White Matter Perivascular Space Burden in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typically Developing Controls:...

Area of Science:

• Neuroimaging
• Developmental Neuroscience
• Biomarker Discovery

Background:

• Perivascular spaces (PVS) are crucial for brain waste clearance in typically developing (TD) children.
• The role and burden of PVS in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) remain largely uncharacterized.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantitatively assess differences in white matter (WM) PVS burden between children with ASD and TD controls.
• To investigate the potential of WM PVS as a biomarker for early childhood ASD using automatic segmentation techniques.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a Human Connectome Project pipeline for enhanced perivascular contrast (EPC) imaging.
• Applied a Weakly Supervised Perivascular Spaces Segmentation algorithm to quantify WM PVS volume (WM-PVSv) and count (WM-PVSc) in 98 children with ASD and 38 TD children (ages 2-8).
• Employed statistical analyses including Welch's t-test, chi-square, ANCOVA, and mixed-effects models, adjusting for age, sex, and other relevant brain volumes.

Main Results:

• No significant differences in WM-PVSv or WM-PVSc were found between the ASD and TD groups after adjusting for covariates (p > 0.12).
• White matter volume was significantly associated with both WM-PVSv and WM-PVSc.
• Frontal WM showed the highest normalized PVS count, while deep WM exhibited the highest PVS volume fraction in both groups.

Conclusions:

• WM PVS measures correlate with individual white matter volume rather than diagnostic group.
• Current findings do not support WM-PVS burden as a reliable biomarker for early childhood ASD.
• Further research may explore PVS in different developmental stages or in relation to other ASD-related neurobiological factors.