Sensory processing dysregulation as a regulatory core in ASD, ADHD, and PTSD

Sensory processing abnormalities are consistently observed in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), manifesting as patterns of hyper- and hypo-responsivity across auditory, tactile, visual, olfactory, and nociceptive domains. These abnormalities are typically treated as secondary features rather than mechanistic contributors to core dysfunction, limiting our understanding of how sensory encoding and filtering shape emotional regulation, attentional control, and reward-based behavior.

Emerging evidence supports a framework in which sensory dysregulation can exert an upstream influence on motivational, attentional, and emotional regulatory systems, while also being shaped by them, a bidirectional relationship whose directionality remains experimentally underdetermined.
In ADHD, altered sensory responsiveness correlates with attentional and emotional dysregulation and is normalized alongside these symptoms by dopaminergic and noradrenergic modulation (e.g., methylphenidate, atomoxetine), suggesting shared neurochemical control of sensory gain and cognitive-emotional function. In ASD, impaired encoding of socially relevant cues reduces their salience and reward value, offering a candidate mechanism for diminished social motivation. In PTSD, exaggerated sensory reactivity, linked to thalamocortical filtering deficits and heightened insula-mediated salience attribution, biases threat detection and disrupts goal-directed behavior.

Across these conditions, dysregulated sensory gain emerges as a key determinant of how stimuli acquire motivational and emotional significance. Yet because altered reward and emotional states can themselves bias sensory gating, disentangling primary sensory contributions from those secondary to motivational or emotional bias remains a central, unresolved methodological challenge.

This Research Topic evaluates how sensory dysregulation modulates reward processing, emotional regulation, attention, and decision-making across ASD, ADHD, and PTSD, and asks whether it acts as an upstream driver or arises secondarily from affective and motivational states. We welcome work addressing this directionality problem through causal, longitudinal, developmental, or computational approaches. The Topic focuses on neural substrates linking sensory encoding to downstream valuation and regulatory systems, particularly thalamocortical gating and insula-centred salience networks, and critically re-examines widely used preclinical assays such as the sucrose preference test, given evidence that sensory biases can confound behavioral readouts of motivational state.

By integrating clinical, preclinical, and computational approaches, this Topic aims to establish a mechanistic framework for how altered sensory input reshapes motivational, emotional, and goal-directed behavior, and to define strategies for dissociating primary sensory contributions from those secondary to emotional and hedonic dysregulation.
Subthemes include:

- Disentangling primary sensory dysregulation from sensory bias secondary to reward or emotional dysfunction in ASD, ADHD, and PTSD.
- Reciprocal interactions between affective state and sensory gating.
- Sensory modulation of reward valuation and effort-based decision-making.
- Impaired sensory gating as a mechanistic basis of attentional and motivational dysregulation.
- Thalamocortical filtering and insula-mediated salience processing.
- Aberrant sensory encoding of social cues and its role in social withdrawal.
- Operant sensory-discrimination paradigms (e.g., odor learning) as models of sensory-controlled associative and reward learning.
- Reinterpreting the sucrose preference test: separating hedonic deficits from sensory biases.
- Dopaminergic and noradrenergic control of sensory gain and its links to motivation and attention.
- Early-life stress and neurodevelopmental timing as modulators of sensory processing and motivational outcomes.
- Computational models of sensory–affective coupling for dissociating primary from secondary contributions.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• ... View all formats

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Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: sensory, emotional, attentional, social, dysregulation, modulation, ADHD, ASD, PTSD, regulatory, paradigm shift, motivation, olfactory regulation, auditory regulation, gustatory regulation, operant odour learning, sucrose preference test

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.