Sensory over-responsivity (SOR) is an impairing sensory processing challenge in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) which shows heterogenous developmental trajectories and appears to improve into adulthood in some but not all autistic individuals. However, the neural mechanisms underlying interindividual differences in these trajectories are currently unknown. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the association between age and neural activity linearly and nonlinearly in response to mildly aversive sensory stimulation as well as how SOR severity moderates this association. Participants included 52 ASD (14F) and 41 (13F) typically developing (TD) youth, aged 8.6–18.0 years. We found that in pre-teens, ASD children showed widespread activation differences in sensorimotor, frontal and cerebellar regions compared to TD children, while there were fewer differences between ASD and TD teens. In TD youth, older age was associated with less activation in the prefrontal cortex. In contrast, in ASD youth, older age was associated with more engagement of sensory integration and emotion regulation regions. In particular, orbitofrontal and medial prefrontal cortices showed a nonlinear relationship with age in ASD, with an especially steep increase in sensory-evoked neural activity during the mid-to-late teen years. There was also an interaction between age and SOR severity in ASD youth such that these age-related trends were more apparent in youth with higher SOR. The cross-sectional design limits causal interpretations of the data. Future longitudinal studies will be instrumental in determining how prefrontal engagement and SOR co-develop across adolescence. Our results suggest that enhanced recruitment of prefrontal regions may underlie age-related decreases in SOR for a subgroup of ASD youth.

中文翻译：

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自闭症患者对感觉刺激的神经反应与年龄相关的变化：一项横断面研究

感觉过度反应（SOR）是自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）中一种损害感觉处理的挑战，它表现出异质的发育轨迹，并且在一些（但并非所有）自闭症个体中似乎会改善到成年期。然而，这些轨迹的个体差异背后的神经机制目前尚不清楚。在这里，我们使用功能磁共振成像 (fMRI) 来研究年龄和神经活动之间的线性和非线性关联，以响应轻度厌恶的感觉刺激，以及 SOR 严重程度如何调节这种关联。参与者包括 52 名 ASD (14F) 和 41 名 (13F) 典型发育 (TD) 青少年，年龄 8.6-18.0 岁。我们发现，在青少年时期，与 TD 儿童相比，ASD 儿童在感觉运动、额叶和小脑区域表现出广泛的激活差异，而 ASD 和 TD 青少年之间的差异较小。在 TD 青少年中，年龄较大与前额叶皮层激活较少有关。相比之下，在自闭症谱系障碍青少年中，年龄越大，感觉统合和情绪调节区域的参与程度越高。特别是，在自闭症谱系障碍中，眶额叶和内侧前额叶皮质与年龄呈非线性关系，在青少年中晚期，感觉诱发的神经活动尤其急剧增加。ASD 青少年的年龄和 SOR 严重程度之间也存在相互作用，因此这些与年龄相关的趋势在 SOR 较高的青少年中更为明显。横截面设计限制了数据的因果解释。未来的纵向研究将有助于确定前额参与和 SOR 如何在青春期共同发展。我们的结果表明，对于自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）青年亚群来说，前额叶区域的募集增强可能是与年龄相关的 SOR 下降的原因。