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Regional volumetric abnormalities in pediatric autism revealed by structural magnetic resonance imaging
Author(s) -
Levman Jacob,
Vasung Lana,
MacDonald Patrick,
Rowley Sean,
Stewart Natalie,
Lim Ashley,
Ewenson Bryan,
Galaburda Albert,
Takahashi Emi
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
international journal of developmental neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.761
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1873-474X
pISSN - 0736-5748
DOI - 10.1016/j.ijdevneu.2018.08.001
Subject(s) - autism , magnetic resonance imaging , corpus callosum , choroid plexus , white matter , medicine , psychology , autism spectrum disorder , pediatrics , audiology , neuroscience , psychiatry , radiology , central nervous system
Autism is a group of complex neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by impaired social interaction, restricted and repetitive behavior. We performed a large‐scale retrospective analysis of 1,996 structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examinations of the brain from 1,769 autistic and neurologically typically developing patients (aged 0–32 years), and extracted regional volumetric measurements distributed across 463 brain regions of each patient. The youngest autistic patients (<2.5 years) were diagnosed after imaging and identified retrospectively. Our study demonstrates corpus callosum volumetric abnormalities among autistic patients that are associated with brain overgrowth in early childhood (0–5 years old), followed by a shift towards known decreased volumes in later ages. Results confirm known increases in ventricular volumes among autistic populations and extends those findings to increased volumes of the choroid plexus. Our study also demonstrates distributed volumetric abnormalities among autistic patients that affect a variety of key regional white and grey matter areas of the brain potentially associated with known symptoms of autism.