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Mapping brain abnormalities in boys with autism.

Human brain mapping | 2009

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit characteristic cognitive and behavioral differences, but no systematic pattern of neuroanatomical differences has been consistently found. Recent neurodevelopmental models posit an abnormal early surge in subcortical white matter growth in at least some autistic children, perhaps normalizing by adulthood, but other studies report subcortical white matter deficits. To investigate the profile of these alterations in 3D, we mapped brain volumetric differences using a relatively new method, tensor-based morphometry. 3D T1-weighted brain MRIs of 24 male children with ASD (age: 9.5 years +/- 3.2 SD) and 26 age-matched healthy controls (age: 10.3 +/- 2.4 SD) were fluidly registered to match a common anatomical template. Autistic children had significantly enlarged frontal lobes (by 3.6% on the left and 5.1% on the right), and all other lobes of the brain were enlarged significantly, or at trend level. By analyzing the applied deformations statistically point-by-point, we detected significant gray matter volume deficits in bilateral parietal, left temporal and left occipital lobes (P = 0.038, corrected), trend-level cerebral white matter volume excesses, and volume deficits in the cerebellar vermis, adjacent to volume excesses in other cerebellar regions. This profile of excesses and deficits in adjacent regions may (1) indicate impaired neuronal connectivity, resulting from aberrant myelination and/or an inflammatory process, and (2) help to understand inconsistent findings of regional brain tissue excesses and deficits in autism.

Pubmed ID: 19554561 RIS Download

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Associated grants

  • Agency: NIA NIH HHS, United States
    Id: P50 AG016570-10
  • Agency: NIBIB NIH HHS, United States
    Id: EB01651
  • Agency: NIMH NIH HHS, United States
    Id: MH655166
  • Agency: NIDA NIH HHS, United States
    Id: MH/DA52176
  • Agency: NCRR NIH HHS, United States
    Id: P41 RR013642
  • Agency: NCRR NIH HHS, United States
    Id: P41 RR013642-11
  • Agency: NIA NIH HHS, United States
    Id: P50 AG016570-100004
  • Agency: NCRR NIH HHS, United States
    Id: RR13642
  • Agency: NIA NIH HHS, United States
    Id: AG016570
  • Agency: NCRR NIH HHS, United States
    Id: RR019771
  • Agency: NIA NIH HHS, United States
    Id: P50 AG016570

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MultiTracer (tool)

RRID:SCR_002445

A Java application that allows images to be displayed in three dimensions. The tool allows anatomic structures to be traced and the tracings to be saved in a format that facilitates review and revision. It supports NIfTI-1.1 format float, double and signed and unsigned byte, short, and integer formats and provides legacy support for Analyze 7.5 8 and 16 bit images. It provides image display, editing, delineation of structure boundaries, export of traced contours and generation of masked volumes. Images are displayed in 3 orthogonal views. Time series can be displayed as averaged or contrast images and time courses can be visualized graphically. Version 2 provides enhancements to the original MultiTracer feature set.

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RRID:SCR_006623

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