Although diagnosed based on sociocommunicative deficits, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by superior performance on selective attention tasks, particularly visual search. In neurotypical individuals, region-specific concentrations of GABA are associated with differences in attention and perception. While it has been hypothesized that ASD may be associated with an excitatory-inhibitory imbalance, it remains unclear how this may contribute to autistic search advantage. To test this, 10 children with ASD participated in a magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) study using MEGA-semi-LASER to detect GABA concentrations in target regions, including the frontal eye fields, temporal parietal junction, and visual cortex.
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