Brain Mapping of Coherent and Scrambled Biological Motion Processing in Autistic School-Age Children
Poster No:
445
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Dalin Yang1, Alexandra Svoboda1, Tessa George2, Muriah Wheelock2, Mariel Schroeder1, Sean Rafferty2, Arefeh Sherafati1, Joseph Culver2, Adam Eggebrecht2
Institutions:
1Washington University School of Medicine, Saint louis, MO, 2Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by deficits in social communication and enhanced presentation of restricted interests and repetitive behaviors. The perception of biological motion (BM) plays a crucial role in recognizing emotions and intentions, representing a deeply ingrained and early developing mechanism. Investigating disruptions in the neural systems responsible for BM perception in autistic children may enhance early diagnosis and the creation of targeted interventions. However, mapping brain function in young children with ASD has proven challenging using traditional neuroimaging modalities, i.e., functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)that requires participants to recline and maintain still within a noisy and confined environment. To overcome these challenges while maintaining fMRI-comparable data, we use high-density diffuse optical tomography (HD-DOT), a wearable and minimally constraining neuroimaging modality that can map brain function in an open, silent, naturalistic environment more amenable to studies on children with ASD1-3. Herein, we aimed to establish the feasibility of HD-DOT in school-age children with ASD using a passive paradigm of BM perception, previously shown with fMRI to reveal differences in brain activity in autistic children as compared to non-autistic controls (NAC)4.
Methods:
We recruited 95 school-age children (Fig. 1A), age 9 to 17 years, including 46 autistic individuals and 49 NAC children. Informed consent was obtained from legal guardians for all participants and the research was approved by the Human Research Protection Office at Washington University. Each participant was assessed with HD-DOT while watching 6 blocks of alternating 24-second-long movies of coherent and scrambled point-light animations of biological motion (Fig. 1B) 4. The HD-DOT instrument contains a dense array of 96 sources and 92 detectors that provides a smooth sensitivity profile on the cortical surface (Fig. 1C). The Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), a parent report measure of social reciprocity, was collected in all participants. Data were processed in MATLAB using the NeuroDOT toolbox (https://www.nitrc.org/projects/neurodot), with motion artifact quantified using the global variance of the temporal derivative (GVTD)5, and registered to the MNI atlas for group analyses. Standard GLM analyses were used with an HD-DOT-derived adult hemodynamic response function2 and contrast maps were assessed within and across groups. Cluster-extent based thresholding was performed in SPM12.
Results:
No statistically significant differences in head motion were observed between the two groups (p = 0.32, t = 0.48), indicating both ASD and NAC groups tolerated the HD-DOT scan. In response to the biological motion perception task, the NAC group exhibited greater activity during coherent than scrambled BM in bilateral frontal gyrus (IFG), right middle occipital gyrus (MOG), left inferior occipital gyrus (IOG), right superior temporal sulcus, and right precentral gyrus (PCG) (Fig. 1E). In contrast, the ASD group exhibited stronger activity in the right hemisphere, including middle frontal gyrus, MOG, PCG, and middle temporal gyrus. Furthermore, the NAC exhibited a significantly greater activity than with the ASD group in bilateral IFG, left IOG, left fusiform gyrus, left TMG, left PCG, right IOG, and right PCG.
Conclusions:
This study validates the feasibility of using HD-DOT to map brain function in both school-age ASD and NAC children. Ongoing investigations are exploring the association between variations in brain function and behavioral metrics (i.e., sex, age, IQ, and motion). Also, we are leveraging the open scanning environment of HD-DOT to investigate simultaneous eye gaze and brain function during naturalistic motor imitation.
Disorders of the Nervous System:
Neurodevelopmental/ Early Life (eg. ADHD, autism) 1
Novel Imaging Acquisition Methods:
NIRS 2
Perception, Attention and Motor Behavior:
Perception: Visual
Keywords:
Autism
Cerebral Blood Flow
Near Infra-Red Spectroscopy (NIRS)
Other - Biological Motion
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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[2] Hassanpour, M. S., et al. (2014). “Statistical analysis of high density diffuses optical tomography”, NeuroImage, vol. 85, pp. 104-116.
[3] Ferradal, S. L., et al., (2016). “Functional imaging of the developing brain at the bedside using diffuse optical tomography”, Cerebral cortex, vol. 26, no. 4, pp.1558–1568.
[4] Kaiser, M. et al. (2010) “Neural signatures of autism.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 107, no. 49, pp. 21223-21228.
[5] Sherafati, A. et al. (2020). “Global motion detection and censoring in high-density diffuse optical tomography. Hum. Brain Mapp. vol. 41, pp. 4093–4112.