IS Global, Barcelona Institute for Global Health, Barcelona, Spain.
Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain.
Autism Res. 2021 Oct;14(10):2085-2099. doi: 10.1002/aur.2576. Epub 2021 Jul 26.
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are associated with widespread brain alterations. Previous research in our group linked autistic traits with altered gyrification, but without pronounced differences in cortical thickness. Herein, we aim to replicate and extend these findings using a larger and older sample. Additionally, we examined whether (a) brain correlates of autistic traits were associated with polygenic risk scores (PRS) for ASD, and (b) autistic traits are related with brain morphological changes over time in a subset of children with longitudinal data available. The sample included 2400 children from the Generation R cohort. Autistic traits were measured using the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) at age 6 years. Gyrification, cortical thickness, surface area, and global morphological measures were obtained from high-resolution structural MRI scans at ages 9-to-12 years. We performed multiple linear regression analyses on a vertex-wise level. Corresponding regions of interest were tested for association with PRS. Results showed that autistic traits were related to (a) lower gyrification in the lateral occipital and the superior and inferior parietal lobes, (b) lower cortical thickness in the superior frontal region, and (c) lower surface area in inferior temporal and rostral middle frontal regions. PRS for ASD and longitudinal analyses showed significant associations that did not survive correction for multiple testing. Our findings support stability in the relationship between higher autistic symptoms and lower gyrification and smaller surface areas in school-aged children. These relationships remained when excluding ASD cases, providing neurobiological evidence for the extension of autistic traits into the general population. LAY SUMMARY: We found that school-aged children with higher levels of autistic traits had smaller total brain volume, cerebellum, cortical thickness, and surface area. Further, we also found differences in the folding patterns of the brain (gyrification). Overall, genetic susceptibility for autism spectrum disorders was not related to these brain regions suggesting that other factors could be involved in their origin. These results remained significant when excluding children with a diagnosis of ASD, providing support for the extension of the relationship between autistic traits and brain findings into the general population.
自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)与广泛的大脑改变有关。我们小组之前的研究将自闭症特征与脑回发育不良联系起来,但皮质厚度没有明显差异。在此,我们使用更大和更年长的样本复制和扩展这些发现。此外,我们还检查了(a)自闭症特征的脑相关性是否与 ASD 的多基因风险评分(PRS)相关,以及(b)自闭症特征是否与具有纵向数据的儿童子集的大脑形态变化有关。该样本包括来自 Generation R 队列的 2400 名儿童。自闭症特征使用社交反应量表(SRS)在 6 岁时进行测量。在 9 至 12 岁时,从高分辨率结构 MRI 扫描中获得脑回、皮质厚度、表面积和整体形态测量值。我们在顶点水平上进行了多次线性回归分析。对相应的感兴趣区域进行了与 PRS 相关的测试。结果表明,自闭症特征与(a)外侧枕叶和上、下顶叶的脑回发育不良有关,(b)额上区域的皮质厚度较低,(c)颞下回和额中回的表面积较低。ASD 的 PRS 和纵向分析显示出显著的关联,但在进行多次测试校正后并不显著。我们的研究结果支持在学龄儿童中,较高的自闭症症状与较低的脑回和较小的表面积之间的关系稳定。当排除 ASD 病例时,这些关系仍然存在,为自闭症特征在普通人群中的扩展提供了神经生物学证据。
非专业人士翻译,仅供参考。
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