Weaker neural suppression in autism
Open Access
- 29 May 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Nature Communications
- Vol. 11 (1), 2675
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16495-z
Abstract
Abnormal sensory processing has been observed in autism, including superior visual motion discrimination, but the neural basis for these sensory changes remains unknown. Leveraging well-characterized suppressive neural circuits in the visual system, we used behavioral and fMRI tasks to demonstrate a significant reduction in neural suppression in young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared to neurotypical controls. MR spectroscopy measurements revealed no group differences in neurotransmitter signals. We show how a computational model that incorporates divisive normalization, as well as narrower top-down gain (that could result, for example, from a narrower window of attention), can explain our observations and divergent previous findings. Thus, weaker neural suppression is reflected in visual task performance and fMRI measures in ASD, and may be attributable to differences in top-down processing.Keywords
Funding Information
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH106520, R01 MH098228)
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Eye Institute (F32 EY025121, T32 EY00703)
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Eye Institute
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute of Mental Health
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (R01 EB016089, P41 EB015909)
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
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