Scientists have identified the peculiarities of the brain response of adolescents with autism to voices

Areas of the brain associated with reward and attention distribution in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders do not become more susceptible to unfamiliar voices as they grow older. This was reported on July 13 in the journal Medical Xpress.

79 children and adolescents aged seven to 17 years participated in the experiment. 39 participants were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, and 40 more participants made up the control group. The children were selected based on age, gender, and level of intellectual development.

During functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants listened to meaningless words spoken by their mothers and two unknown women. They also included household sounds, such as the sound of a dishwasher running. Meaningless words were used to reduce the effect of speech meaning on brain activity.

In neurotypical adolescents, the response of reward and significance systems to voices increased with age. The brain's interest in unfamiliar voices increased especially noticeably, which may be due to the expansion of the social circle and the search for new social connections.

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No such age dynamics was observed in adolescents with autism. In some cases, the activity of the corresponding areas in response to voices was even lower in older participants than in younger children with autism.

At the same time, the brains of adolescents with autism spectrum disorders reacted more strongly to their mother's voice. The more pronounced the difficulties in social communication, the more noticeable the preference for a familiar voice became.

The researchers emphasized that the results do not mean that adolescents with autism lack a desire for friendship or other social relationships. On the contrary, many of them want to expand their social circle, but the peculiarities of processing voice information can complicate this process.

The authors consider adolescence to be an important period for developing new support methods. Most of the existing programs are focused on preschoolers, although the brain continues to actively develop and retains plasticity throughout adolescence.

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On June 1, Lusine Khachatryan, Head of the Department of Pediatric Neurology at Sechenov University, spoke about the growing number of complex neurological diseases in children. She noted that among such conditions there are hereditary disorders, de novo mutations and metabolic diseases. According to the specialist, early detection of such diseases allows timely correction of disorders and increase the effectiveness of treatment.