Asperger's Syndrome Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Asperger's Syndrome, including details on symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, medication.

Atypical pattern of discriminating sound features in adults with Asperger syndrome as reflected by the mismatch negativity.

Kujala T, Aho E, Lepistö T, Jansson-Verkasalo E, Nieminen-von Wendt T, von Wendt L, Näätänen R

Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, PO Box 9, Helsinki FIN-00014, Finland. teija.m.kujala@helsinki.fi

Asperger syndrome, which belongs to the autistic spectrum of disorders, is characterized by deficits of social interaction and abnormal perception, like hypo- or hypersensitivity in reacting to sounds and discriminating certain sound features. We determined auditory feature discrimination in adults with Asperger syndrome with the mismatch negativity (MMN), a neural response which is an index of cortical change detection. We recorded MMN for five different sound features (duration, frequency, intensity, location, and gap). Our results suggest hypersensitive auditory change detection in Asperger syndrome, as reflected in the enhanced MMN for deviant sounds with a gap or shorter duration, and speeded MMN elicitation for frequency changes.

Published 19 March 2007 in Biol Psychol, 75(1): 109-14.
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