Through the introduction of a brand new data analytics tool, medical researchers in the University of Warwick in the uk have opened the doorway to understanding the physical differences in the brain associated with autism, ADHD along with a number of other cognitive conditions.
According to some report in the journal Brain, the Warwick researchers developed a method called Brain-Wide Association Analysis (BWAS) that is the first technique able to generating panoramic views of the entire brain and accurate 3D models.
In the study, scientists used BWAS to find out regions of the mind that could contribute significantly towards the symptoms of autism.
With their technique, the UK researchers could analyze over 1.1 billion pieces of data covering the nearly 48,000 different regions of the mind, referred to as voxels. BWAS essentially analyzes the total creation of a practical MRI (fMRI) scan. Previous techniques accustomed to process this degree of information and were limited to modeling only small areas.
The ability analyze the entire group of data from an fMRI scan supplied the Warwick scientists with the opportunity to compile, contrast and compare precise computer models for autistic and non-autistic brains. They used data from countless fMRI?scans of brains from both types of individuals.
The Warwick team could spot 20 key differences forwards and backwards types of brains in which the connections were either stronger or weaker. These differences were observed in areas associated with known autism symptoms.
“We identified within the autistic model a vital system in the temporal lobe visual cortex with reduced cortical functional connectivity,” said study author Jianfeng Feng, a professor of computational biology at Warwick. “This region is associated with the face expression processing involved in social behavior. This key system has reduced functional connectivity with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, that is implicated in emotion and social communication.”
This image shows connections between parts of interest. (Credit: University of Warwick)
Comparing voxels
Another key area with reduced connectivity, based on the study, is within a part of the brain’s parietal lobe linked to spatial functions.
Taken together, the findings in these two key areas are in line with theories from the mind as they connect with autism. The team noted these discoveries would not be possible without BWAS.
“BWAS tests for differences between patients and controls within the connectivity of every set of voxels at a whole brain level,” Feng said. “Unlike previous seed-based or independent components-based approaches, this method has got the great advantage to be fully unbiased in that the connectivity of brain voxels could be compared, not just selected brain regions.”
