Publications by authors named "A Beggiato"
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates repetitive and restricted behaviors and interests (RRBI) in autism, classifying them into 'motor-driven' and 'cognitively driven' categories while considering the roles of clinical contexts and neuroanatomy.
- Researchers analyzed data from 792 participants, including autistic individuals, their relatives, and typically developing individuals, using standardized scales and MRI to assess RRBI patterns and brain volumes.
- The analysis revealed three main RRBI factors, with 'motor-driven' symptoms linked to lower putamen volumes, while 'cognitively driven' symptoms showed different associations with brain structure, highlighting the complexity of RRBI in autism.
In fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), brain growth deficiency is a hallmark of subjects both with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and with non-syndromic FASD (NS-FASD, i.e., those without specific diagnostic features).
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- The study investigates sensory processing issues in autistic individuals, focusing on hypo and hyper-sensory sensitivities potentially linked to genetic factors affecting GABA-ergic and glutamatergic pathways.
- Researchers analyzed the sensory profiles of 1136 participants (including autistic individuals, relatives, and controls) and found significant differences in sensory processing between these groups, with variability being a key factor.
- While the new differential Short Sensory Profile (dSSP) provided useful insights, it struggled to distinguish between individuals with similar sensory symptom levels, suggesting a need for combining this score with genetic and other sensory assessments for better understanding of sensory processing in autism.
Aim: To identify easily accessible neuroanatomical abnormalities useful for diagnosing fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) in fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) but more importantly for the probabilistic diagnosis of non-syndromic forms (NS-FASD).
Method: We retrospectively collected monocentric data from 52 individuals with FAS, 37 with NS-FASD, and 94 paired typically developing individuals (6-20 years, 99 males, 84 females). On brain T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging, we measured brain size, corpus callosum length and thicknesses, vermis height, then evaluated vermis foliation (Likert scale).
Article Synopsis
- Over 2,000 individuals' MRI data was used in an international challenge where 146 teams submitted algorithms to improve prediction accuracy, achieving an AUC of ~0.80 with the best models.
- Functional MRI was found to be more significant than anatomical MRI for predictions, and larger sample sizes improved accuracy; however, challenges with overfitting and lower accuracy when tested on new datasets highlighted the fragility of the biomarkers developed.