Developmental brain structural atypicalities in autism: A voxel-based morphometry analysis

Background Accumulating structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (sMRI) studies have showed atypicalities in developmental changes of structural regional brain in autism, with largely inconsistent results. Methods The current study investigated the brain structural abnormal features of autistic individuals aged 6~30 years. We included 52 autism individuals and 50 age, gender, and IQ matched typically developing individuals (TD), who were divided into three groups: childhood (6-12 years old), adolescent (13-18 years old) and adulthood (19-30 years old). Whole brain volume and Voxel-Based Morphometry (VBM) analyses were employed on the sMRI data collected from our participants. Results We found no significant difference in the volume of whole brain, gray matter and white matter between autism and TD groups of the three age groups. For VBM analyses, the volumes of gray matter in right superior temporal gyrus and right inferior parietal lobule in children autism group were smaller than those in TD group; the volume of gray matter in left inferior parietal lobule in adolescent autism group was larger than that in TD group; the volume of gray matter in right middle occipital gyrus in adult autism group was larger than that in TD group, and the gray matter in left posterior cingulate gyrus was smaller than that in TD group. Conclusions Findings suggest autism individuals showed different atypical brain regions of gray matter volume in childhood, adolescent, and adulthood relative to their normal peers respectively, indiciating that it is essential to take developmental perspectives into consideration when exploring brain structural abnormalities in autism.