Khundrakpam Budhachandra S, Lewis John D, Kostopoulos Penelope, Carbonell Felix, Evans Alan C
Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC, CanadaH3H2P1.
Cereb Cortex. 2017 Mar 1;27(3):1721-1731. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhx038.
Neuroimaging studies in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have provided inconsistent evidence of cortical abnormality. This is probably due to the small sample sizes used in most studies, and important differences in sample characteristics, particularly age, as well as to the heterogeneity of the disorder. To address these issues, we assessed abnormalities in ASD within the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange data set, which comprises data from approximately 1100 individuals (~6-55 years). A subset of these data that met stringent quality control and inclusion criteria (560 male subjects; 266 ASD; age = 6-35 years) were used to compute age-specific differences in cortical thickness in ASD and the relationship of any such differences to symptom severity of ASD. Our results show widespread increased cortical thickness in ASD, primarily left lateralized, from 6 years onwards, with differences diminishing during adulthood. The severity of symptoms related to social affect and communication correlated with these cortical abnormalities. These results are consistent with the conjecture that developmental patterns of cortical thickness abnormalities reflect delayed cortical maturation and highlight the dynamic nature of morphological abnormalities in ASD.
针对自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的神经影像学研究，所提供的有关皮质异常的证据并不一致。这可能是由于大多数研究中使用的样本量较小，样本特征（尤其是年龄）存在重大差异，以及该疾病的异质性。为了解决这些问题，我们在自闭症脑成像数据交换数据集中评估了ASD患者的异常情况，该数据集包含来自约1100名个体（约6至55岁）的数据。这些数据中符合严格质量控制和纳入标准的一个子集（560名男性受试者；266名ASD患者；年龄为6至35岁）被用于计算ASD患者皮质厚度的年龄特异性差异，以及任何此类差异与ASD症状严重程度之间的关系。我们的结果显示，从6岁起，ASD患者的皮质厚度普遍增加，主要集中在左侧，成年后差异逐渐减小。与社交情感和沟通相关的症状严重程度与这些皮质异常相关。这些结果与皮质厚度异常的发育模式反映皮质成熟延迟这一推测一致，并突出了ASD形态异常的动态性质。
