Fundus Peripapillary Vascular Changes in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Area of Science:

• Ophthalmology and Neuroscience
• Biomarkers for Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Background:

• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental condition.
• Current diagnostic methods for ASD can be invasive and time-consuming.
• Exploring novel, non-invasive biomarkers is crucial for early detection and intervention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate alterations in retinal and choroidal vasculature in children with ASD.
• To evaluate the potential of optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) in identifying these vascular changes.
• To assess the utility of retinal vascular characteristics as auxiliary screening tools for ASD.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional study involving 53 children with ASD and 53 age/sex-matched neurotypical (NT) controls.
• Utilized optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) to analyze peripapillary retinal and choroidal vasculature.
• Measured parameters included perfusion density (PD), vessel density, flux index (FI), fractal dimension (FD), and vessel diameter (Dm).

Main Results:

• Significant differences in retinal and choroidal vascular parameters were observed between ASD and NT groups.
• Key findings include increased PD and Dm in the supero-nasal quadrant, altered capillary FI in the nasal quadrant, increased venous FD, and abnormal choroidal FI in the temporal quadrant.
• A random forest model achieved an AUC of 0.7853 for distinguishing ASD from NT individuals, and retinal parameters correlated with fMRI brain signals and predicted core ASD clinical features.

Conclusions:

• Retinal and choroidal vascular characteristics show significant differences in children with ASD.
• These vascular features demonstrate potential as non-invasive biomarkers for auxiliary ASD screening and diagnosis.
• Further research into OCTA-based approaches may offer new insights into ASD pathophysiology and clinical applications.