Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 70, Issue 3, 1 August 2011, Pages 263-269
Biological Psychiatry

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

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2011.01.015Get rights and content

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.

Methods

Fifty-one children with ASD, and 27 neurotypical control subjects, all aged 6 to 15 years, underwent neuropsychological evaluation, including tests of language function, as well as magnetoencephalographic recording during presentation of tones and vowels. The MMF was identified in the difference waveform obtained from subtraction of responses to standard from deviant stimuli.

Results

Magnetic mismatch field latency was significantly prolonged (p < .001) in children with ASD, compared with neurotypical control subjects. Furthermore, this delay was most pronounced (∼50 msec) in children with concomitant LI, with significant differences in latency between children with ASD with LI and those without (p < .01). Receiver operator characteristic analysis indicated a sensitivity of 82.4% and specificity of 71.2% for diagnosing LI based on MMF latency.

Conclusions

Neural correlates of auditory change detection (the MMF) are significantly delayed in children with ASD, and especially those with concomitant LI, suggesting a neurobiological basis as well as a clinical biomarker for LI in ASD.

Section snippets

Participants

Subjects with ASD were recruited from the Regional Autism Center of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the Neuropsychiatry program of the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and from local and regional parent support groups, such as the Asperger Syndrome Information Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, Autism Society of America, and Autism Speaks. All children screened for inclusion in the ASD sample had a prior ASD diagnosis made by an expert

Results

Table 2 shows the mean and range of accepted deviant and standard trials for each group. In general, ASD subjects had slightly noisier data, resulting in fewer accepted epochs in the ASD than TD group for both standard and deviant stimuli. Although the TD group had more accepted trials than the ASD group, examination of Table 2 shows that the difference between groups was small and, as such, it is unlikely that the MMF findings are due to group differences in trial numbers (i.e., the number of

Discussion

As hypothesized, the main finding was a delayed MMF latency in children with autism, particularly pronounced in the ASD/+LI group. In light of the group MMF latency effect and absence of group by hemisphere, frequency, or stimulus interactions, the findings demonstrate that a delayed MMF latency in ASD is robust. Thus, it appears that the time course of the auditory mismatch response is a neural index of language impairment in ASD, a finding confirmed by receiver operator characteristic

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