Sichuan Provincial Center for Mental Health, The Center of Psychosomatic Medicine of Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China.
MOE Key Lab for Neuroinformation; High-Field Magnetic Resonance Brain Imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China.
Cereb Cortex. 2021 Feb 5;31(3):1500-1510. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa304.
Autism spectrum disorder is an early-onset neurodevelopmental condition. This study aimed to investigate the progressive structural alterations in the autistic brain during early childhood. Structural magnetic resonance imaging scans were examined in a cross-sectional sample of 67 autistic children and 63 demographically matched typically developing (TD) children, aged 2-7 years. Voxel-based morphometry and a general linear model were used to ascertain the effects of diagnosis, age, and a diagnosis-by-age interaction on the gray matter volume. Causal structural covariance network analysis was performed to map the interregional influences of brain structural alterations with increasing age. The autism group showed spatially distributed increases in gray matter volume when controlling for age-related effects, compared with TD children. A significant diagnosis-by-age interaction effect was observed in the fusiform face area (FFA, Fpeak = 13.57) and cerebellum/vermis (Fpeak = 12.73). Compared with TD children, the gray matter development of the FFA in autism displayed altered influences on that of the social brain network regions (false discovery rate corrected, P < 0.05). Our findings indicate the atypical neurodevelopment of the FFA in the autistic brain during early childhood and highlight altered developmental effects of this region on the social brain network.
自闭症谱系障碍是一种早期发病的神经发育障碍。本研究旨在探讨自闭症儿童在幼儿期大脑的进行性结构改变。对 67 名自闭症儿童和 63 名年龄匹配的典型发育（TD）儿童进行了横断面样本的结构磁共振成像扫描，年龄为 2-7 岁。使用基于体素的形态测量法和一般线性模型来确定诊断、年龄以及诊断与年龄的相互作用对灰质体积的影响。进行因果结构协方差网络分析，以绘制随年龄增长脑结构改变的区域间影响。与 TD 儿童相比，自闭症组在控制年龄相关影响时，显示出空间分布的灰质体积增加。在梭状回面孔区（FFA，Fpeak=13.57）和小脑/蚓部（Fpeak=12.73）观察到显著的诊断与年龄的相互作用效应。与 TD 儿童相比，自闭症中 FFA 的灰质发育对社会大脑网络区域的影响发生改变（经假发现率校正，P<0.05）。我们的发现表明自闭症儿童在幼儿期大脑的 FFA 存在非典型神经发育，并强调该区域对社会大脑网络的发育影响发生改变。
