Little kid meltdowns leave clear evidence, like food spilled on floors or walls or, say, toys cast across the room. Now, scientists say that they can watch some children’s meltdowns unfold in their brains. This finding could pave the way for future treatments for kids with pronounced behavioral and emotional reactions to certain stimuli.
This is known as sensory over-responsivity, or SOR, the most common form of a condition called sensory processing disorder, which is not considered an official medical diagnosis. SOR, specifically, describes discomfort from typically harmless stimuli including flashing lights, vacuum cleaners, and certain food textures. This can result in behaviors such as meltdowns and withdrawal. SOR seems to be particularly prevalent among children with autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but it’s estimated that some 5 to 12 percent of children in the United States experience sensory processing challenges.
Studying SOR could help scientists better understand how two types of crucial brain networks differ in neurodiverse children, according to a paper recently published in the Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders. The outward-focused exogenous systems are linked with functions including sensation and motor skills, while the inward-focused endogenous systems relate to functions such as impulse control and cognition. Brain activity in kids with SOR could offer valuable insights into this question because the condition involves both of these systems.
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To this end, a team of U.S. researchers scanned the brains of 83 neurodivergent children between 8 and 12 years old. Around half were particularly sensitive to some lights, noises, or tactile sensations, according to results from a sensory processing assessment, while the other half were not. The team studied these children's brains with functional MRI, which measures brain activity via shifts in blood oxygenation levels, while they looked at an object on a screen. Ultimately, scans from the two groups showed clear distinctions.
In the over-responsive children, activity in brain networks associated with outward functions was relatively low. But in the brain networks related to inward functions, activity was elevated. These results were flipped in the less sensitive children.
“We think that when you are overstimulated by sensory input, you compensate by dialing up your brain’s inward-focused networks to gain self-control. You also dial down your outward-focused networks to minimize sensory input,” said study author Pratik Mukherjee, a neuroradiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, in a statement. “The kids who aren’t emotionally overwhelmed by the input—some are even under-responsive to it—do the opposite.”
Treatment for children with sensory over-responsivity typically involves “gradually exposing them to sensory input over time so they learn to tolerate,” the statement noted. Now, Mukherjee thinks that doctors could personalize and boost these treatments “If we know an individual child’s brain patterns and how that maps to emotion and behavior.” 
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