Abstract

Sensory differences are common in autism, yet have received surprisingly little attention. We know little about the underlying neural mechanisms of these sensory differences, in part due to the wide use of broad, scoping, questionnaires, or by isolated experimental studies. In this talk I will present a series of studies examining sensory differences in autism from brain, to behaviour, using multimodal approaches. First, we developed a battery of psychophysical experiments to examine differences in perceptual sensitivity, showing robust, and reproducible differences in autism, across developmental stages. Then, I will show how these measures associate with higher-order autistic traits including sensory reactivity as well as mental health challenges. I will also show how perceptual differences contribute to aversive sensory experiences. Delving more into the biology, we the used Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy to link these sensory differences to differences in excitatory and inhibitory (E/I) neurotransmitter concentrations of glutamate and GABA in the autistic brain, which appears driven by genetic variability in these E/I systems. Finally, using GAB Aergic pharmacological approaches we are able to causally “shift” sensory markers, which in turn, are predictive of clinical improvements.