Associations between social responsiveness and brain structure in children

Abstract

Early childhood is critical for assessing socioemotional development, especially to identify risk of a disorder developing. Research exists showing relations between brain development and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Damage to the amygdala can result in impaired response and perception of social cues (1). Additional findings show larger amygdala and hippocampal volumes (2) and cortical thinning (3) in individuals with ASD. Behavioral studies have shown that social responsiveness as a key indicator of risk (4). However, children with differences in social behavior without ASD are understudied. This project will investigate relations between neurological variations and differences in social responsiveness in 4- to 8-year-old typically developing children. We will explore relations between amygdala volume, hippocampal volume, and cortical thickness of frontal, parietal and occipital lobes and Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) scores (3). Our study includes approximately 200 children (ages 4-8 years), with neuroimaging and questionnaire data. We measured social responsiveness using the SRS, a parent-report questionnaire (4). We measured amygdala and hippocampal volumes and cortical thickness from structural brain scans using Freesurfer. Correlations between measures will be conducted using R. We hypothesize that lower levels of social responsiveness will be associated with larger amygdala and right hippocampal volumes and decreased cortical thickness. Conducting this research will expand brain research in relation to socioemotional development in all children. (1) Skuse et al., 2003 (2) Barnea-Goraly et al., 2014 (3) Richter et al., 2015 (4) Aldridge et al., 2011