Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has high prevalence among males compared to females but mechanisms underlying the differences between sexes are poorly investigated. Moreover, autistic symptoms show a continuity in the general population and are referred to as autistic traits in people without an ASD diagnosis. One of the symptoms of ASD is sensory processing differences both in sensitivity and perception. To investigate sensory processing differences in autistic traits, we examined auditory and visual processing in a healthy population. We recruited 75 individuals (39 females and 36 males, mean age = 23.01 years, SD = 3.23 years) and assessed autistic traits using the Autism Spectrum Quotient, and sensory sensitivity using the Sensory Sensitivity Scales. Sensory processing in the visual domain was examined with the radial motion stimulus and the auditory domain was assessed with the 1,000 Hz pure tone stimulus with electroencephalography-evoked potentials. The results showed that the auditory sensitivity scores of the males (raud (34) = 0.396, paud = 0.017) and the visual sensitivity scores of females were correlated with autistic traits (rvis (37) = 0.420, pvis = 0.008). Moreover, the P2 latency for the auditory stimulus was prolonged in the participants with a higher level of autistic traits (rs (61) = 0.411, p = 0.008), and this correlation was only observed in males (rs (31) = 0.542, p = 0.001). We propose that auditory processing differences are related to autistic traits in neurotypicals, particularly in males. Our findings emphasize the importance of considering sex differences in autistic traits and ASD.

Highlights

  • Sex differences at behavioral and neural levels have long been recognized (Cahill, 2006), information concerning the measures of neural processing differences related to sex is still scarce

  • Auditory Sensitivity for Males, Visual Sensitivity for Females Is Correlated With Autistic Traits

  • Auditory sensitivity was not correlated with auditory potentials, and visual sensitivity was not correlated with visual potentials (p > 0.05)

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Summary

Introduction

Sex differences at behavioral and neural levels have long been recognized (Cahill, 2006), information concerning the measures of neural processing differences related to sex is still scarce. A potential difference in the pattern of sex bias is the preponderance of early onset neurodevelopmental disorders in males, which might indicate biological differences between sex. Auditory Processing in Relation to Autistic Traits disorder (ASD), dyslexia, and early onset schizophrenia are seen at a higher rate among men (McCarthy et al, 2012). Similar to all neurodevelopmental disorders, ASD has high male prevalence at a ratio of 4:1 (Werling and Geschwind, 2013). This difference in sex prevalence has been recognized since Asperger made his first observations (Bryson and Smith, 1998; Fombonne, 2003, 2009). There are many possible explanations ranging from the differences in the mechanisms involved in males and females to the presence of protective mechanisms in the latter or vulnerability mechanisms in the former (Halladay et al, 2015; Lai et al, 2015; Ferri et al, 2018; Zhang et al, 2020)

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