Neurophysiological evidence for cortical discrimination impairment of prosody in Asperger syndrome

Asperger syndrome (AS), belonging to the autism spectrum of disorders, is one of the pervasive developmental disorders. Individuals with AS usually have normal development of formal speech but pronounced problems in perceiving and producing speech prosody. The present study addressed the discriminat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuroscience letters 2005-08, Vol.383 (3), p.260-265
Main Authors: Kujala, T., Lepistö, T., Nieminen-von Wendt, T., Näätänen, P., Näätänen, R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Asperger syndrome
Asperger Syndrome - physiopathology
Auditory processing
Biological and medical sciences
Case-Control Studies
Cerebral Cortex - physiopathology
Contingent Negative Variation - physiology
Discrimination (Psychology) - physiology
Electroencephalography
Emotion
Emotions - physiology
Evoked Potentials, Auditory - physiology
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Male
Mismatch negativity
Prosody
Reaction Time - physiology
Speech Discrimination Tests - methods
Speech Disorders - etiology
Speech Disorders - physiopathology
Speech Perception - physiology
Vertebrates: nervous system and sense organs
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Summary:Asperger syndrome (AS), belonging to the autism spectrum of disorders, is one of the pervasive developmental disorders. Individuals with AS usually have normal development of formal speech but pronounced problems in perceiving and producing speech prosody. The present study addressed the discrimination of speech prosody in AS by recording the mismatch negativity (MMN) and behavioural responses to natural utterances with different emotional connotations. MMN responses were abnormal in the adults with AS in several ways. In these subjects, fewer significantly elicited MMNs, diminished MMN amplitudes, as well as prolonged latencies were found. In addition, the MMN generator loci differed between the subjects with AS and control subjects. These findings were predominant over the right cerebral hemisphere. These results show impaired neurobiological basis for speech-prosody processing at an early, pre-attentive auditory discrimination stage in AS.
ISSN:0304-3940
1872-7972
DOI:10.1016/j.neulet.2005.04.048