title: Cortical morphological markers in children with autism: a structural magnetic resonance imaging study of thickness, area, volume, and gyrification.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been characterized by altered cerebral cortical structures; however, the field has yet to identify consistent markers and prior studies have included mostly adolescents and adults. While there are multiple cortical morphological measures, including cortical thickness, surface area, cortical volume, and cortical gyrification, few single studies have examined all these measures. The current study analyzed all of the four measures and focused on pre-adolescent children with ASD.
  
  
  METHODS
  We employed the FreeSurfer pipeline to examine surface-based morphometry in 60 high-functioning boys with ASD (mean age = 8.35 years, range = 4-12 years) and 41 gender-, age-, and IQ-matched typically developing (TD) peers (mean age = 8.83 years), while testing for age-by-diagnosis interaction and between-group differences.
  
  
  RESULTS
  During childhood and in specific regions, ASD participants exhibited a lack of normative age-related cortical thinning and volumetric reduction and an abnormal age-related increase in gyrification. Regarding surface area, ASD and TD exhibited statistically comparable age-related development during childhood. Across childhood, ASD relative to TD participants tended to have higher mean levels of gyrification in specific regions. Within ASD, those with higher Social Responsiveness Scale total raw scores tended to have greater age-related increase in gyrification in specific regions during childhood.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  ASD is characterized by cortical neuroanatomical abnormalities that are age-, measure-, statistical model-, and region-dependent. The current study is the first to examine the development of all four cortical measures in one of the largest pre-adolescent samples. Strikingly, Neurosynth-based quantitative reverse inference of the surviving clusters suggests that many of the regions identified above are related to social perception, language, self-referential, and action observation networks-those frequently found to be functionally altered in individuals with ASD. The comprehensive, multilevel analyses across a wide range of cortical measures help fill a knowledge gap and present a complex but rich picture of neuroanatomical developmental differences in children with ASD.
authors.affiliation: Center for Translational Developmental Neuroscience, Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT USA.
authors.forename: Daniel Y-J
authors.initials: DY
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Center for Translational Developmental Neuroscience, Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT USA.
authors.forename: Danielle
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Beam
authors.affiliation: Center for Translational Developmental Neuroscience, Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT USA.
authors.forename: Kevin A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Pelphrey
authors.affiliation: Center for Translational Developmental Neuroscience, Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT USA.
authors.forename: Sebiha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Abdullahi
authors.affiliation: Center for Translational Developmental Neuroscience, Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT USA.
authors.forename: Roger J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Jou
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000473:pathology*; D002648:Child; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000473:pathology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D066128:Gray Matter / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D059906:Neuroimaging; D009929:Organ Size; D066127:White Matter / Q000473:pathology
keywords: Autism spectrum disorder; Brain development; Brain structure; Neuroanatomy; Surface-based morphometry
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