Unraveling neural adaptation to vocal and non-vocal sounds in autism.

Objective: Autism is linked to a strong need for sameness and difficulties in social communication, associated with atypical brain responses to voices and changes. This study aimed to characterize neural adaptation in autistic adults using a Roving paradigm and assess how vocal vs. non-vocal, as well as neutral vs. emotional sounds, influence this adaptation.
Methods: Neural adaptation was measured in 20 autistic and 20 non-autistic adults using a Roving paradigm, where sounds were repeated 4, 8, or 14 times. Neural responses and Repetition Positivity (RP) amplitudes were analyzed as indices of adaptation.
Results: RP amplitudes showed no significant differences between groups for vocal or non-vocal sounds, but adaptation dynamics varied. Non-autistic adults adapted more quickly to non-vocal (5-8 repetitions) compared to vocal sounds (12-14 repetitions). In contrast, autistic adults adapt faster to vocal than to non-vocal sounds. Moreover emotional prosodic content influenced RP amplitude in autistic adults only, suggesting heightened sensitivity to emotional cues in social contexts.
Conclusions: The study highlights how atypical neural adaptation in autism how emotional content impacts social communication deficits. These insights enhance understanding of autism-related adaptation challenges.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2024 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)