Abstract #3020

Monozygotic twin differences in structural connectivity networks underlying Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) symptom severity

Emmanuel Peng Kiat Pua^1,2, Joseph Yuan-Mou Yang^3,4,5, Gareth Ball³, Jeffrey Craig^6,7, and Marc Seal^3,7

¹Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, ²Developmental Imaging, Clinical Sciences Theme, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia, ³Developmental Imaging, Clinical Sciences Theme, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia, ⁴Neuroscience research, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia, ⁵Department of Neurosurgery, The Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, ⁶Centre for Molecular and Medical Research, Deakin University Medical School, Melbourne, Australia, ⁷Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

Neurodevelopmental abnormalities in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have yet to be reliably identified. Recent work suggests that a likely roadblock is the high degree of subject-specific variation in ASD. We previously implemented a validated network analysis method that identified an atypical functional network underlying individual differences in ASD symptom severity. Here we applied the same approach cross-modally to investigate the association between intra-pair differences in structural connectivity networks and within-twin-pair differences in ASD symptom severity in monozygotic twins. A single structural subnetwork was identified with similar hubs implicating the salience and face-perception networks in severity of social deficits in ASD.

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