Functional EEG connectivity in infants associates with later restricted and repetitive behaviours in autism; a replication study

Emily J. H. Jones,Rianne Haartsen,Elena V. Orekhova,Mark H. Johnson,Tony Charman

doi:10.1038/s41398-019-0380-2

Abstract

We conducted a replication study of our prior report that increased alpha EEG connectivity at 14-months associates with later autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis, and dimensional variation in restricted interests/repetitive behaviours. 143 infants at high and low familial risk for ASD watched dynamic videos of spinning toys and women singing nursery rhymes while high-density EEG was recorded. Alpha functional connectivity (7–8 Hz) was calculated using the debiased weighted phase lag index. The final sample with clean data included low-risk infants (N = 20), and high-risk infants who at 36 months showed either typical development (N = 47), atypical development (N = 21), or met criteria for ASD (N = 13). While we did not replicate the finding that global EEG connectivity associated with ASD diagnosis, we did replicate the association between higher functional connectivity at 14 months and greater severity of restricted and repetitive behaviours at 36 months in infants who met criteria for ASD. We further showed that this association is strongest for the circumscribed interests subdomain. We propose that structural and/or functional abnormalities in frontal-striatal circuits underlie the observed association. This is the first replicated infant neural predictor of dimensional variation in later ASD symptoms.

Highlights

Introduction Autism SpectrumDisorder (ASD) is characterized by difficulties in social communication, atypicalities in sensory perception, and restricted and repetitive behaviours[1]
We reported that increased connectivity in these selected fronto-central connections was significantly related to higher severity of restricted and repetitive behaviours measured by the Autism diagnostic interview–revised (ADI-R), but not with social communication difficulties or ADOS scores
Groups were matched in age but as expected the distribution of gender in the HR-autism spectrum disorder (ASD) group was different from the distribution in the LR and HR-typical development (TD) group, but similar to the HR-Atyp group

Summary

Introduction

Introduction Autism SpectrumDisorder (ASD) is characterized by difficulties in social communication, atypicalities in sensory perception, and restricted and repetitive behaviours[1]. Diagnosis and treatment might influence developmental trajectories and could significantly impact later quality of life[3,4]. To this end, it is crucial to identify early infant biomarkers that can predict diagnosis of autism and/or dimensional variation in relevant traits in later development. Biomarkers are objective measures that indicate typical biological processes These markers are used for diagnosis, outcome predictions, or prediction and effect of treatment. Uncertainty about psychology and neuroimaging findings is emerging as reproducibility of results in neuroscience is currently only moderate, in studies were sample sizes are small[8] To this end, replication of potential biomarkers in independent cohorts is crucial. Several electroencephalographic (EEG) measures have been suggested as potential diagnostic biomarkers, such as event-related potentials, spectral power, and functional

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Conclusion