Department of Life Science and Technology, The clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China.
MOE Key Lab for Neuroinformation, High-Field Magnetic Resonance Brain Imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China.
Cereb Cortex. 2020 Jul 30;30(9):5028-5037. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa098.
Accumulating neuroimaging evidence shows that age estimation obtained from brain connectomics reflects the level of brain maturation along with neural development. It is well known that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) alters neurodevelopmental trajectories of brain connectomics, but the precise relationship between chronological age (ChA) and brain connectome age (BCA) during development in ASD has not been addressed. This study uses neuroimaging data collected from 50 individuals with ASD and 47 age- and gender-matched typically developing controls (TDCs; age range: 5-18 years). Both functional and structural connectomics were assessed using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor imaging data from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange repository. For each participant, BCA was estimated from structure-function connectomics through linear support vector regression. We found that BCA matched well with ChA in TDC children and adolescents, but not in ASD. In particular, our findings revealed that individuals with ASD exhibited accelerated brain maturation in youth, followed by a delay of brain development starting at preadolescence. Our results highlight the critical role of BCA in understanding aberrant developmental trajectories in ASD and provide the new insights into the pathophysiological mechanisms of this disorder.
越来越多的神经影像学证据表明，从脑连接组学中获得的年龄估计反映了大脑成熟度以及神经发育水平。众所周知，自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）改变了脑连接组学的神经发育轨迹，但在 ASD 中，发育过程中实际年龄（ChA）和脑连接组年龄（BCA）之间的确切关系尚未得到解决。本研究使用了从 50 名 ASD 患者和 47 名年龄和性别匹配的典型发育对照者（TDC；年龄范围：5-18 岁）的神经影像学数据。使用静息态功能磁共振成像和来自自闭症脑成像数据交换库的扩散张量成像数据评估了功能和结构连接组学。对于每个参与者，通过线性支持向量回归从结构-功能连接组学中估计 BCA。我们发现，在 TDC 儿童和青少年中，BCA 与 ChA 吻合良好，但在 ASD 中则不然。具体来说，我们的研究结果表明，ASD 个体在青少年时期表现出加速的大脑成熟，然后在青春期前开始出现大脑发育延迟。我们的研究结果强调了 BCA 在理解 ASD 中异常发育轨迹方面的关键作用，并为该疾病的病理生理学机制提供了新的见解。
