Identifying neuroimaging markers of phenotypic traits in autism and epilepsy

Autism spectrum disorder and epilepsy co-occur in about 30% of cases (for approximately 200,000 people in the UK). However, overlapping clinical, cognitive, and behavioural traits of those patients are often overlooked or misdiagnosed. Distinguishing seizures from behavioural and other manifestations of autism is often challenging (there is a significant knowledge gap in the underlying neurobiology of autism/epilepsy co-occurrence). This is important to clinicians and researchers investigating neuroimaging markers as the co-occurrence often affects the interpretation.

In this talk, I will describe the phenotypical traits of patients in a mixed cohort of 60 individuals with autism and 29 with epilepsy. I will demonstrate how these traits can be used as a proxy for co-occurring diagnosis, by comparing grey matter cortical thickness from structural brain MRI in high and low-likelihood subgroups.