Journal
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY
Volume 70, Issue 9, Pages 852-858Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2011.05.038
Keywords
Adolescence; brain development; fragile X syndrome; longitudinal; MRI; prefrontal cortex
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Funding
- US National Institutes of Health [R01 MH050047]
- National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression
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Background: Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is the most common known heritable cause of intellectual disability. Prior studies in FXS have observed a plateau in cognitive and adaptive behavioral development in early adolescence, suggesting that brain development in FXS may diverge from typical development during this period. Methods: In this study, we examined adolescent brain development using structural magnetic resonance imaging data acquired from 59 individuals with FXS and 83 typically developing control subjects aged 9 to 22, a subset of whom were followed up longitudinally (1-5 years; typically developing: 17, FXS: 19). Regional volumes were modeled to obtain estimates of age-related change. Results: We found that while structures such as the caudate showed consistent volume differences from control subjects across adolescence, prefrontal cortex (PFC) gyri showed significantly aberrant maturation. Furthermore, we found that PFC-related measures of cognitive functioning followed a similarly aberrant developmental trajectory in FXS. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that aberrant maturation of the PFC during adolescence may contribute to persistent or increasing intellectual deficits in FXS.
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