Brain Connectivity Studies of Joint Attention Using Frequency-Domain Diffuse Optical Imaging

Abstract

Autism is a brain development disorder characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. A primary trait of autistic population is that they show robust signs of impairment in joint attention development from as early as 12 to 18 months of age. Joint attention is imperative for social skill at all ages, lack of which is a primary feature used to distinguish autistic from non- autistic. In this study, diffuse optical imaging is used for the first time to probe the joint attention experience in normal adults and to establish the neural basis of connectivity during the activation of the brain. Imaging studies are performed in the frontal regions of the brain in order to study the differences in the brain activation in response to video clips corresponding to joint attention based skills. The frontal region of the brain is non-invasively imaged using a novel optical cap coupled to a frequency-domain optical imaging system. The activation data obtained is then used to perform the connectivity study which elucidates the interaction among the regions of brain during the activation. The recent work is an attempt to perform frequency-domain analysis of the activation signal of the brain. This study has the potential to explicate the directional information on the interaction between the activated regions of the brain. The result has significant implication for research in neural basis of autism and diffuse optical imaging.