Oluwatofunmi Afolabi

Exploring Brain Imaging Measures and Autism Spectrum Disorder Phenotypes Between Males and Females

Started Mar. 27, 2024

Abstract or project description

Neuroimaging techniques such as MRI scans can help determine several factors when it comes to assessing the severity of Autism Spectrum Disorder and tailoring interventions and management strategies for individuals with ASD. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between neuroimaging data quality and the manifestation of various cognitive measures in individuals with ASD, with a particular focus on sex as a moderating factor. The data from this study was obtained from the Preprocessed Connectomes Project, which systematically preprocessed the data from the 1000 Functional Connectomes Project (FCP) and International Neuroimaging Data-sharing Initiative (INDI) and openly shared the results. 1112 Participants were involved in data collection, ages ranged between (6 - 64) with a vast majority of them (19 or younger). Factors such as verbal intelligence, Foreground to Background Energy Ratio, Signal to Noise Ratio, Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule total score (ADOS_TOTAL), Full-Scale IQ, etc were all collected. After analyzing data, there is a significant positive relationship between age and anat_snr in males, indicating that older males tend to have higher signal-to-noise ratios whereas in females it is absent, indicating that older females tend to have lower signal-to-noise ratios. However, in both males and females, the severity of autism symptoms measured by ADOS_TOTAL has no significant impact on the quality of anatomical MRI scans (anat_snr). Improving MRI data quality and understanding its relationship with cognitive and behavioral measures can lead to more accurate and reliable diagnostic criteria and assessments for ASD.