title: Is macrocephaly a neural marker of a local bias in autism?
abstract: Previous research has suggested that the local processing bias often reported in studies of Autism Spectrum Condition may only be typical of a subgroup of individuals with autism also presenting with macrocephaly. The current study examined a group of children with autism, with and without macrocephaly, on the Children's Embedded Figures Test (CEFT), a well-established measure of local processing bias. The results demonstrated that the children with autism and macrocephaly performed significantly better on the CEFT than children with autism without macrocephaly, indicative of a local bias. These results lend support to the proposal that both macrocephaly in autism and a local processing bias may arise from the same underlying neural processes and these characteristics represent an endophenotype in a subgroup of individuals with ASC worthy of further investigation.
authors.affiliation: Autism Research Centre, University of Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: O'Reilly
authors.forename: Flora I
authors.initials: FI
authors.lastname: Thiébaut
authors.forename: Sarah J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: White
mesh_terms: D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000150:complications* / Q000473:pathology*; D015982:Bias; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D058627:Megalencephaly / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology; D009412:Nerve Fibers / Q000473:pathology*; D012494:Sampling Studies
keywords: Autism; Central coherence; Connectivity; Local bias; Macrocephaly