The Value of Brain Imaging and Electrophysiological Testing for Early Screening of Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review

Cullen Clairmont; Jiuju Wang; Samia Tariq; Hannah Tayla Sherman; Mingxuan Zhao; Xue-Jun Kong

doi:10.3389/fnins.2021.812946

The Value of Brain Imaging and Electrophysiological Testing for Early Screening of Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review

Front Neurosci. 2022 Feb 3:15:812946. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2021.812946. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Cullen Clairmont¹, Jiuju Wang^{1

2}, Samia Tariq¹, Hannah Tayla Sherman¹, Mingxuan Zhao³, Xue-Jun Kong^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Synapse Lab, Athinoula A. Martinos Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, United States.
² NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health, National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, Peking University Sixth Hospital, Beijing, China.
³ Department of Business Analytics, Bentley University, Waltham, MA, United States.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, United States.

Abstract

Given the significance of validating reliable tests for the early detection of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), this systematic review aims to summarize available evidence of neuroimaging and neurophysiological changes in high-risk infants to improve ASD early diagnosis. We included peer-reviewed, primary research in English published before May 21, 2021, involving the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), electroencephalogram (EEG), or functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) in children with high risk for ASD under 24 months of age. The main exclusion criteria includes diagnosis of a genetic disorder and gestation age of less the 36 weeks. Online research was performed on PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and CINAHL. Article selection was conducted by two reviewers to minimize bias. This research was funded by Massachusetts General Hospital Sundry funding. IRB approval was not submitted as it was deemed unnecessary. We included 75 primary research articles. Studies showed that high-risk infants had divergent developmental trajectories for fractional anisotropy and regional brain volumes, increased CSF volume, and global connectivity abnormalities on MRI, decreased sensitivity for familiar faces, atypical lateralization during facial and auditory processing, and different spectral powers across multiple band frequencies on EEG, and distinct developmental trajectories in functional connectivity and regional oxyhemoglobin concentrations in fNIRS. These findings in infants were found to be correlated with the core ASD symptoms and diagnosis at toddler age. Despite the lack of quantitative analysis of the research database, neuroimaging and electrophysiological biomarkers have promising value for the screening of ASD as early as infancy with high accuracy, which warrants further investigation.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder (ASD); early screening; electroencephalogram (EEG); functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS); magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Publication types

Systematic Review