ObjectivesThe study was aimed at investigating the alterations of local spontaneous brain activity in preschool boys with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).MethodsBased on regional homogeneity (ReHo), the acquired resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data sets, which included 86 boys with ASD and 54 typically developing (TD) boys, were used to detect regional brain activity. Pearson correlation analysis was used to study the relationship between abnormal ReHo value and the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS), Autism Behavior Checklist (ABC), developmental quotient, and age.ResultsIn the ASD group, we found increased ReHo in the right calcarine as well as decreased ReHo in the opercular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus, the left middle temporal gyrus, the left angular gyrus, and the right medial orbital frontal cortex (p < 0.05, false discovery rate correction). We did not find a correlation between the results of brain regions and the CARS, ABC, and age.ConclusionsOur study found spontaneous activity changes in multiple brain regions, especially the visual and language-related areas of ASD, that may help to further understand the clinical characteristics of boys with ASD.

Objective: The present study aimed to examine the effects of SNAP25 on the integration ability of intrinsic brain functions in children with ADHD, and whether the integration ability was associated with working memory (WM). Methods: A sliding time window method was used to calculate the spatial and temporal concordance among five rs-fMRI regional indices in 55 children with ADHD and 20 healthy controls. Results: The SNAP25 exhibited significant interaction effects with ADHD diagnosis on the voxel-wise concordance in the right posterior central gyrus, fusiform gyrus and lingual gyrus. Specifically, for children with ADHD, G-carriers showed increased voxel-wise concordance in comparison to TT homozygotes in the right precentral gyrus, superior frontal gyrus, postcentral gyrus, and middle frontal gyrus. The voxel-wise concordance was also found to be related to WM. Conclusion: Our findings provided a new insight into the neural mechanisms of the brain function of ADHD children.

Summary An isolated sternal cleft is an orphan congenital defect of the sternum that presents from birth to adulthood. We report the case of a 4‐day‐old newborn with an isolated congenital cleft sternum. We also reviewed the related literature and operative options.

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Purpose To analyze the changes in white matter tracts in preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and the correlation between these changes and social communication deficits. Methods Diffuse tensor imaging was used to assess white matter integrity using tract-based spatial statistics in a sample of 50 right-handed children with ASD aged 2–6 years vis a reference sample of 46 typically developing children aged 2–6 years. We then correlated these significant different fiber tracts between groups with communication and social interaction scores using the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised Assessment (ADI-R) Scale. Results We observed decreased fractional anisotropy (FA) in tracts including the left superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), the splenium of the corpus callosum (splCC), the left corticospinal tracts, and the left inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF) in children with ASD. Specifically, there was reduced white matter integrity of these tracts in the left cerebral hemisphere. In addition, we found that the decreased FA of left SLF and ILF was negatively associated with the ADI-R scores in children with ASD. Conclusion The structural integrity of some white matter tracts in the five-level anatomical model for the social communication was reduced. The reduced integrity white matter that we observed primarily in the left cerebral hemisphere may be a neural substrate of social communication deficits in preschool children with ASD, and we speculate that the reduction is associated with the severity of social interaction. The reduced FA of the splCC might be a substantial biomarker for children with ASD.