ArticleJournal of neurodevelopmental disorders2019
A diffusion-weighted imaging tract-based spatial statistics study of autism spectrum disorder in preschool-aged children.
Article in Journal of neurodevelopmental disorders, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 70 citations in OpenAlex.
- Presymptomatic Biological, Structural, and Functional Diagnostic Biomarkers of Autism Spectrum Disorder.Journal of neurochemistry · 2025Pooled it
- Sex/gender differences in the human autistic brains: A systematic review of 20 years of neuroimaging research.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2021Pooled it
- Brain-based sex differences in autism spectrum disorder across the lifespan: A systematic review of structural MRI, fMRI, and DTI findings.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2021Pooled it
- Specific tractography differences in autism compared to developmental coordination disorder.Scientific reports · 2022Trial
- Cerebellar pathway diffusion MRI measures are linked to core autism symptoms in early adolescents aged 9 to 11 years.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- Multimodal predictors of spoken vocabulary development in autism: the role of early childhood brain and behavior.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Age-stratified multimodal MRI and machine learning to explore autism-related brain characteristics in youth.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Age-related differences in axon pruning and myelination may alter neural signaling in autism spectrum disorder.Molecular autism · 2025Article
- Sex-specific DNA methylation signatures of autism spectrum disorder from whole genome bisulfite sequencing of newborn blood.Biology of sex differences · 2025Article
- White matter microstructure as a potential contributor to differences in resting state alpha activity between neurotypical and autistic children: a longitudinal multimodal imaging study.Molecular autism · 2025Article
- Assessment of glymphatic function and white matter integrity in children with autism using multi-parametric MRI and machine learning.European radiology · 2025Article
- Math skills and microstructure of the middle longitudinal fasciculus: A developmental investigation.PloS one · 2025Article
- Alterations in the white matter fiber tracts of preschool-aged children with autism spectrum disorder: an automated fiber quantification study.Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2024Article
- Sex differences in trajectories of cortical development in autistic children from 2-13 years of age.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Article
- Current and future applications of light-sheet imaging for identifying molecular and developmental processes in autism spectrum disorders.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Review
- Eigenvector Centrality Characterization on fMRI Data: Gender and Node Differences in Normal and ASD Subjects : Author name.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2024Article
- Cerebellum Lecture: the Cerebellar Nuclei-Core of the Cerebellum.Cerebellum (London, England) · 2024Review
- Rodent Models for ASD Biomarker Development.Advances in neurobiology · 2024Review
- Heterogeneity and convergence across seven neuroimaging modalities: a review of the autism spectrum disorder literature.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Review
- Developmental prediction modeling based on diffusion tensor imaging uncovering age-dependent heterogeneity in early childhood autistic brain.Molecular autism · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are widely theorized to result from altered brain connectivity. Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DWI) has been a versatile method for investigating underlying microstructural properties of white matter (WM) in ASD. Despite phenotypic and etiological heterogeneity, DWI studies in majority male samples of older children, adolescents, and adults with ASD have largely reported findings of decreased fractional anisotropy (FA) across several commissural, projection, and association fiber tracts. However, studies in preschool-aged children (i.e., < 30-40 months) suggest individuals with ASD have increased measures of WM FA earlier in development.
methodsWe analyzed 127 individuals with ASD (85♂, 42♀) and 54 typically developing (TD) controls (42♂, 26♀), aged 25.1-49.6 months. Voxel-wise effects of ASD diagnosis, sex, age, and their interaction on DWI measures of FA, mean diffusivity (MD), radial diffusivity (RD), and axial diffusivity (AD) were investigated using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) while controlling mean absolute and relative motion.
resultsCompared to TD controls, males and females with ASD had significantly increased measures of FA in eight clusters (threshold-free cluster enhancement p < 0.05) that incorporated several WM tracts including regions of the genu, body, and splenium of the corpus callosum, inferior frontal-occipital fasciculi, inferior and superior longitudinal fasciculi, middle and superior cerebellar peduncles, and corticospinal tract. A diagnosis by sex interaction was observed in measures of AD across six significant clusters incorporating areas of the body, genu, and splenium of the corpus collosum. In these tracts, females with ASD showed increased AD compared to TD females, while males with ASD showed decreased AD compared to TD males.
conclusionsThe current findings support growing evidence that preschool-aged children with ASD have atypical measures of WM microstructure that appear to differ in directionality from alterations observed in older individuals with the condition. To our knowledge, this study represents the largest sample of preschool-aged females with ASD to be evaluated using DWI. Microstructural differences associated with ASD largely overlapped between sexes. However, differential relationships of AD measures indicate that sex likely modulates ASD neuroanatomical phenotypes. Further longitudinal study is needed to confirm and quantify the developmental relationship of WM structure in ASD.
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