Salience network connectivity relates to sleep disruption in infants at high familial likelihood for autism
Year: 2025
Type: data-paper
Abstract: Background Sleep problems are common in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and often present prior to diagnosis (Guinchat et al., 2012). Although sleep is essential for neurodevelopment, the relationship between early sleep disruption and developing brain networks remains unclear. The salience network (SN), involved in detecting internal and external salient stimuli, is altered in ASD (Uddin et al., 2013). We recently showed atypical SN connectivity with sensorimotor and frontal regions in 1.5-month-old infants at high likelihood of ASD (Tsang et al., 2024). Interestingly, the SN is also altered in insomnia patients, suggesting a crucial role for SN connectivity in sleep regulation. Yet, the link between early sleep problems and SN connectivity in ASD remains poorly understood. Since 20% of infant siblings of autistic children will receive a diagnosis (Ozonoff et al., 2024), this population can offer important insights into the development of these early relationships. Objectives This study examined how SN connectivity at 6 months relates to sleep-onset problems in infants at varying familial likelihood for ASD. Using an a priori approach informed by recent findings (Tsang et al., 2024), we focused on SN connectivity with sensorimotor and frontal regions. Methods We used data collected as part of the Infant Brain Imaging Study (IBIS) (R01HD055741). Resting-state fMRI scans were acquired during natural sleep at 6 months in infants with an older sibling with ASD (high likelihood: HL, N=63) and infants with no first- or second-degree relatives with ASD (typical likelihood: TL, N=39). Scans were preprocessed and analyzed using FMRIB?s Software Library (FSL). Five items related to sleep initiation from the Infant Behavior Questionnaire were used to create the Infant Sleep-Onset Problems (ISOP) score, consistent with a prior study in the IBIS sample (MacDuffie et al., 2020). All analyses were conducted using the right anterior insula (rAI) - the hub of the SN - as the seed, masked by joint group-level functional connectivity maps or anatomical ROIs. ISOP scores at 6 months were used as regressors in a bottom-up analysis. Results HL infants displayed weaker rAI connectivity with the right inferior frontal gyrus as compared to TL infants (Z>2.7, P<0.05). Regressions with 6-month ISOP scores demonstrated that HL infants with worse sleep-onset problems showed stronger rAI connectivity with right sensorimotor cortices (Z>2.3, P<0.05). Conclusions Our finding that HL infants show weaker SN connectivity with the inferior frontal gyrus is consistent with our prior work in 1.5-month infants, indicating that this pattern of hypoconnectivity is consistent across the first 6 months of life. We also show that greater sleep-onset problems at 6 months are related to stronger SN connectivity with sensorimotor regions, suggesting that extraneous attention to sensory inputs may disrupt sleep in HL infants. This is in line with the literature linking sleep problems to sensory responsivity challenges in ASD (Lane et al., 2022) and suggests that the relationship between sleep patterns and sensory processing atypicalities is already present in early infancy.
DOI: 10.15154/kt67-6x17
Authors: Chiem, Emily, Chiem, Emily
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6960934596
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