Early patterns of functional brain development associated with autism spectrum disorder in tuberous sclerosis complex.
Low alpha wave sync between brain halves in TSC babies predicts later autism, giving BCBAs a head start on early intervention.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team placed soft EEG nets on 12- to 24-month-old infants who have tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC).
They tracked how well the two sides of the brain synced their alpha waves while the babies sat quietly.
Some of these TSC babies later received an autism diagnosis; others did not. The researchers compared the groups.
What they found
TSC babies who went on to develop autism showed weaker alpha wave teamwork between hemispheres.
The difference was clear when compared with both TSC babies without autism and typically developing infants.
Low alpha coherence acted like an early warning flag for later autism in this high-risk group.
How this fits with other research
Stamoulis et al. (2015) first showed that TSC toddlers keep too much high-frequency EEG activity. The new study adds a second EEG clue—low alpha coherence—so clinicians now have two electrical signatures to watch.
M Shama et al. (2025) tried a different EEG trick: they measured how much the signal jumps from trial to trial in older children with autism. That method reached 71 % accuracy, while Abigail’s alpha-coherence approach targets much younger babies.
Fujiwara (2014) found that low maternal education raised the chance of an ASD flag at 18 months in the general population. Abigail’s work shifts the focus from social risk factors to measurable brain activity in a specific genetic condition.
Why it matters
If you work with TSC infants, you can add a 10-minute EEG recording to your assessment kit. Look for low alpha coherence as a red flag. Spotting autism risk before the first birthday lets you start targeted play, communication, and caregiver coaching months earlier, when the brain is most plastic.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is a rare genetic disorder that confers a high risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASD), with behavioral predictors of ASD emerging early in life. Deviations in structural and functional neural connectivity are highly implicated in both TSC and ASD. For the first time, we explore whether electroencephalographic (EEG) measures of neural network function precede or predict the emergence of ASD in TSC. We determine whether altered brain function (a) is present in infancy in TSC, (b) differentiates infants with TSC based on ASD diagnostic status, and (c) is associated with later cognitive function. We studied 35 infants with TSC (N = 35), and a group of typically developing infants (N = 20) at 12 and 24 months of age. Infants with TSC were later subdivided into ASD and non-ASD groups based on clinical evaluation. We measured features of spontaneous alpha oscillations (6-12 Hz) that are closely associated with neural network development: alpha power, alpha phase coherence (APC), and peak alpha frequency (PAF). Infants with TSC demonstrated reduced interhemispheric APC compared to controls at 12 months of age, and these differences were found to be most pronounced at 24 months in the infants who later developed ASD. Across all infants, PAF at 24 months was associated with verbal and nonverbal cognition at 36 months. Associations between early network function and later neurodevelopmental and cognitive outcomes highlight the potential utility of early scalable EEG markers to identify infants with TSC requiring additional targeted intervention initiated very early in life. Autism Res 2019, 12: 1758-1773. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Approximately half of infants with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) develop autism. Here, using EEG, we find that there is a reduction in communication between brain regions during infancy in TSC, and that the infants who show the largest reductions are those who later develop autism. Being able to identify infants who show early signs of disrupted brain development may improve the timing of early prediction and interventions in TSC, and also help us to understand how early brain changes lead to autism.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2019 · doi:10.1016/j.pediatrneurol.2015.09.013