Profiles of executive function in parents and siblings of individuals with autism spectrum disorders

Wong, Dana; Maybery, Murray T.; Bishop, Dvm; Maley, Alana; Hallmayer, Joachim

doi:10.1111/j.1601-183x.2006.00199.x

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 63 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Other than autistic symptoms, neurocognitive deficits have been reported in individuals with ASD, particularly in executive function [Rommelse et al, 2011;Tager-Flusberg and Joseph, 2003], visual memory , and spatial working memory (SWM) [Kercood et al, 2014;Vogan et al, 2014]. Their unaffected siblings are also likely to share the impairment or show compensatory functioning [Hughes et al, 1999;Noland et al, 2010;Wong et al, 2006], but the underlying mechanism is poorly understood. Overall, working memory processes are largely subserved by the prefrontal cortex and the parietal cortex [Baddeley, 2003;Carlson et al, 1998;Fuster, 2000;Greene et al, 2008;Kwon et al, 2002;Owen et al, 2005], while visual memory involves a broader system of the prefrontal, premotor, dorsal cingulate, and posterior parietal activation [Owen et al, 2005].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Altered white‐matter integrity in unaffected siblings of probands with autism spectrum disorders

Chien

Chen

Hsu

et al. 2017

Human Brain Mapping

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Despite the evidence of altered white-matter tract property in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), little is known about their unaffected siblings. This study aimed to investigate white-matter integrity in unaffected siblings of ASD probands. Thirty-nine unaffected siblings (mean age 15.6 ± 6.0 years; 27 males, 69.2%) and 39 typically developing controls (TDC) (14.2 ± 5.6 years; 26 males, 66.7%) were assessed with diffusion spectrum images and neuropsychological tests. Using the tract-based automatic analysis and the threshold-free cluster weighted (TFCW) scores, we searched for the segments among 76 tracts with the largest difference over the entire brain compared to TDC. Tract integrity was quantified by calculating the mean generalized fractional anisotropy (mGFA) values of the segments with the largest difference in TFCW scores. Unaffected siblings showed reduced mGFA in the bilateral frontal aslant tracts, the right superior longitudinal fasciculus 2 (SLF2), the frontostriatal tracts from the right dorsolateral and left ventrolateral prefrontal cortices, the thalamic radiations of the left ventral and the right dorsal thalamus, the callosal fibers of the splenium, and the increased mGFA of the callosal fibers of the precuneus and the left inferior longitudinal fasciculus. Among these, reduced right SLF2 mGFA was associated with social awareness deficits; impaired frontostriatal tract was associated with internalizing problems, while right frontal aslant tract integrity was associated with visual memory deficits. In conclusion, unaffected siblings showed the aberrant integrity of several white-matter tracts, which were correlated with clinical symptoms and neurocognitive dysfunction. The altered tract integrity could be further examined in the probands with ASD. Hum Brain Mapp 38:6053-6067, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

show abstract