Differences in White Matter Fiber Tract Development Present from 6 to 24 Months in Infants with Autism

By J. Wolff, H. Gu, Guido Gerig, J. Elison, Martin Andreas Styner, S. Gouttard, K. Botteron, S. Dager, Geraldine Dawson, Annette M. Estes and 8 more. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2012

649 citations recorded by the source corpus.

OBJECTIVE Evidence from prospective high-risk infant studies suggests that early symptoms of autism usually emerge late in the first- or early in the second-year of life after a period of relatively typical development. This is the first neuroimaging study to prospectively examine white matter fiber tract organization during this interval in infants who develop autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by 24 months. METHOD Participants included 92 infant siblings from an ongoing imaging study of autism. All participants had diffusion tensor imaging at 6 months and behavioral assessments at 24 months, with a majority contributing additional imaging data at either or both 12 and 24 months. At 24 months, 28 infants met criteria for ASD; 64 infants did not. Microstructural properties of white-matter fiber tracts reported to be associated with ASD or related behaviors were characterized by fractional anisotropy (FA) and radial and axial diffusivity. RESULTS FA trajectories differed significantly between infants who did versus did not develop ASD for 12 of 15 fiber tracts. Development for most fiber tracts in infants with ASD was characterized by elevated FA at 6 months followed by slower developmental change overtime relative to infants without ASD. Thus, by 24 months of age, lower FA values were evident for those with ASD. CONCLUSION These results suggest that the aberrant development of white matter pathways precede the manifestation of autistic symptoms in the first year of life. Longitudinal data are critical to characterizing the dynamic age-related brain and behavior changes underlying this neurodevelopmental disorder.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Psychiatry and Mental health, Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/01ed56fcae15bbee5f10449c56eefb33e59d9dcb

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cognitive Neuroscience

In Psychiatry and Mental health

In Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging

Sean C. L. Deoni

Citations in the corpus

Practice parameter for the assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. (2014, background): “Structural magnetic resonance imaging has shown an overall brain size increase in autism, and diffusion tensor imaging studies have suggested aberrations in white matter tract development.(27) One of the most frequently replicated neurochemical findings has been the elevation of peripheral levels of”
Investigating White Matter Development in Infancy and Early Childhood using Myelin Water Faction and Relaxation Time Mapping (2012, background): “These include disorders such as autism, attention deficit disorder and schizophrenia (Courchesne et al., 2011; Grossman et al., 2003; Wolff et al., 2012), which potentially arise from atypical brain development over the first few years of life.”