Differential subcortico-cortical functional connectivity alterations in ADHD and ASD
Poster No:
348
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Guan Zhou1, Ke Xie2, Alexander Ngo1, Jordan DeKraker1, Rui Ding2, Paule Toussaint2, Alan Evans1, Boris Bernhardt1
Institutions:
1McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, 2McGill University, Montreal, QC
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are neurodevelopmental conditions with overlapping behavioral and cognitive symptoms, complicating clinical differentiation (Lord et al., 2020; Antshel & Russo, 2019). Both involve impairments in social communication, executive function, and attention, yet it remains to be established in how far these conditions implicate shared vs distinct neurobiological substrates. The thalamus and basal ganglia, essential for cognitive, motor, and emotional regulation, show disrupted connectivity patterns in both conditions (Park et al., 2021; Cerliani et al., 2015; Groen et al., 2018). Likewise, functional MRI studies of neocortical systems have revealed mosaic alterations of hypo- and hyperconnectivity in both conditions, which are likely related to subcortico-cortical interactions (Hoogman et al., 2019; Uddin et al., 2013). This study characterizes subcortico-cortical functional connectivity alterations in ADHD and ASD, providing a deeper understanding of their shared vs distinct neuronal substrates.
Methods:
We studied 175 participants with ADHD (mean age 11.77) and 178 typically developing children (TD, mean age 11.78) from the ADHD200 dataset. The processing of rs-fMRI data was based on CPAC (REF) and included skull stripping, slice-time correction, nuisance regression, and bandpass filtering to 0.01–0.1 Hz. Data were co-registered to MNI152 space, mapped to midthickness surfaces, resampled to Conte69, smoothed (6 mm FWHM), and downsampled to 10k vertices per hemisphere and across subcortical structures. We also studied 103 participants with ASD and 107 TD subjects from the ABIDE dataset, and functional preprocessing was performed using similar methods. We estimated the subdivisions of the thalamus and basal ganglia according to the Tian atlas (Tian et al., 2020), which have been controlled for site and age. Quality control was performed to remove cases with a mean framewise displacement>0.3.
Results:
Overall, both ASD and ADHD groups showed increased connectivity (FWE-corrected, P<0.05) between the thalamus, basal ganglia, and cortex relative to their respective TD subgroups. ASD had stronger connectivity in superior ventroanterior, medial, and dorsoanterior thalamic subdivisions (Fig 1b), while ADHD showed stronger connectivity in medial and lateral ventral posterior subnetworks (Fig 1c). ASD also exhibited significant stronger basal ganglia-cortex connectivity across all 10 subdivisions (Fig 1d), while ADHD showed increased connectivity in specific putamen and nucleus accumbens regions (Fig 1e).
Conclusions:
Our results suggest atypical subcortical-cortical interactions in both ASD and ADHD. ASD showed overall more marked connectivity alterations relative to controls than ADHD, and in a spatially distinct topography. In future work, we will assess cross-subject and cross-site consistency of these findings and explore associations to behavioral phenotypes.
Disorders of the Nervous System:
Neurodevelopmental/ Early Life (eg. ADHD, autism) 1
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
fMRI Connectivity and Network Modeling 2
Perception, Attention and Motor Behavior:
Attention: Auditory/Tactile/Motor
Keywords:
Attention Deficit Disorder
Autism
Data analysis
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Sub-Cortical
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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