Infants with sleep onset problems more likely to be diagnosed with autism
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Infants who experienced sleep onset problems during the first year of life were significantly more likely to be diagnosed later with autism spectrum disorder, according to results of a longitudinal neuroimaging study published in American Journal of Psychiatry.
“Given the high prevalence of sleep problems among children with autism, it is likely that many children are not benefiting as much from intervention and other learning opportunities as they could if they were sleeping better,” Katherine E. MacDuffie, PhD, of the department of speech and hearing sciences at University of Washington in Seattle, told Healio Psychiatry. “Our findings highlight the importance of studying sleep problems early in development among children with autism, and developing new interventions that specifically target sleep problems in this population.”
The researchers noted that little research exists regarding the occurrence of sleep problems among infants who subsequently developed ASD, as well as on possible effects on early brain development. To address this research gap, MacDuffie and colleagues evaluated data of 432 infants across three study groups — 71 high-risk infants who developed ASD, 234 high-risk infants who did not develop ASD and 127 low-risk infants. They used an infant temperament measure to derive sleep onset problem scores and evaluated them in relation to longitudinal high-resolution T1 and T2 structural imaging data acquired at ages 6, 12 and 24 months.
Results showed that sleep onset problems occurred more frequently at 6 to 12 months among infants who later develop ASD. They observed associations between infant sleep onset problems and hippocampal volume trajectories from 6 to 24 months only for high-risk infants who developed ASD. Relationships between brain and sleep were specific to the hippocampus, and the researchers reported no significant relationships regarding volume trajectories of other subcortical structures examined, including the thalamus, amygdala, putamen, caudate and globus pallidus.
“We were surprised by the specificity of our finding — the only brain area from those we looked at that was associated with difficulty falling asleep was the hippocampus," MacDuffie told Healio Psychiatry. "This is an area of the brain that has been associated with sleep problems in previous studies with adults, typically-developing older children and animals, but this was the first time that a sleep-hippocampus association was found for infants who go on to develop autism.” – by Joe Gramigna
Disclosures: One study author reports serving as a member of an independent data monitoring committee for a clinical trial funded by Roche. The other authors report no relevant financial disclosures.