2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Developmental neuro-scientific study on the functional connectivity hypothesis of ASD

Research Project

Project/Area Number	24791218
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Research Field	Psychiatric science
Research Institution	Nagasaki University
Principal Investigator	DOI Hirokazu 長崎大学, 医歯(薬)学総合研究科, 講師 (40437827)
Project Period (FY)	2012-04-01 – 2014-03-31
Keywords	ASD / 機能的連関 / 遺伝子多型 / 脳波
Research Abstract	It is well-established that early intervention to children with autism-spectrum disorders greatly improves their later adaptation to the social world.Recent studies show that some of core symptoms of autism-spectrum disorders is attributable to the impairment of the functional connectivity in the neural system. On the basis of this, it might be possible to develop an early screening measure by quantifying the functional connectivity from infants EEG. To this end, an exploratory investigation was conducted on what kind of EEG measurement paradigm is suitable for the measurement of infants functional connectivity. The preset study also investigated a biological marker linked to infants social communication ability that can improve the screening accuracy when used conjointly with the functional connectivity measure. The results have shown a trend-level significance in the relation between visual attention towards social stimuli and the genotype of neurotransmitter-related gene.