisms of reception of sensory information to their peers, which may explain the symptoms of the disorder and in this way confirm the value of the SPD diagnosis (Davies, Chang, & Gavin, 2009;Davies & Gavin, 2007).…”

An auditory-neuroscience perspective on the development of selective mutism

“…P50 suppression was evident in 90% of the children of the SM group and only in 40% of the controls, whereas augmentation was found in 10% and 60%, respectively. Indeed, previous developmental studies in healthy children describe increase in P50 suppression effects and diminished variability with age (Brinkman and Stauder, 2007;Freedman et al, 1987;Marshall et al, 2004;Davies et al, 2009). It has been suggested that the maturational course of P50 suppression follows the maturation pattern of the frontal cortex (Brinkman and Stauder, 2007;Grunwald et al, 2003;Knight et al, 1999;Weisser et al, 2001).…”