Tracking the sensory environment: an ERP study of probability and context updating in ASD.
We recorded visual event-related brain potentials from 32 adult male participants (16 high-functioning participants diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 16 control participants, ranging in age from 18 to 53 years) during a three-stimulus oddball paradigm. Target and non-target stimulus probability was varied across three probability conditions, whereas the probability of a third non-target stimulus was held constant in all conditions. P3 amplitude to target stimuli was more sensitive to probability in ASD than in typically developing participants, whereas P3 amplitude to non-target stimuli was less responsive to probability in ASD participants. This suggests that neural responses to changes in event probability are attention-dependant in high-functioning ASD. The implications of these findings for higher-level behaviors such as prediction and planning are discussed.
Institute for Neural Computation, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Dr. MC-0959, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0959, USA, mwesterfield@ucsd.edu.
Marissa A
MA
Westerfield
Marla
M
Zinni
Khang
K
Vo
Jeanne
J
Townsend
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011336:Probability; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult