2017 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 174-180
Numerous neurocognitive studies have used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) due to its advantages, such as portability and tolerance to participantsʼ motion-related artifacts. The present paper focuses on developmental cognitive neuroscience addressing typical and atypical brain development involving Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) based on fNIRS data. First, an fNIRS study examined differences in tactile processing between a neurotypica (lNT) group and an ASD group. Results showed that prefrontal cortical responses and heart rate changes were weaker in the ASD group than in the NT group in both Aβ-targeted and CT-targeted tactile stimulation conditions. This result suggests that individuals with ASD do not have a specific deficit in response to the CT-targeted tactile stimulus, which is closely related to social touch. Second, from our ongoing project to assess intervention effects on ASD using fNIRS, we report some preliminary results obtained from comparisons of auditory responses between pre- and post-interventions. These results suggest a potential role of fNIRS in clinical situations as well as in basic research.
