Journal article
Reduced White Matter Fiber Density in Autism Spectrum Disorder
D Dimond, M Schuetze, RE Smith, T Dhollander, I Cho, S Vinette, K Ten Eycke, C Lebel, A McCrimmon, D Dewey, A Connelly, S Bray
Cerebral Cortex | OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC | Published : 2019
Open access
Abstract
Differences in brain networks and underlying white matter abnormalities have been suggested to underlie symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, robustly characterizing microstructural white matter differences has been challenging. In the present study, we applied an analytic technique that calculates structural metrics specific to differently-oriented fiber bundles within a voxel, termed "fixels". Fixel-based analyses were used to compare diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging data from 25 individuals with ASD (mean age = 16.8 years) and 27 typically developing age-matched controls (mean age = 16.9 years). Group comparisons of fiber density (FD) and bundle morphology were..
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Funding Acknowledgements
This work was supported by a graduate studentship from Alberta Innovates Health Solutions, an Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), a Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement from NSERC, an Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute (ACHRI) Travel Award and Rebecca Hotchkiss International Scholar Exchange (RHISE) - Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI)-Melbourne Trainee Research Exchange funding awarded to D.D. This work was also supported by a Sick Kids Foundation and Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Human Development Child and Youth Health (IHDCYH) New Investigator Award to S.B and the Sinneave Family Foundation.