Involvement of the habenula in the pathophysiology of autism spectrum disorder.
Authors
Germann, Jürgen
Gouveia, Flavia Venetucci
Brentani, Helena
Bedford, Saashi A
Tullo, Stephanie
Chakravarty, M Mallar
Devenyi, Gabriel A
Publication Date
2021-10-27Journal Title
Sci Rep
ISSN
2045-2322
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Volume
11
Issue
1
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
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Germann, J., Gouveia, F. V., Brentani, H., Bedford, S. A., Tullo, S., Chakravarty, M. M., & Devenyi, G. A. (2021). Involvement of the habenula in the pathophysiology of autism spectrum disorder.. Sci Rep, 11 (1) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-00603-0
Description
Funder: Fondation Brain Canada; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100009408
Abstract
The habenula is a small epithalamic structure with widespread connections to multiple cortical, subcortical and brainstem regions. It has been identified as the central structure modulating the reward value of social interactions, behavioral adaptation, sensory integration and circadian rhythm. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by social communication deficits, restricted interests, repetitive behaviors, and is frequently associated with altered sensory perception and mood and sleep disorders. The habenula is implicated in all these behaviors and results of preclinical studies suggest a possible involvement of the habenula in the pathophysiology of this disorder. Using anatomical magnetic resonance imaging and automated segmentation we show that the habenula is significantly enlarged in ASD subjects compared to controls across the entire age range studied (6-30 years). No differences were observed between sexes. Furthermore, support-vector machine modeling classified ASD with 85% accuracy (model using habenula volume, age and sex) and 64% accuracy in cross validation. The Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) significantly differed between groups, however, it was not related to individual habenula volume. The present study is the first to provide evidence in human subjects of an involvement of the habenula in the pathophysiology of ASD.
Keywords
Article, /631/378/1689/1373, /692/698/1688/64, /631/378/3919, article
Identifiers
s41598-021-00603-0, 603
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-00603-0
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/329989
Rights
Licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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