Auditory Deficits in Audiovisual Speech Perception in Adult Asperger’s Syndrome: fMRI Study

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Fabian-Alexander Tietze¹  Laura Hundertmark¹  Mandy Roy¹  Michael Zerr³  Christopher Sinke¹  Daniel Wiswede⁴  Martin Walter⁶  Thomas F. Münte⁴  Gregor R. Szycik¹ 

[1] Department of Psychiatry, Hannover Medical School;Asklepios Clinic North – Ochsenzoll;Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Hannover Medical School;Institute of Psychology II, University of Lübeck;Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck;Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen

关键词: Asperger’s syndrome;    autism;    audiovisual;    speech;    multisensory;    fMRI;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02286

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Audiovisual (AV) integration deficits have been proposed to underlie difficulties in speech perception in Asperger’s syndrome (AS). It is not known, if the AV deficits are related to alterations in sensory processing at the level of unisensory processing or at levels of conjoint multisensory processing. Functional Magnetic-resonance images (MRI) was performed in 16 adult subjects with AS and 16 healthy controls (HC) matched for age, gender, and verbal IQ as they were exposed to disyllabic AV congruent and AV incongruent nouns. A simple semantic categorization task was used to ensure subjects’ attention to the stimuli. The left auditory cortex (BA41) showed stronger activation in HC than in subjects with AS with no interaction regarding AV congruency. This suggests that alterations in auditory processing in unimodal low-level areas underlie AV speech perception deficits in AS. Whether this is signaling a difficulty in the deployment of attention remains to be demonstrated.

【 授权许可】

CC BY