Open AccessElectrophysiological Measures of Infant Siblings of Children with Autism
Author(s) -
Kaufman Jordy,
Leila Dafner,
Angela Mayes,
Lauren Pigdon,
Sumie Leung
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
frontiers in human neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.128
H-Index - 114
ISSN - 1662-5161
DOI - 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2012.208.00198
Subject(s) - mismatch negativity , autism , autism spectrum disorder , sibling , psychology , developmental psychology , electroencephalography , audiology , clinical psychology , medicine , psychiatry
In this presentation we describe research from the Swinburne Babylab investigating possible electrophysiolgical predictors of autism spectrum disorders in young infants (aged 4 to 14 months). Infants were classified as belonging to a "high-risk" or "low-risk" group autism spectrum disorder, where high-risk was defined as having an older sibling with autism. Current data analysis reveals differences in duration mismatch responses when comparing both 4-month-old and 14-month-old high-risk infants to an age-matched low-risk group. While neither group shows a strong MMN response, the high-risk group shows a sustained (approximately 350 ms) increase in EEG amplitude, over the right hemisphere, beginning about 100 ms following deviant tone offset. Additionally, the high-risk group shows higher levels of resting gamma oscillatory activity at frontal and temporal regions than the low-risk group. This data is consistent with a number of recent findings from other labs demonstrating ectrophysiological elements in the broader autism phenotype. This work paves the way for our ongoing reasearch aimed at determining the suitability of these measures as neuromarkers for early diagnosis