Abstract
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) appear in infancy and early childhood, causing delays or impairments in social interaction, communication, and a restricted range of interests. With recent developments in neuroimaging methods, the accumulated evidence suggests that aberrant brain connectivity reflect important aspects of network dysfunction associated with the pathophysiology of ASD. To gain insight into the development of this network dysfunction, it is necessary to study the pathophysiology in younger children with ASD, as aberrant development of white matter pathways may appear in infant stage. However, under conscious conditions, it has been challenging to measure brain functional connectivity in young children with ASD children using creditable methods as they are not always cooperative and persevering. We have recently reported the aberrant brain functional connectivity under conscious conditions in pre- school children with ASD. In our recent studies, we developed the child custom- sized MEG system in which sensors are as close to the whole head as possible for optimal recording even in young children, which otherwise would have been difficult with a conventional adult- sized MEG system. This is a unique and useful technique for young children that can provide measures of cortical neural activity on a millisecond timescale. By obtaining non- invasive measurements with a child custom- sized MEG, we have demonstrate an aberrant brain functional lateralization in conscious preschool children with ASD.
