Brain Plasticity of Autism in Response to Early Behavioral Intervention: A Multimodal MRI Study

Overview

Autism is a well-recognized neurodevelopmental disorder severely affecting the health of children. While the unclear neurobiological basis of autism and the lack of effective medication, the most commonly used approach for treatment is behavioral intervention. However, the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying the intervention therapy remains incompletely understood. The current project aims to explore the impacts of different early behavioral intervention methods on brain plasticity of autism using multimodal MRI technique and provide guidelines for the intervention and treatment of autism by evaluating the efficiency of these methods.

Autism is a well-recognized neurodevelopmental disorder severely affecting the health of children. While the unclear neurobiological basis of autism and the lack of effective medication, the most commonly used approach for treatment is behavioral intervention. However, the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying the intervention therapy remains incompletely understood. The current project aims to explore the impacts of different early behavioral intervention methods on brain plasticity of autism using multimodal MRI technique and provide guidelines for the intervention and treatment of autism by evaluating the efficiency of these methods. Investigators collect participants' brain imaging data, eye movement data, stool samples and clinical scale score before and after intervention. Investigators first investigate longitudinal effect of behavioral intervention on brain structure and function in children with autism. In addition, investigators provide new biological indexes upon multimodal large-scale brain connectomes to evaluate the curative effect of intervention. Finally, investigators propose a prediction model of intervention effect based on multimodal multivariate pattern analysis methods. Furthermore, investigators expect to map the state-of-the-art biomarkers on multi-modal networks to provide a new interpretation of pathophysiological mechanisms of autism.