# Atypical Late Neurodevelopment in Autism: A Longitudinal Clinical Phenotype and Multimodal Brain Imaging Study

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON · 2020 · $760,319

## Abstract

The goal of the proposed project is to determine how individual variation in brain development from childhood
to adulthood is associated with variation in clinical course and outcome in autism. We will achieve this goal in
three steps. We will first quantify individual whole and regional brain development from imaging data across six
time points collected over 15 years using magnetic resonance imaging (volume, cortical thickness, functional
connectivity, white matter microstructure) and concurrent clinical and neuropsychological evaluations. The six
time points will include the four time points from our existing 10-year longitudinal study (140 male participants
with autism and 75 age-matched typically developing participants) plus two more collected over the next five
years by the same multisite interdisciplinary team. These extended cohort sequential longitudinal data will span
3-53 years of age. We will analyze age-period-cohort effects across our wide age range. More data will provide
enough power to test existence of linear and curvilinear developmental arcs at individual, cohort, and group
levels. We will investigate the specificity to autism by comparison to a reading disorder group. Second, we will
identify mediating and modulating factors within brain development that help explain why some individuals
continue to have severe autism while others improve. Third, we will analyze associations between longitudinal
brain functional development and clinical outcome by evaluating the mechanism by which impairment in long-
range connectivity and inhibition may ultimately impact adult prognosis. Finally, we explore how trajectories of
late brain development may interact with the loss of secondary school services. Our findings will elucidate how
brain changes modulate the severity of core autism symptoms and in the cognitive profile of individuals with
the disorder. Understanding the paths of late brain development and the relation between brain maturation and
cognitive/behavioral changes is essential to identify biological mechanisms involved and to understand how
they interact with contextual factors.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9922376
- **Project number:** 5R01MH080826-10
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
- **Principal Investigator:** JANET Elizabeth LAINHART
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $760,319
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2007-08-01 → 2022-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9922376

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9922376, Atypical Late Neurodevelopment in Autism: A Longitudinal Clinical Phenotype and Multimodal Brain Imaging Study (5R01MH080826-10). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9922376. Licensed CC0.

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