Toward Healthy Aging in Adults with Autism: A Longitudinal Clinical and Multimodal Brain Imaging Study

项目摘要/摘要 自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)是一种终生障碍，其后果贯穿整个成年期。近期 人口健康研究表明，老年自闭症成年人的预期寿命较短，患病率增加 身心健康问题。然而，很少有研究关注这一进程。 健康和健康与ASD的衰老以及可能导致更好或更差结果的因素有关。在这 自闭症卓越中心(ACE)网络项目，了解自闭症老龄化的跨学科科学 (ISLA-A)网络将部署一个协调、优化和创新的协议来调查老龄化的影响 这是迄今为止对自闭症成年人进行的最大规模前瞻性纵向队列研究之一。该计划的目标是 ISLA-A中心是1)建立和跟踪一大批自闭症男性和女性成年人、兄弟姐妹和年龄- 和性别匹配的非自闭症成年人，采用全面的协调研究方案调查多个 老龄化的模式方面，包括临床严重性、身心健康、认知老化、 脑结构和功能，以及生物老化的表观遗传学措施；2)表征群体和 自闭症严重程度、健康、健康和大脑测量随年龄增长的个体年龄相关变化；3) 调查临床、健康和脑成像测量之间的关系；以及4)调查 使用新的表观遗传衰老措施，自闭症患者的生物衰老速度加快。的首要目标是 ISLA-A网络旨在创建一个全面、协调和高维的数据集，该数据集将具有以下特征 自闭症患者的衰老轨迹可用于研究早期衰老或加速衰老是否为特征 自闭症的特征，以及自闭症的年龄如何影响健康和大脑结果。包括兄弟姐妹，世界卫生组织 与自闭症成人队列分享遗传学，将有助于识别与年龄和年龄相关的自闭症特有因素 结果。ISLA-A研究结果将确定预测自闭症老龄化结果的候选因素 并将指导制定干预措施和服务，以改善成果。这种新的大型多式联运， 纵向的、可推广的数据集将与自闭症研究社区共享，以独立 学习。总体而言，ISLA-A网络研究将产生丰富的、高影响力的资源，以更好地了解 自闭症中的老龄化，最终目标是改善自闭症成年人的健康和支持。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a lifelong disorder that has consequences throughout adulthood. Recent population health studies indicate that aging autistic adults have shorter life expectancy and increased rates of physical and mental health problems. However, there is a paucity of studies that have focused on the progression of health and wellness with aging in ASD and factors that can contribute to better or worse outcomes. In this Autism Center of Excellence (ACE) Network project, the Interdisciplinary Science to Learn about Autism – Aging (ISLA-A) Network will deploy a harmonized, optimized, and innovative protocol to investigate the effects of aging in autism in one of the largest prospective longitudinal cohort studies of autistic adults to date. The aims of the ISLA-A center are 1) to establish and follow a large cohort of autistic male and female adults, siblings and age- and sex- matched non-autistic adults with a comprehensive harmonized research protocol to investigate multi- modal aspects of aging, including measures of clinical severity, physical and mental health, cognitive aging, brain structure and function, and epigenetic measures of biological aging; 2) to characterize both group and individual age-related changes in autism severity, health, wellness and brain measures with aging; 3) to investigate the relationships between clinical, health, and brain imaging measures; and 4) to investigate whether biological aging is accelerated in autism using new epigenetic measures of aging. The overarching goal of the ISLA-A Network is to create a comprehensive, harmonized, and high-dimensional dataset that will characterize trajectories of aging in autism that may be used to investigate whether early or accelerated aging is a hallmark feature of autism, and how aging in autism influences health and brain outcomes. The inclusion of siblings, who share genetics with the autistic adult cohort, will help to identify autism-specific factors related to aging and outcomes. The ISLA-A study results will identify candidate factors that are predictive to autism aging outcomes and will guide the development of interventions and services to improve outcomes. This new large, multi-modal, longitudinal, and generalizable dataset will be shared with the autism research community for independent studies. Overall, the ISLA-A Network study will generate a rich, high-impact resource for better understanding of aging in autism, with the ultimate goal of improving the health and support of autistic adults.