TY - JOUR
T1 - Electrophysiological evidence for selective impairment of optic flow perception in autism spectrum disorder
AU - Yamasaki, Takao
AU - Fujita, Takako
AU - Ogata, Katsuya
AU - Goto, Yoshinobu
AU - Munetsuna, Shinji
AU - Kamio, Yoko
AU - Tobimatsu, Shozo
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by a grant from JST, RISTEX . We sincerely thank all subjects for their enthusiastic contributions to the research project. We would like to thank Ms. Naoko Inada for her recruitment of subjects and Ms. Ikue Ijichi and Yuka Miyanaga for their technical contributions.
PY - 2011/1
Y1 - 2011/1
N2 - People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often show inferior global motion performance with superior performance in detail form perception, suggesting dysfunction of the dorsal visual stream. To elucidate the neural basis of impaired global motion perception in ASD, we measured psychophysical threshold and visual event-related potentials (ERPs) with a 128-channel system in 12 ASD and 12 healthy control adults. Radial optic flow (OF) and horizontal motion (HO) were used as the visual stimuli. The former was related to the ventro-dorsal stream formed by the inferior parietal lobule, while the latter was conveyed from the dorso-dorsal stream formed by the superior parietal lobule. No significant group differences were observed in the motion thresholds for both OF and HO. N170 and P200 were elicited as major components of ERPs in both groups. However, the latencies of both components for OF but not HO were significantly prolonged in ASD compared with the control group. Our ERP results suggest that ASD has a selective impairment for OF processing even though the psychophysical thresholds are preserved. Therefore, we provide the first electrophysiological evidence for altered function of the higher-level dorsal visual stream in ASD, specifically the ventro-dorsal stream closely related to OF perception.
AB - People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often show inferior global motion performance with superior performance in detail form perception, suggesting dysfunction of the dorsal visual stream. To elucidate the neural basis of impaired global motion perception in ASD, we measured psychophysical threshold and visual event-related potentials (ERPs) with a 128-channel system in 12 ASD and 12 healthy control adults. Radial optic flow (OF) and horizontal motion (HO) were used as the visual stimuli. The former was related to the ventro-dorsal stream formed by the inferior parietal lobule, while the latter was conveyed from the dorso-dorsal stream formed by the superior parietal lobule. No significant group differences were observed in the motion thresholds for both OF and HO. N170 and P200 were elicited as major components of ERPs in both groups. However, the latencies of both components for OF but not HO were significantly prolonged in ASD compared with the control group. Our ERP results suggest that ASD has a selective impairment for OF processing even though the psychophysical thresholds are preserved. Therefore, we provide the first electrophysiological evidence for altered function of the higher-level dorsal visual stream in ASD, specifically the ventro-dorsal stream closely related to OF perception.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.rasd.2010.06.002
DO - 10.1016/j.rasd.2010.06.002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77957363663
SN - 1750-9467
VL - 5
SP - 400
EP - 407
JO - Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders
JF - Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders
IS - 1
ER -
