Test-retest reliability of the N2 event-related potential in school-aged children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

Abstract

Objective:The N2 ERP component is used as a biomeasure of executive function in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The aim of the current study was to evaluate the test-retest reliability of N2 amplitude in this population.Methods: ERPs were recorded from 7 to 11-year-old children with ASD during Flanker (n = 21) and Go/Nogo tasks (n = 14) administered at two time points separated by approximately three months. Reliability of the N2 component was examined using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs).Results: Reliability for mean N2 amplitude obtained during the Flanker task was moderate (congruent: ICC = 0.542, 95% CI [0.173,0.782]; incongruent: ICC = 0.629, 95% CI [0.276,0.831]). Similarly, reliability for the Go/Nogo task ranged from moderate to good ('go': ICC = 0.817, 95% CI [0.535,0.937]; 'nogo': ICC = 0.578, 95% CI [0.075,0.843]).Conclusions: These findings support the use of N2 amplitude as a biomeasure of executive function in school-aged children with ASD.Significance: This research addresses a critical gap in clinical neurophysiology, as an understanding of the stability and reliability of the N2 component is needed in order to

Looking for consistency in an uncertain world: test-retest reliability of neurophysiological and behavioral readouts in autism

“…Given the minimum interval between test/retest sessions across our cohort, we conclude that for the tested age-range of ~ 6 to 9.4 years, these reliability measures are valid for at least a 3-month interval. These results add to a still small but growing body of evidence for good test-retest reliability of the EEG/ERP response in ASD [ 56 , 57 ], and extends these findings to the early cortical sensory components as well as related RT data, and for a longer test-retest interval than previously shown. However, we also show that dataset size is an important variable for test-retest reliability, and that, at least for the current paradigm, a relatively large dataset is required for good test-retest reliability for visual ERPs.…”

“…Levin and colleagues [ 56 ] collected 5 min of resting state EEG from children with and without ASD at two intervals separated by ~ 6 days, and found good reliability of the center frequency and amplitude of the largest alpha-band peak. Cremone-Caira and colleagues [ 57 ] found moderate to good reliability of the executive function related frontal-N2 response elicited during go/nogo and flanker tasks in children with ASD across two time points separated by ~ 3 months.…”

The reliability of visual ERP components in children across the first year of school

“…Fewer studies have examined test–retest reliability in childhood, and as with ERP studies in general, these have focused primarily on later ERP components. Those studies that have examined reliability in this age range report moderate to high reliabilities over 3 months in a sample of children from 7 to 11 years of age (Cremone‐Caira et al., 2020), over a span of 3 years for a sample of children from 5 to 7 years of age (DuPuis et al., 2015) and over a period of 2 years in a sample of children from 8 to 13 years of age (Kujawa et al., 2013). In a lifespan comparison, Hämmerer et al.…”

“…Fewer studies have examined test-retest reliability in childhood, and as with ERP studies in general, these have focused primarily on later ERP components. Those studies that have examined reliability in this age range report moderate to high reliabilities over 3 months in a sample of children from 7 to 11 years of age (Cremone-Caira et al, 2020), over a span of 3 years for a sample of children from 5 to 7 years of age (DuPuis et al, 2015) and over a period of 2 years in a sample of children from 8 to 13 years of age (Kujawa et al, 2013). In a lifespan comparison, Hämmerer et al (2013) examined the short-term testretest reliability over a 2-week period on a performance monitoring task across four age groups: children (mean age 10.5 years), adolescents (mean age 14.38 years), young adults (mean age 24.27 years), and older adults (mean age 71.24 years) (Hämmerer et al, 2013).…”

Looking for Consistency in an Uncertain World: Test-Retest Reliability of Neurophysiological and Behavioral Readouts in Autism

“…Surprisingly few studies to date have sought to test the stability of these responses when participants, recording equipment, analytic approach, and stimulation parameters are held constant, which is particularly critical to establish if a biomarker is to be used as an outcome measure in a clinical trial, or as a reliable indicator of neural and neurocognitive dysfunction(54,55). Only two previous studies, as far as we are aware, examined the reliability of such measures across two recording sessions Levin and colleagues (56) collected 5 minutes of resting state EEG from children with and without ASD at two intervals separated by ~6 days, and found good reliability of the center frequency and amplitude of the largest alpha-band peak.Cremone-Caira and colleagues(57) found moderate to good consistency of the executive function related frontal-N2 response elicited during go/nogo and flanker tasks in children with ASD across two time points separated by ~3 months.Here we add to this emerging literature with the finding that in children with ASD, auditory and visual ERPs, as well as reaction-times collected in an accompanying target detection task, show good to excellent test-retest reliability. We found statistically significant test-retest reliability, as measured by the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient, for a full 15 of the 25 electrophysiological and behavioral measurements submitted to analysis, with significant ICC values ranging from 0.65 to…”