Alterations in hub organization in the white matter structural network in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder: A 2-year follow-up study.
White-matter hubs in toddlers with autism stay mostly stable, so tailor early ABA to the pathways that already work.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Qian et al. (2018) tracked white-matter hubs in toddlers with autism. They used brain scans called DTI at two time points two years apart.
The team asked: do the brain’s main white-matter hubs stay the same as these very young kids grow?
What they found
Most hubs stayed put, but four new hubs showed up at the second scan.
Changes in five brain regions lined up with changes in the children’s behavior scores.
How this fits with other research
Chien et al. (2026) extends this work. They looked at older youth and found white-matter keeps drifting further from typical paths. The drift is biggest in kids who start with more severe symptoms.
Capio et al. (2013) is a predecessor study. They first showed that white-matter maturation stalls in school-age kids with autism. Lu’s toddler data now show the stall starts even earlier and that hubs, not just single tracts, are involved.
Fitzgerald et al. (2019) seems to disagree at first glance. Their cross-sectional study claims wide white-matter damage, while Lu finds mostly stable hubs. The gap is about method: Jacqueline took one snapshot across many ages; Lu watched the same toddlers over time. Stability in Lu’s data does not rule out damage; it shows the damage picture is set early and changes slowly.
Why it matters
For BCBAs, this means the brain’s highway map in autism is largely fixed by toddlerhood. Focus your teaching plans on skills that use the hubs that are already strong. Track small behavior gains; they may signal tiny but real shifts in hub efficiency. Share scan timelines with parents so they see why early, steady ABA matters even if big jumps are rare.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Little is currently known about the longitudinal developmental patterns of hubs in the whole-brain white matter (WM) structural networks among toddlers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study utilized diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and deterministic tractography to map the WM structural networks in 37 ASD toddlers and 27 age-, gender- and developmental quotient-matched controls with developmental delay (DD) toddlers aged 2-3 years old at baseline (Time 1) and at 2-year follow-up (Time 2). Furthermore, graph-theoretical methods were applied to investigate alterations in the network hubs in these patients at the two time points. The results showed that after 2 years, 17 hubs were identified in the ASD subjects compared to the controls, including 13 hubs that had not changed from baseline and 4 hubs that were newly identified. In addition, alterations in the properties of the hubs of the right middle frontal gyrus, right insula, left median cingulate gyri, and bilateral precuneus were significantly correlated with alterations in the behavioral data for ASD patients. These results indicated that at the stage of 2-5 years of age, ASD children showed distributions of network hubs that were relatively stable, with minor differences. Abnormal developmental patterns in the five areas mentioned above in ASD may contribute to abnormalities in the social and nonsocial characteristics of this disorder. Autism Res 2018, 11: 1218-1228. © 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: This work studied the longitudinal developmental patterns of hubs in the whole-brain white matter (WM) structural network among toddlers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The findings of this study could have implications for understanding how the abnormalities in hub organization in ASD account for behavioral deficits in patients and may provide potential biomarkers for disease diagnosis and the subsequent monitoring of progression and treatment effects for patients with ASD.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2018 · doi:10.1002/aur.1983