Aims: To identify differences in autistic people, typical people and siblings of autistic people, in terms of the structure and function of the brain.
Background: It is now well established that there are structural and functional differences in the brains of autistic and typical people, although large scale studies are needed to verify these. This is one of the aims of the LEAP study which is part of EU-AIMS and is being extended into AIMS2TRIALS. The Cambridge Family Study also tested siblings of autistic people to see if some of the differences exist in those who share 50% of their genes with an autistic person. The MRC-AIMS study tested autistic and typical males and females to identify differences related to diagnosis and gender and their interaction.
Methods: Structural and functional MRI, the former including both grey and white matter studies, and the latter including a range of social and non social tasks.
Results: Results will appear on our website.
Importance: These studies are important since autism is fundamentally a neurodevelopmental condition. Our studies include individuals at younger ages, to track these differences to their earliest onset.
Relevance: This research is primarily to increase understanding of the causes of autism.
Funding: The MRC, the Autism Research Trust, and the EU.
Staff Members
- Dr Richard Bethlehem
Dr Rosie Holt
Nazia Jassim
Tanya Procyshyn
Professor Ed Bullmore
Dr Meng-Chuan Lai
Dr Michael Lombardo
Professor John Suckling
Selected Publications
- Autistic traits, resting-state connectivity, and absolute pitch in professional musicians: shared and distinct neural features, Molecular Autism 10, 20 (2019), T Wenhart, RAI Bethlehem, S Baron-Cohen, E Altenmüller
- Synaptic and transcriptionally downregulated genes are associated with cortical thickness differences in autism, Molecular Psychiatry 24, 103-1064 (2019), R Romero-Garcia, V Warrier, E T Bullmore, S Baron-Cohen, R A Bethlehem
- 10Kin1day: A Bottom-Up Neuroimaging Initiative, Frontiers in Neurology 10, 425 (2019), L H Scholtens, F Agosta, C Alloza, D Arango, B Auyeung, S Baron-Cohen, S Basaia, M J Benders, F Beyer, L Booij, K P Braun
- Large-scale analyses of the relationship between sex, age and intelligence quotient heterogeneity and cortical morphometry in autism spectrum disorder, Molecular Psychiatry (2019), S A Bedford, M T M Park, G A Devenyi, S Tullo, J Germann, R Patel, E Anagnostou, S Baron-Cohen, E T Bullmore, L R Chura, M C Craig, C Ecker, D L Floris, R J Holt, R Lenroot, J P Lerch, M V Lombardo, D G M Murphy, A Raznahan, A N V Ruigrok, E Smith, M D Spencer, J Suckling, M J Taylor, A Thurm, MRC AIMS Consortium, M-C Lai, M M Chakravarty
- Altered Connectivity Between Cerebellum, Visual, and Sensory-Motor Networks in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Results from the EU-AIMS Longitudinal European Autism Project, Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging 4, 260-270 (2018), M Oldehinkel, M Mennes, A Marquand, T Charman, J Tillmann, C Ecker, F Dell'Acqua, D Brandeis, T Banaschewski, S Baumeister, C Moessnang, S Baron-Cohen, R Holt, S Bolte, S Durston, S, P Kundu, M V Lombardo, W Spooren, E Loth, D G M Murphy, C F Beckman, J K Buitelaar, the EU-AIMS LEAP Group