title: An Examination of the Neural Unreliability Thesis of Autism.
abstract: An emerging neuropathological theory of Autism, referred to here as "the neural unreliability thesis," proposes greater variability in moment-to-moment cortical representation of environmental events, such that the system shows general instability in its impulse response function. Leading evidence for this thesis derives from functional neuroimaging, a methodology ill-suited for detailed assessment of sensory transmission dynamics occurring at the millisecond scale. Electrophysiological assessments of this thesis, however, are sparse and unconvincing. We conducted detailed examination of visual and somatosensory evoked activity using high-density electrical mapping in individuals with autism (N = 20) and precisely matched neurotypical controls (N = 20), recording large numbers of trials that allowed for exhaustive time-frequency analyses at the single-trial level. Measures of intertrial coherence and event-related spectral perturbation revealed no convincing evidence for an unreliability account of sensory responsivity in autism. Indeed, results point to robust, highly reproducible response functions marked for their exceedingly close correspondence to those in neurotypical controls.
authors.affiliation: The Sheryl and Daniel R. Tishman Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, Department of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY 10461, USA.|School of Mathematical Sciences, Dublin Institute of Technology, Kevin Street, Dublin 8, Ireland.|Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
authors.forename: John S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Butler
authors.affiliation: The Sheryl and Daniel R. Tishman Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, Department of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY 10461, USA.|The Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience, Rose F. Kennedy Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10461, USA.
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Molholm
authors.affiliation: The Sheryl and Daniel R. Tishman Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, Department of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY 10461, USA.
authors.forename: Gizely N
authors.initials: GN
authors.lastname: Andrade
authors.affiliation: The Sheryl and Daniel R. Tishman Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, Department of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY 10461, USA.|Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.|The Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience, Rose F. Kennedy Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10461, USA.|Department of Neuroscience, The Ernest J. Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY 14642, USA.
authors.forename: John J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Foxe
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005073:Evoked Potentials, Somatosensory; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000503:physiopathology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
keywords: EEG; autism; event-related potential; somatosensory; visual