MEG Investigation of Neural Biomarkers and Language in Nonverbal Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

摘要

A main goal of this project is to determine a means of measuring receptive language in a more sensitive and accurate way than can currently be achieved in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who are nonverbal, and neural markers have the potential to be more effective than behavioral measures in this population. This project will significantly contribute to the knowledge of underlying neurophysiology in language processing in ASD. We have successfully developed a technique to correct MEG data for subject movement during recording. This correction reduces signal loss due to movement, resulting in higher quality data. Additionally, we have created a video to send to parents of potential study participants, which describes the study procedures. This video was designed to increase subject comfort; based on reports from subjects, this approach appears to be successful in reducing anxiety surrounding the study visits. We have completed data collection with 5 subjects in the nonverbal ASD group, 2 subjects in the verbal ASD group, and 1 subject in the control group. The study is fully up and running, so we anticipate being able to complete study procedures with the originally planned 15 subjects per group by the end of Year 2.