Altered structural brain connectivity in healthy carriers of the autism risk gene, CNTNAP2

Dennis, Emily L., Jahanshad, Neda, Rudie, Jeffrey D., Brown, Jesse A., Johnson, Kori, McMahon, Katie L., de Zubicaray, Greig I., Montgomery, Grant, Martin, Nicholas G., Wright, Margaret J., Bookheimer, Susan Y., Dapretto, Mirella, Toga, Arthur W. and Thompson, Paul M. (2012) Altered structural brain connectivity in healthy carriers of the autism risk gene, CNTNAP2. Brain Connectivity, 1 6: 447-460.

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Author Dennis, Emily L.
Jahanshad, Neda
Rudie, Jeffrey D.
Brown, Jesse A.
Johnson, Kori
McMahon, Katie L.
de Zubicaray, Greig I.
Montgomery, Grant
Martin, Nicholas G.
Wright, Margaret J.
Bookheimer, Susan Y.
Dapretto, Mirella
Toga, Arthur W.
Thompson, Paul M.
Title Altered structural brain connectivity in healthy carriers of the autism risk gene, CNTNAP2
Formatted title Altered structural brain connectivity in healthy carriers of the autism risk gene, CNTNAP2
Journal name Brain Connectivity
Publication date 2012-04
Sub-type Article
DOI 10.1089/brain.2011.0064
Volume number 1
Issue number 6
ISSN 2158-0014; 2158-0022
Start page 447
End page 460
Total pages 14
Place of publication New Rochelle, NY, U.S.A.
Publisher Mary Ann Liebert Publishers
Collection year 2013
Language eng
Formatted abstract Recently, carriers of a common variant in the autism risk gene, CNTNAP2, were found to have altered functional brain connectivity using functional MRI. Here we scanned 328 young adults with high-field (4-Tesla) diffusion imaging, to test the hypothesis that carriers of this gene variant would have altered structural brain connectivity. All participants (209 females, 119 males, age: 23.4 +/-2.17 SD years) were scanned with 105-gradient high angular diffusion imaging (HARDI) at 4 Tesla. After performing a whole-brain fiber tractography using the full angular resolution of the diffusion scans, 70 cortical surface-based regions of interest were created from each individual’s co-registered anatomical data to compute graph metrics for all pairs of cortical regions. In graph theory analyses, subjects homozygous for the risk allele (CC) had lower characteristic path length, greater small-worldness and global efficiency in whole brain analyses, as well as greater eccentricity (maximum path length) in 60 of 70 nodes in regional analyses. These results were not reducible to differences in more commonly studied traits such as fiber density or fractional anisotropy. This is the first study to link graph theory metrics of brain structural connectivity to a common genetic variant linked with autism and will help us understand the neurobiology of circuits implicated in risk for autism.
Keyword Structural connectivity
HARDI
Autism
CNTNAP2
Graph theory
Twins
Q-Index Code C1
Q-Index Status Confirmed Code
Institutional Status UQ

 
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Created: Thu, 15 Mar 2012, 10:48:15 EST by Sandrine Ducrot on behalf of Centre for Advanced Imaging