How Brain Connections to the Striatum Develop in Autism
While typical individuals show decreasing brain connectivity to the striatum as they mature, individuals with autism show atypical increases in these connections over time.
Source
Age related changes in striatal resting state functional connectivity in autism
Study at a glance
- Design
- Case-control — Striatal rs-fMRI connectivity across 8–36 years in ASD vs typically developing
- N
- N=90 · 42 ASD and 48 typically developing; IQ > 80; University of Pittsburgh ACE
- Population
- Children, adolescents, and young adults with ASD and typically developing controls
- Outcome
- Age-related striatal resting-state functional connectivity in ASD versus typical development
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How Brain Connections to the Striatum Develop in Autism
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Forty-two participants with autism
Forty-two ASD and 48 TD participants between the ages of 8 and 36 were tested.
12 regions of interest within the striatum
In each participant's resting scan images, using single value decomposition in AFNI (1dSVD), we extracted the first principal component vector in the time series for each of the 12 ROIs using AFNI (Cox, ).
What they did
The researchers scanned Forty-two participants with autism and 48 typically developing controls who were between the ages of 8 and 36. They utilized resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure spontaneous neural activity. By analyzing 12 regions of interest within the striatum, they evaluated functional connections to other brain areas.
What they found
While both groups showed a general decrease in cortico-striatal connectivity as they aged, participants with autism displayed atypical developmental pathways. Specifically, as typically developing individuals grew older, their striatal connectivity to the cerebellum and temporal regions decreased, whereas individuals with autism showed increases in these same pathways over age. These findings suggest atypical developmental reorganization in circuits associated with social and cognitive processing.
The limits
What it doesn't show
Because this study is cross-sectional rather than longitudinal, it cannot definitively prove how an individual's brain connectivity changes over time. Additionally, the researchers did not find a direct correlation between these atypical connectivity patterns and clinical measures of autism severity. Finally, due to differences in head sizes, the fMRI scans did not capture the entire cerebellum, meaning potential connectivity differences in its lower areas remain unexamined.
Key terms
- Striatum
- A subcortical brain structure involved in motor control, cognitive functions, and processing social and monetary rewards.
- Resting-State Functional Connectivity
- A neuroimaging method that measures the correlation of spontaneous brain activity between different regions when a participant is not performing a specific task.
- Seed-Based Correlation
- An fMRI analysis technique that selects a specific brain region of interest and correlates its activity over time with every other voxel in the brain.
- Fusiform Gyrus
- A brain region located in the temporal lobe that plays a key role in face processing and recognition.
- Cerebellum
- A structure at the base of the brain involved in motor coordination, planning, and increasingly recognized for its role in cognitive and social processes.
- Cross-Sectional Study
- A research design where data is collected from individuals of different ages at a single point in time to infer developmental trajectories.
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Common questions
Why study the striatum in relation to autism?
The striatum is central to processing rewards, including social rewards like smiling and eye contact, which are often processed differently in individuals on the autism spectrum.
What does "hyper-connectivity" and "hypo-connectivity" mean in this context?
Hyper-connectivity means two brain regions show abnormally high synchronization in their activity, while hypo-connectivity means their synchronization is lower than typical.
Did the researchers find any links between brain connectivity and the severity of autism symptoms?
No, the researchers did not find any statistically significant correlations between the altered functional connectivity patterns and scores on the Autism Diagnostic Interview.
How did the researchers handle head movement, which is a common issue in fMRI studies?
They used advanced preprocessing techniques, including a scrubbing procedure to remove timepoints with high movement, and verified that movement did not differ significantly between the groups or ages.
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