Lower Cortical Activation and Altered Functional Connectivity Characterize Passive Auditory Spatial Attention in ASD.

Researchers studied how children with autism process sounds coming from different directions compared to other children. They found that autistic children's brains respond differently when sounds move from one side to the other. The brain areas involved in hearing and attention work together differently in autism, which may help explain some of the hearing and attention challenges that autistic children experience.

This neuroimaging study examined auditory spatial attention in 21 children with autism (ages 6-17) compared to 31 typically developing children using magnetoencephalography. Participants passively listened to sounds that either stayed in one location or moved between sides while watching a silent movie. Children with autism showed reduced cortical activation in auditory regions when sounds changed location, along with altered functional connectivity patterns between auditory and attention-related brain regions. These connectivity differences correlated with both auditory processing abilities and autism symptom severity, suggesting that passive auditory spatial attention processing differs neurologically in autism compared to typical development.

Findings suggest auditory spatial attention differences in autism have identifiable neural signatures. This may inform development of targeted interventions for auditory processing difficulties and help clinicians better understand sensory challenges experienced by autistic individuals.

Small sample size (21 autism participants), passive listening task may not reflect real-world auditory processing demands, cross-sectional design limits understanding of developmental trajectories, unclear generalizability to broader autism population.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental condition characterized by difficulties in social interaction, communication, and sensory processing. The ability to orient towards sounds is a key component of social interactions, yet auditory spatial attention remains relatively understudied in ASD, despite prior research indicating differences in this domain. Here, we investigate the neural signatures associated with passive auditory spatial attention in children with ASD (n = 21, ages 6-17) relative to age- and IQ-matched Typically Developing (TD) children (n = 31), using source-localized magnetoencephalography (MEG). Participants listened passively, while watching a silenced movie, to non-social auditory stimuli designed to either remain lateralized to one hemifield (stay trials) or to change in location from one side to the contralateral hemifield (jump trials).

Linear mixed effects modeling showed lower cortical activation in the auditory cortex in the ASD group in response to jump trials, relative to the TD group. Additionally, functional connectivity analyses showed higher alpha-band functional connectivity in the ASD group between left auditory cortex seeds and right prefrontal and left parietal regions known to be recruited during auditory spatial attention. Right prefrontal alpha-band connectivity estimates were associated with behaviorally assessed auditory processing scores, whereas left parietal connectivity estimates were associated with ASD symptomatology. Our results align with the hypothesis that auditory spatial attention generally, and specifically orientation to sounds even when experienced passively, differs in ASD versus TD children.