ARTICLES
MRI Neuroanatomy in Young Girls With Autism: A Preliminary Study

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ABSTRACT

Objective:

To test the hypothesis that young girls and boys with autism exhibit different profiles of neuroanatomical abnormality relative to each other and relative to typically developing children.

Method:

Structural magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure gray and white matter volumes (whole cerebrum, cerebral lobes, and cerebellum) and total brain volume in nine girls (ages 2.29-5.16) and 27 boys (ages 1.96-5.33) with autism and 14 girls (ages 2.17-5.71) and 13 boys (ages 1.72-5.50) with typical development. Structure size and the relationship between size and age were examined. Diagnostic and cognitive outcome data were obtained after the children reached 4 to 5 years of age.

Results:

Girls with autism exhibited nearly every size-related abnormality exhibited by boys with autism. Furthermore, additional sites of abnormality were observed in girls, including enlargement in temporal white and gray matter volumes and reduction in cerebellar gray matter volume. Significant correlations were observed between age and white matter volumes (e.g., cerebral white matter rs = 0.950) for the girls with autism, whereas no significant age-structure size relationships were observed for the boys with autism.

Conclusions:

Results suggest sex differences in etiological factors and the biological time course of the disorder.

Section snippets

METHOD

The study was approved by the institutional review boards of Children's Hospital San Diego, the University of California, San Diego, and San Diego State University. Informed consent was obtained from the parents of each participant, and all of the subjects were paid for their participation. Participants were recruited as part of an ongoing longitudinal study of brain development in autism.

Diagnostic and Behavioral Results

No significant differences were observed between the girls and boys with autism in overall symptom severity as evidenced by similar Childhood Autism Rating Scale, Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised domain scores, and the distribution of ADOS modules administered within each group (Table 1). There were also no significant differences observed with respect to nonverbal and verbal abilities. Although the children with autism, as expected, significantly differed from typically developing children

DISCUSSION

To our knowledge, this is the first study to specifically examine the neuroanatomical phenotype in young girls with autism. Structure size and the relationship between size and age were examined. Similarities as well as differences were observed among the girls and boys with autism. When compared with same-sex controls, common sites of abnormality in raw anatomical measures among the girls and boys with autism included enlargement in whole brain, cerebral gray, frontal gray, and cerebellar

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    Supported by NINDS grant R01 NS-19855. The authors acknowledge the families who made this research possible. They thank Heather Davis, Christina Karns, Zachary Tigue, Rebecca Ziccardi, Weifang Zhou, and Dr. Ruth A. Carper for conducting image processing and analysis. They also thank Drs. Cathy Lord, Alan Lincoln, Senia Pizzo, and Natacha Akshoomoff for collection of diagnostic and cognitive data, and Dr. Georg E. Matt for his comments on a previous draft of this manuscript.

    Article Plus (online only) materials for this article appear on the Journal's Web site: www.jaacap.com.

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