BIOMARKERS OF VISUAL PERCEPTION DYSFUNCTION IN AUTISM: PROGRESS AND DIRECTIONS IN EEG RESEARCH

As the world moves towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution, there is a need for formulations of neurophysiological biomarkers that ensure the accuracy of the diagnosis of visual perception dysfunction in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Biomarkers of visual perception dysfunction in ASD using EEG complements behavioral methods of diagnosis and allows for a more direct assessment of the dysfunction, identifying rapid, implicit neural processes that are not revealed through behavioral measures alone. This paper aims to review the neural biomarkers of the five domains of visual perception dysfunction (visual discrimination (VD), visual spatial relations (VSR), visual form constancy (VFC), visual memory (VM) and visual closure (VC)) in individuals with ASD. This paper shall help researchers gain new insight into the current trends and progress in EEG methods in ASD and discover gaps in the subject literature. A systematic literature search on PubMed was conducted to report findings of EEG studies that:1) assessed the severity levels in patients with ASD and 2) investigated the neural biomarkers of visual perception dysfunction in ASD. Spectral analysis, functional connectivity analysis and event-related potential (ERP) are useful in modern medicine to identify the biomarkers that distinguish the levels of the severity of visual perception dysfunction in ASD.