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Multimodal Imaging in Autism: an Early Review of Comprehensive Neural Circuit Characterization

  • Autism Spectrum Disorders (ES Brodkin, Section Editor)
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Abstract

There is accumulating evidence that the neurobiology of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is linked to atypical neural communication and connectivity. This body of work emphasizes the need to characterize the function of multiple regions that comprise neural circuits rather than focusing on singular regions as contributing to deficits in ASD. Multimodal neuroimaging — the formal combination of multiple functional and structural measures of the brain — is extremely promising as an approach to understanding neural deficits in ASD. This review provides an overview of the multimodal imaging approach, and then provides a snapshot of how multimodal imaging has been applied in the study of ASD to date. This body of work is separated into two categories: one concerning whole brain connectomics and the other focused on characterizing neural circuits implicated as altered in ASD. We end this review by highlighting emerging themes from the existing body of literature, and new resources that will likely influence future multimodal imaging studies.

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Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance

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Acknowledgments

Benjamin E. Yerys is supported by two grants from the National Institutes of Health (K23MH086111, R21MH092615) and an internal “New Program Development Award” from the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (P30 HD02679), and the Philadelphia Foundation. John D. Herrington is supported by a grant from Shire Pharmaceuticals. We thank Gregory L. Wallace for feedback on a draft of this manuscript.

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Conflict of Interest

Benjamin E. Yerys and John D. Herrington declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Autism Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 3535 Market Street, Ste 860, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Benjamin E. Yerys & John D. Herrington

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Benjamin E. Yerys & John D. Herrington

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  1. Benjamin E. Yerys
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Correspondence to Benjamin E. Yerys or John D. Herrington.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Autism Spectrum Disorders

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Yerys, B.E., Herrington, J.D. Multimodal Imaging in Autism: an Early Review of Comprehensive Neural Circuit Characterization. Curr Psychiatry Rep 16, 496 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-014-0496-2

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