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Cited by 370Autism Spectrum Disorder ResearchFunctional Brain Connectivity StudiesAdvanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications

Impaired thalamocortical connectivity in autism spectrum disorder: A study of functional and anatomical connectivity.

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Nair, Aarti, Treiber, Jeffrey M., Shukla, Dinesh K., Shih, Patricia, Müller, Ralph-Axel·2013·Brain
DOI 10.1093/brain/awt079PMC PMC3673456
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Abstract

The thalamus plays crucial roles in the development and mature functioning of numerous sensorimotor, cognitive and attentional circuits. Currently limited evidence suggests that autism spectrum disorder may be associated with thalamic abnormalities, potentially related to sociocommunicative and other impairments in this disorder. We used functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor imaging probabilistic tractography to study the functional and anatomical integrity of thalamo-cortical connectivity in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder and matched typically developing children. For connectivity with five cortical seeds (prefontal, parieto-occipital, motor, somatosensory and temporal), we found evidence of both anatomical and functional underconnectivity. The only exception was functional connectivity with the temporal lobe, which was increased in the autism spectrum disorders group, especially in the right hemisphere. However, this effect was robust only in partial correlation analyses (partialling out time series from other cortical seeds), whereas findings from total correlation analyses suggest that temporo-thalamic overconnectivity in the autism group was only relative to the underconnectivity found for other cortical seeds. We also found evidence of microstructural compromise within the thalamic motor parcel, associated with compromise in tracts between thalamus and motor cortex, suggesting that the thalamus may play a role in motor abnormalities reported in previous autism studies. More generally, a number of correlations of diffusion tensor imaging and functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging measures with diagnostic and neuropsychological scores indicate involvement of abnormal thalamocortical connectivity in sociocommunicative and cognitive impairments in autism spectrum disorder.

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  • An increased number of thalamocortical synapses occur in layer IV of the somatosensory cortex of 4-month-old Fmr1 KO mice.

    “An increased number of thalamocortical synapses occur in layer IV of the somatosensory cortex of 4-month-old Fmr1 KO mice and altered thalamocortical connectivity is also implicated in ASD (Mizuno et al., 2006; Cheon et al., 2011; Nair et al., 2013).”

    From Astrocytes in fragile X syndrome (2024) · cites this paper as Nair et al., 2013

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Nair, A., Treiber, J. M., Shukla, D. K., Shih, P., & Müller, R.-A.
Affiliations
San Diego State University (US)
ORCID
Venue
Brain
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2013-06
Volume
136
Issue
6
Pages
1942-1955
ISSN
  • 0006-8950 (ISSN-L)
  • 1460-2156
DOI
10.1093/brain/awt079
PMC
PMC3673456
OpenAlex
W2164276105
Cited by
370
References
16
Citations by year
2026: 19 · 2025: 29 · 2024: 32 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 31 · 2020: 34 · 2019: 29 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 33 · 2016: 33 · 2015: 27 · 2014: 22 · 2013: 4
FWCI
15.72
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Brain (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • Autism Speaks
  • National Institutes of Health
  • National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH081023, T32MH020068)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications
Keywords
autism spectrum disorder, thalamocortical connections, thalamus, functional connectivity, structural connectivity, motor abnormalities, children and adolescents
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Cerebral Cortex, Child, Child Development Disorders, Pervasive, Female, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Neural Pathways, Thalamus, Cohort Studies, Diffusion Tensor Imaging

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