Developmental Meta-Analysis of the Functional Neural Correlates of Autism Spectrum Disorders

doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2012.12.012

Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

Volume 52, Issue 3, March 2013, Pages 279-289.e16

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2012.12.012 Get rights and content

Objective

There is a pressing need to elucidate the brain–behavior interactions underlying autism spectrum disorders (ASD) given the marked rise in ASD diagnosis over the past decade. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has begun to address this need, but few fMRI studies have evaluated age-related changes in ASD. Therefore, we conducted a developmental analysis of activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis to compare child versus adult ASD fMRI studies. We hypothesized that children and adolescents with ASD (<18 years old) would rely less on prefrontal cortex structures than adults (≥18 years old).

Method

PubMed and PsycInfo literature searches were conducted to identify task-dependent fMRI studies of children or adults with ASD. Then recent GingerALE software improvements were leveraged to perform direct comparisons of child (n = 18) versus adult (n = 24) studies.

Results

ALE meta-analyses of social tasks showed that children and adolescents with ASD versus adults had significantly greater hyperactivation in the left post-central gyrus, and greater hypoactivation in the right hippocampus and right superior temporal gyrus. ALE meta-analyses of nonsocial tasks showed that children with ASD versus adults had significantly greater hyperactivation in the right insula and left cingulate gyrus, and hypoactivation in the right middle frontal gyrus.

Conclusion

Our data suggest that the neural alterations associated with ASD are not static, occurring only in early childhood. Instead, children with ASD have altered neural activity compared to adults during both social and nonsocial tasks, especially in fronto-temporal structures. Longitudinal neuroimaging studies are required to examine these changes prospectively, as potential targets for brain-based treatments for ASD.

Section snippets

Method

As in prior ALE studies, we conducted a literature search for both child (“child”, “autism”, “Asperger”, and “fMRI”) and adult (“adult”, “autism”, “Asperger”, and “fMRI”) populations published through December 2011, limited to English language publications in humans, initially using PubMed and then repeated via PsycInfo.11, 13 Studies were included if they met the following criteria: were original reports of task-dependent fMRI experiments; included both ASD and TDC groups; reported data from

Results

Our literature search yielded 469 child and 198 adult articles. Of these, 18 child and 24 adult articles met eligibility criteria for ALE meta-analysis, including a total of 535 child participants (262 ASD-child, 273 TDC-child) and 604 adult participants (288 ASD-adult, 316 TDC-adult). There was no main effect of mean reported intelligence quotient (IQ) across studies (F = 2.29, p = .09; ASD-child = 100.1 ± 23.8, TDC-child = 107.6 ± 24.5, ASD-adult = 109.8 ± 8.9, TDC-adult = 114.6 ± 5.8). There

Discussion

Our ALE meta-analysis directly comparing child versus adult ASD fMRI studies is an important step in understanding age-related brain activity changes associated with ASD, the hallmark neurodevelopmental disorder. In particular, using ALE meta-analytic methods to leverage data from 535 child and 604 adult participants, our study demonstrated age-related alterations in fMRI neural activation on both social and nonsocial tasks. Thus, our study is important because it suggests that fMRI neural

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: This work and the Pediatric Mood, Imaging, and Neurodevelopment Program (PediMIND) were partially supported by Bradley Hospital.

: Supplemental material cited in this article is available online.

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New ResearchDevelopmental Meta-Analysis of the Functional Neural Correlates of Autism Spectrum Disorders

Objective

Method

Results

Conclusion

Section snippets

Method

Results

Discussion

Neuroimage

Biol Psychiatry

Neuroimage

Neurosci Biobehav Rev

Neuroimage

Neuroimage

Biol Psychiatry

Neuroimage

Neuroimage

Neuroimage

Biol Psychiatry

Brain Cogn

Neuroimage

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

Biol Psychiatry

Brain Res

J Psychiatr Res

The nature of brain dysfunction in autism: functional brain imaging studies

Curr Opin Neurol

Meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging data: current and future directions

Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci

ALE meta-analysis: controlling the false discovery rate and performing statistical contrasts

Hum Brain Mapp

Coordinate-based activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis of neuroimaging data: a random-effects approach based on empirical estimates of spatial uncertainty

Hum Brain Mapp

The BrainMap strategy for standardization, sharing, and meta-analysis of neuroimaging data

BMC Res Notes

Minimizing within-experiment and within-group effects in activation likelihood estimation meta-analyses

Hum Brain Mapp

New Research
Developmental Meta-Analysis of the Functional Neural Correlates of Autism Spectrum Disorders