TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2022//
TI  - Cortico-amygdalar connectivity and externalizing/internalizing behavior in children with neurodevelopmental disorders
JO  - Brain structure and function
A1  - Nakua, Hajer
A1  - Hawco, Colin
A1  - Forde, Natalie J.
A1  - Jacobs, Grace R.
A1  - Joseph, Michael
A1  - Voineskos, Aristotle N.
A1  - Wheeler, Anne L.
A1  - Lai, Meng-Chuan
A1  - Szatmari, Peter
A1  - Kelley, Elizabeth
A1  - Liu, Xudong
A1  - Georgiades, Stelios
A1  - Nicolson, Rob
A1  - Schachar, Russell
A1  - Crosbie, Jennifer
A1  - Anagnostou, Evdokia
A1  - Lerch, Jason P.
A1  - Arnold, Paul D.
A1  - Ameis, Stephanie H.
SP  - ePub
EP  - ePub
VL  - ePub
IS  - ePub
N2  - BACKGROUND: Externalizing and internalizing behaviors contribute to clinical impairment in children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). Although associations between externalizing or internalizing behaviors and cortico-amygdalar connectivity have been found in clinical and non-clinical pediatric samples, no previous study has examined whether similar shared associations are present across children with different NDDs. <br><br>METHODS: Multi-modal neuroimaging and behavioral data from the Province of Ontario Neurodevelopmental Disorders (POND) Network were used. POND participants aged 6-18 years with a primary diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), as well as typically developing children (TDC) with T1-weighted, resting-state fMRI or diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) and parent-report Child Behavioral Checklist (CBCL) data available, were analyzed (total n = 346). Associations between externalizing or internalizing behavior and cortico-amygdalar structural and functional connectivity indices were examined using linear regressions, controlling for age, gender, and image-modality specific covariates. Behavior-by-diagnosis interaction effects were also examined. <br><br>RESULTS: No significant linear associations (or diagnosis-by-behavior interaction effects) were found between CBCL-measured externalizing or internalizing behaviors and any of the connectivity indices examined. Post-hoc bootstrapping analyses indicated stability and reliability of these null results. <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: The current study provides evidence towards an absence of a shared linear relationship between internalizing or externalizing behaviors and cortico-amygdalar connectivity properties across a transdiagnostic sample of children with different primary NDD diagnoses and TDC. Different methodological approaches, including incorporation of multi-dimensional behavioral data (e.g., task-based fMRI) or clustering approaches may be needed to clarify complex brain-behavior relationships relevant to externalizing/internalizing behaviors in heterogeneous clinical NDD populations.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1863-2653
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00429-022-02483-0
ID  - ref1
ER  -