Luminance- and Texture-Defined Information Processing in School-Aged Children with Autism

According to the complexity-specific hypothesis, the efficacy with which individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) process visual information varies according to the extensiveness of the neural network required to process stimuli. Specifically, adults with ASD are less sensitive to texture-def...

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Autores principales: Rivest, Jessica B., Jemel, Boutheina, Bertone, Armando, McKerral, Michelle, Mottron, Laurent
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3812000/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24205355
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0078978
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author Rivest, Jessica B.
Jemel, Boutheina
Bertone, Armando
McKerral, Michelle
Mottron, Laurent
author_facet Rivest, Jessica B.
Jemel, Boutheina
Bertone, Armando
McKerral, Michelle
Mottron, Laurent
author_sort Rivest, Jessica B.
collection PubMed
description According to the complexity-specific hypothesis, the efficacy with which individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) process visual information varies according to the extensiveness of the neural network required to process stimuli. Specifically, adults with ASD are less sensitive to texture-defined (or second-order) information, which necessitates the implication of several cortical visual areas. Conversely, the sensitivity to simple, luminance-defined (or first-order) information, which mainly relies on primary visual cortex (V1) activity, has been found to be either superior (static material) or intact (dynamic material) in ASD. It is currently unknown if these autistic perceptual alterations are present in childhood. In the present study, behavioural (threshold) and electrophysiological measures were obtained for static luminance- and texture-defined gratings presented to school-aged children with ASD and compared to those of typically developing children. Our behavioural and electrophysiological (P140) results indicate that luminance processing is likely unremarkable in autistic children. With respect to texture processing, there was no significant threshold difference between groups. However, unlike typical children, autistic children did not show reliable enhancements of brain activity (N230 and P340) in response to texture-defined gratings relative to luminance-defined gratings. This suggests reduced efficiency of neuro-integrative mechanisms operating at a perceptual level in autism. These results are in line with the idea that visual atypicalities mediated by intermediate-scale neural networks emerge before or during the school-age period in autism.
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spelling pubmed-38120002013-11-07 Luminance- and Texture-Defined Information Processing in School-Aged Children with Autism Rivest, Jessica B. Jemel, Boutheina Bertone, Armando McKerral, Michelle Mottron, Laurent PLoS One Research Article According to the complexity-specific hypothesis, the efficacy with which individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) process visual information varies according to the extensiveness of the neural network required to process stimuli. Specifically, adults with ASD are less sensitive to texture-defined (or second-order) information, which necessitates the implication of several cortical visual areas. Conversely, the sensitivity to simple, luminance-defined (or first-order) information, which mainly relies on primary visual cortex (V1) activity, has been found to be either superior (static material) or intact (dynamic material) in ASD. It is currently unknown if these autistic perceptual alterations are present in childhood. In the present study, behavioural (threshold) and electrophysiological measures were obtained for static luminance- and texture-defined gratings presented to school-aged children with ASD and compared to those of typically developing children. Our behavioural and electrophysiological (P140) results indicate that luminance processing is likely unremarkable in autistic children. With respect to texture processing, there was no significant threshold difference between groups. However, unlike typical children, autistic children did not show reliable enhancements of brain activity (N230 and P340) in response to texture-defined gratings relative to luminance-defined gratings. This suggests reduced efficiency of neuro-integrative mechanisms operating at a perceptual level in autism. These results are in line with the idea that visual atypicalities mediated by intermediate-scale neural networks emerge before or during the school-age period in autism. Public Library of Science 2013-10-24 /pmc/articles/PMC3812000/ /pubmed/24205355 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0078978 Text en © 2013 Rivest et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Rivest, Jessica B.
Jemel, Boutheina
Bertone, Armando
McKerral, Michelle
Mottron, Laurent
Luminance- and Texture-Defined Information Processing in School-Aged Children with Autism
title Luminance- and Texture-Defined Information Processing in School-Aged Children with Autism
title_full Luminance- and Texture-Defined Information Processing in School-Aged Children with Autism
title_fullStr Luminance- and Texture-Defined Information Processing in School-Aged Children with Autism
title_full_unstemmed Luminance- and Texture-Defined Information Processing in School-Aged Children with Autism
title_short Luminance- and Texture-Defined Information Processing in School-Aged Children with Autism
title_sort luminance- and texture-defined information processing in school-aged children with autism
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3812000/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24205355
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0078978
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