The journey to autism: Insights from neuroimaging studies of infants and toddlers

Wolff, Jason J.; Jacob, Suma; Elison, Jed T.

doi:10.1017/s0954579417000980

Cited by 106 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 129 publications

(239 reference statements)

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“…Indeed, it is estimated that over half of the children with ASD have persisting language impairments throughout their lifespan (see Sperdin & Schaer, for review). Prior studies have suggested that these behavioral deficits may in part reflect underlying disruptions in brain connectivity (Joseph et al., ; Li, Xue, Ellmore, Frye, & Wong, ; Solso et al., ; Wolff, Jacob, & Elison, ). Here, we aimed to investigate whether language‐specific structural alterations can be observed as early as 6 weeks of age in infants at high familial risk for ASD, which, to our knowledge, is the youngest age examined in this population to date.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Altered lateralization of dorsal language tracts in 6‐week‐old infants at risk for autism

Liu

Tsang

Jackson

et al. 2018

Developmental Science

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Altered structural connectivity has been identified as a possible biomarker of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) risk in the developing brain. Core features of ASD include impaired social communication and early language delay. Thus, examining white matter tracts associated with language may lend further insight into early signs of ASD risk and the mechanisms that underlie language impairments associated with the disorder. Evidence of altered structural connectivity has previously been detected in 6-month-old infants at high familial risk for developing ASD. However, as language processing begins in utero, differences in structural connectivity between language regions may be present in the early infant brain shortly after birth. Here we investigated key white matter pathways of the dorsal language network in 6-week-old infants at high (HR) and low (LR) risk for ASD to identify atypicalities in structural connectivity that may predict altered developmental trajectories prior to overt language delays and the onset of ASD symptomatology. Compared to HR infants, LR infants showed higher fractional anisotropy (FA) in the left superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF); in contrast, in the right SLF, HR infants showed higher FA than LR infants. Additionally, HR infants showed more rightward lateralization of the SLF.Across both groups, measures of FA and lateralization of these pathways at 6 weeks of age were related to later language development at 18 months of age as well as ASD symptomatology at 36 months of age. These findings indicate that early differences in the structure of language pathways may provide an early predictor of future language development and ASD risk. K E Y W O R D Sautism, development, DTI, infant, language, structural connectivity

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Altered lateralization of dorsal language tracts in 6‐week‐old infants at risk for autism

Liu

Tsang

Jackson

et al. 2018

Developmental Science

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“…Thus, examining brain connectivity in these young HR infants may help identify early biomarkers of ASD and, relatedly, the deployment of earlier and more effective interventions. Many studies in HR infants have focused on structural brain development; this work has identified enlarged postnatal brain volume (including greater grey matter, white matter, as well as cerebellar and subcortical volume; Hazlett Wolff et al 2018). Few studies have also found that white matter tract trajectories have a unique pattern of increased FA at age six months followed by slower subsequent growth in HR infants who later developed ASD compared to their non-ASD peers (Wolff et al 2012;Solso et al 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Altered Thalamocortical Connectivity in Six-Week Old Infants at High Familial Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder

Nair

Jalal

Liu

et al. 2020

Preprint

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word count: 199 Tables: 1 Figures: 4 2 ABSTRACTConverging evidence from neuroimaging studies has revealed altered connectivity in corticalsubcortical networks in youth and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Comparatively little is known about the development of cortical-subcortical connectivity in infancy, before the emergence of overt ASD symptomatology. Here we examined early functional and structural connectivity of thalamocortical networks in infants at high familial risk for ASD (HR) and lowrisk controls (LR). Resting-state functional connectivity (rs-fcMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data were acquired 52 six-week-old infants. Functional connectivity was examined between six cortical seeds -prefrontal, motor, somatosensory, temporal, parietal, and occipital regions-and bilateral thalamus. We found significant thalamic-prefrontal underconnectivity, as well as thalamic-occipital and thalamic-motor overconnectivity in HR infants, relative to LR infants. Subsequent structural connectivity analyses also revealed atypical white matter integrity in thalamic-occipital tracts in HR infants, compared to LR infants. Notably, aberrant rs-fcMRI and DTI connectivity indices at 6 weeks predicted atypical social development between 6 and 36 months of age, as assessed with eye-tracking and diagnostic measures. These findings indicate that thalamocortical connectivity is disrupted at both the functional and structural level in HR infants as early as six weeks of age, providing a possible early marker of risk for ASD.

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“…For example, it has proven difficult for neuroimaging studies in autism to replicate both structural and functional results(48,49), whereas the most consistent finding is the heterogeneity of imaging measures (50). One particularly puzzling finding is related to brain development of subjects within the autistic spectrum: these populations exhibit increased brain volumes in young children, whereas the rate of growth decreases subsequently during adolescence to meet the normal developmental curve between 10 and 15 years of age, with the volume of many structures finally declining atypically into adulthood(51)(52)(53). These findings are paradoxical from the perspective of a linear system; however, it is likely that a see, for example, the findings of the Nun Study(61), in which cognitive domains within the same individual deteriorate at very different rates(62).When it comes to connecting the intermediate phenotype (i.e., the brain) with environmental modifiers on the one hand and genetic factors on the other, recent analysis of very large datasets have demonstrated that individual variability of MRI measures across ageing is spread across a large number of regional networks, or modes -each associated with overlapping environmental factors and genes(63).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Complex Systems Perspective on Neuroimaging Studies of Behaviour and Its Disorders

Turkheimer¹,

Rosas²,

Dipasquale³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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The study of complex systems deals with emergent behaviour that arises as a result of nonlinear spatio-temporal interactions between a large number of components both within the system, as well as between the system and its environment. There is a strong case to be made that neural systems as well as their emergent behaviour and disorders, can be studied within the framework of complexity science. In particular, the field of neuroimaging has begun to apply both theoretical and experimental procedures originating in complexity science – usually in parallel with traditional methodologies. Here, we demonstrate that the use of such traditional models may distort the outcomes of neuroimaging experiments – hence affecting their interpretability and raising questions about their reliability.Therefore, we argue in favor of adopting a complex systems-based methodology in the study of neuroimaging, alongside appropriate experimental paradigms, and with minimal influences from non-complex systems approaches. Our exposition includes a review of the fundamental mathematical concepts, combined with practical examples and a compilation of results from the literature.

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The journey to autism: Insights from neuroimaging studies of infants and toddlers

Cited by 106 publications

References 129 publications

Altered lateralization of dorsal language tracts in 6‐week‐old infants at risk for autism

Altered lateralization of dorsal language tracts in 6‐week‐old infants at risk for autism

Altered Thalamocortical Connectivity in Six-Week Old Infants at High Familial Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder

A Complex Systems Perspective on Neuroimaging Studies of Behaviour and Its Disorders

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