Cerebellum, Language, and Cognition in Autism and Specific Language Impairment

We performed cerebellum segmentation and parcellation on magnetic resonance images from right-handed boys, aged 6–13 years, including 22 boys with autism [16 with language impairment (ALI)], 9 boys with Specific Language Impairment (SLI), and 11 normal controls. Language-impaired groups had reversed asymmetry relative to unimpaired groups in posterior-lateral cerebellar lobule VIIIA (right side larger in unimpaired groups, left side larger in ALI and SLI), contralateral to previous findings in inferior frontal cortex language areas. Lobule VIIA Crus I was smaller in SLI than in ALI. Vermis volume, particularly anterior I–V, was decreased in language-impaired groups. Language performance test scores correlated with lobule VIIIA asymmetry and with anterior vermis volume. These findings suggest ALI and SLI subjects show abnormalities in neurodevelopment of fronto-corticocerebellar circuits that manage motor control and the processing of language, cognition, working memory, and attention.

[1]  HighWire Press.  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London , 1781, The London Medical Journal.

[2]  F. Jones,et al.  Qualitative and Quantitative , 2014 .

[3]  D. Wechsler.  Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children , 2020, Definitions.

[4]  Walter Dandy,et al.  The Brain , 1966 .

[5]  R. C. Oldfield.  The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. , 1971, Neuropsychologia.

[6]  R. C. Oldfield.  THE ASSESSMENT AND ANALYSIS OF HANDEDNESS , 1971 .

[7]  T. Fog.  ACTA NEUROLOGICA SCANDINAVICA , 1976 .

[8]  R. Heath.  Modulation of emotion with a brain pacemamer. Treatment for intractable psychiatric illness. , 1977, The Journal of nervous and mental disease.

[9]  R. Dean.  Cerebral laterality and reading comprehension , 1978, Neuropsychologia.

[10]  T. Kemper,et al.  Histoanatomic observations of the brain in early infantile autism , 1985, Neurology.

[11]  A. L. Leiner,et al.  Does the cerebellum contribute to mental skills? , 1986, Behavioral neuroscience.

[12]  A. Scheibel,et al.  Lower Purkinje cell counts in the cerebella of four autistic subjects: initial findings of the UCLA-NSAC Autopsy Research Report. , 1986, The American journal of psychiatry.

[13]  G. Dawson,et al.  Hemispheric specialization and the language abilities of autistic children. , 1986, Child development.

[14]  J. Mazziotta,et al.  Cerebellar glucose metabolism in chronic aphasia , 1987, Neurology.

[15]  F. Volkmar,et al.  Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders , 1987 .

[16]  神保 尚武.  言語運用能力(Communicative Competence) , 1987 .

[17]  E. Courchesne,et al.  Hypoplasia of cerebellar vermal lobules VI and VII in autism. , 1988, The New England journal of medicine.

[18]  P. T. Fox,et al.  Positron emission tomographic studies of the cortical anatomy of single-word processing , 1988, Nature.

[19]  M. Posner,et al.  Positron Emission Tomographic Studies of the Processing of Singe Words , 1989, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[20]  D. Kennedy,et al.  Anatomic segmentation and volumetric calculations in nuclear magnetic resonance imaging. , 1989, IEEE transactions on medical imaging.

[21]  V. Hachinski.  Brain mapping. , 1989, Archives of neurology.

[22]  M. Torrens.  Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain—3-Dimensional Proportional System: An Approach to Cerebral Imaging, J. Talairach, P. Tournoux. Georg Thieme Verlag, New York (1988), 122 pp., 130 figs. DM 268 , 1990 .

[23]  J. Galloway.  A handle on handedness , 1990, Nature.

[24]  A. Galaburda,et al.  Individual variability in cortical organization: Its relationship to brain laterality and implications to function , 1990, Neuropsychologia.

[25]  J. Galloway.  Developmental biology. A handle on handedness. , 1990, Nature.

[26]  A. L. Leiner,et al.  The human cerebro-cerebellar system: its computing, cognitive, and language skills , 1991, Behavioural Brain Research.

[27]  J. Schmahmann.  An emerging concept. The cerebellar contribution to higher function. , 1991, Archives of neurology.

[28]  S. Bain.  Differential Ability Scales , 1991 .

[29]  N. Rosman,et al.  The brain in infantile autism , 1992, Neurology.

[30]  S. Petersen,et al.  Impaired non-motor learning and error detection associated with cerebellar damage. A single case study. , 1992, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[31]  S. Folstein,et al.  Magnetic resonance imaging in autism: measurement of the cerebellum, pons, and fourth ventricle , 1992, Biological Psychiatry.

[32]  K. Slifer,et al.  Behavior analysis of motion control for pediatric neuroimaging. , 1993, Journal of applied behavior analysis.

[33]  T. Hashimoto,et al.  Brainstem and Cerebellar Vermis Involvement in Autistic Children , 1993, Journal of child neurology.

[34]  M. Molinari,et al.  The cerebellum contributes to linguistic production , 1994, Neurology.

[35]  E. Courchesne,et al.  Abnormality of cerebellar vermian lobules VI and VII in patients with infantile autism: identification of hypoplastic and hyperplastic subgroups with MR imaging. , 1994, AJR. American journal of roentgenology.

[36]  A. Couteur,et al.  Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised: A revised version of a diagnostic interview for caregivers of individuals with possible pervasive developmental disorders , 1994, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[37]  C. Bell.  DSM-IV: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , 1994 .

[38]  J. Piven,et al.  The cerebellum and autism , 1995, Neurology.

[39]  J. Piven.  Understanding Other Minds: Perspectives From Autism , 1995 .

[40]  J. Piven,et al.  An MRI study of brain size in autism. , 1995, The American journal of psychiatry.

[41]  Mutism and pseudobulbar symptoms after resection of posterior fossa tumors in children: incidence and pathophysiology. , 1995 .

[42]  M. Leboyer,et al.  SPECT OF THE BRAIN IN CHILDHOOD AUTISM: EVIDENCE FOR A LACK OF NORMAL HEMISPHERIC ASYMMETRY , 1995, Developmental medicine and child neurology.

[43]  A. Bailey,et al.  Autism as a strongly genetic disorder: evidence from a British twin study , 1995, Psychological Medicine.

[44]  I. Pollack,et al.  Mutism and pseudobulbar symptoms after resection of posterior fossa tumors in children: incidence and pathophysiology. , 1995, Neurosurgery.

[45]  J. Rapoport,et al.  Quantitative MRI of the temporal lobe, amygdala, and hippocampus in normal human development: Ages 4–18 years , 1995, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[46]  E. Bizzi,et al.  The Cognitive Neurosciences , 1996 .

[47]  B. Bracken.  Differential Ability Scales , 1996, Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders.

[48]  J. Schmahmann.  From movement to thought: Anatomic substrates of the cerebellar contribution to cognitive processing , 1996, Human brain mapping.

[49]  N. Makris,et al.  MRI-Based Topographic Parcellation of Human Neocortex: An Anatomically Specified Method with Estimate of Reliability , 1996, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[50]  D. Supp,et al.  Conserved left–right asymmetry of nodal expression and alterations in murine situs inversus , 1996, Nature.

[51]  M. Raichle,et al.  Linguistic processing. , 1997, International review of neurobiology.

[52]  J. Desmond,et al.  Lobular Patterns of Cerebellar Activation in Verbal Working-Memory and Finger-Tapping Tasks as Revealed by Functional MRI , 1997, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[53]  J. Piven,et al.  An MRI study of autism: The cerebellum revisited , 1997, Neurology.

[54]  Stephen M. Rao,et al.  Human Brain Language Areas Identified by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging , 1997, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[55]  M. Botez,et al.  Olivopontocerebellar atrophy and Friedreich's ataxia: neuropsychological consequences of bilateral versus unilateral cerebellar lesions. , 1997, International review of neurobiology.

[56]  M. Molinari,et al.  Verbal fluency and agrammatism. , 1997, International review of neurobiology.

[57]  P. Bolton,et al.  A family study of autism: cognitive patterns and levels in parents and siblings. , 1997, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[58]  D. Weinberger,et al.  MRI Asymmetries of Broca's Area: The Pars Triangularis and Pars Opercularis , 1998, Brain and Language.

[59]  J. Desmond,et al.  Neuroimaging studies of the cerebellum: language, learning and memory , 1998, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[60]  J. Schmahmann,et al.  The cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome. , 1998, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[61]  W. Grodd,et al.  Does the cerebellum contribute to cognitive aspects of speech production? A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in humans , 1998, Neuroscience Letters.

[62]  T. Kemper,et al.  Neuropathology of infantile autism. , 1998, Journal of neuropathology and experimental neurology.

[63]  H. Yost,et al.  The Left-Right Coordinator: The Role of Vg1 in Organizing Left-Right Axis Formation , 1998, Cell.

[64]  David N. Kennedy,et al.  Semiautomatic segmentation of brain exterior in magnetic resonance images driven by empirical procedures and anatomical knowledge , 1998, Medical Image Anal..

[65]  J. Rodríguez-Rey,et al.  Pitx2 Participates in the Late Phase of the Pathway Controlling Left-Right Asymmetry , 1998, Cell.

[66]  C. Francks,et al.  A full genome screen for autism with evidence for linkage to a region on chromosome 7q. International Molecular Genetic Study of Autism Consortium. , 1998, Human molecular genetics.

[67]  David N. Kennedy,et al.  Precise segmentation of the lateral ventricles and caudate nucleus in MR brain images using anatomically driven histograms , 1998, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging.

[68]  Anders M. Dale,et al.  Cortical Surface-Based Analysis I. Segmentation and Surface Reconstruction , 1999, NeuroImage.

[69]  T. L. Davis,et al.  Language dominance determined by whole brain functional MRI in patients with brain lesions , 1999, Neurology.

[70]  E. Courchesne,et al.  An MRI study of autism : The cerebellum revisited , 1999, Neurology.

[71]  G. Conti-Ramsden,et al.  Classification of children with specific language impairment: longitudinal considerations. , 1999, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[72]  S. Folstein,et al.  An autosomal genomic screen for autism. Collaborative linkage study of autism. , 1999, American journal of medical genetics.

[73]  I. Rapin.  Autism in search of a home in the brain , 1999, Neurology.

[74]  R. Müller,et al.  Brain Mapping of Language and Auditory Perception in High-Functioning Autistic Adults: A PET Study , 1999, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[75]  H. Tager-Flusberg,et al.  Present and future possibilities for defining a phenotype for specific language impairment. , 1999, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[76]  S. Folstein,et al.  Predictors of Cognitive Test Patterns in Autism Families , 1999 .

[77]  M. Molinari,et al.  Phonological grouping is specifically affected in cerebellar patients: a verbal fluency study , 2000, Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.

[78]  J. Schmahmann.  The role of the cerebellum in affect and psychosis , 2000, Journal of Neurolinguistics.

[79]  B. Leventhal,et al.  The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule—Generic: A Standard Measure of Social and Communication Deficits Associated with the Spectrum of Autism , 2000, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[80]  T. Uema,et al.  Abnormal regional cerebral blood flow in childhood autism. , 2000, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[81]  P. Ingrand,et al.  Neuropsychological disturbances in cerebellar infarcts , 2000, Acta neurologica Scandinavica.

[82]  D. Riva,et al.  The cerebellum contributes to higher functions during development: evidence from a series of children surgically treated for posterior fossa tumours. , 2000, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[83]  Alan C. Evans,et al.  MRI Atlas of the Human Cerebellum , 2000 .

[84]  J. Schmahmann,et al.  Neuropsychological consequences of cerebellar tumour resection in children: cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome in a paediatric population. , 2000, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[85]  J. Schmahmann.  The cerebrocerebellar system: anatomic substrates of the cerebellar contribution to cognition and emotion , 2001 .

[86]  M. Eckert,et al.  Anatomical risk factors for phonological dyslexia. , 2001, Cerebral cortex.

[87]  S. Folstein,et al.  Incorporating language phenotypes strengthens evidence of linkage to autism. , 2001, American journal of medical genetics.

[88]  S. Petersen,et al.  Task-Dependent Modulation of Regions in the Left Inferior Frontal Cortex during Semantic Processing , 2001, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[89]  R. Pitchappan,et al.  A major susceptibility locus for leprosy in India maps to chromosome 10p13 , 2001, Nature Genetics.

[90]  S. Folstein,et al.  Incorporating language phenotypes strengthens evidence of linkage to autism. , 2001, American journal of medical genetics.

[91]  Jeih-San Liow,et al.  Qualitative and Quantitative Evaluation of Six Algorithms for Correcting Intensity Nonuniformity Effects , 2001, NeuroImage.

[92]  N. Minshew,et al.  Posterior fossa magnetic resonance imaging in autism. , 2001, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

[93]  H. Tager-Flusberg,et al.  An investigation of language impairment in autism: Implications for genetic subgroups , 2001, Language and cognitive processes.

[94]  S. Folstein,et al.  An autosomal genomic screen for autism. , 1999, American journal of medical genetics.

[95]  L. Almasy,et al.  Endophenotypes as quantitative risk factors for psychiatric disease: rationale and study design. , 2001, American journal of medical genetics.

[96]  W. T. Thach,et al.  Role of the Posterolateral Cerebellum in Language , 2002, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[97]  V. Vieland,et al.  A major susceptibility locus for specific language impairment is located on 13q21. , 2002, American journal of human genetics.

[98]  David A. Ziegler,et al.  Abnormal asymmetry in language association cortex in autism , 2002, Annals of neurology.

[99]  W. Grodd,et al.  Cerebellum and Speech Perception: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study , 2002, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[100]  D. Geschwind,et al.  Evidence for a language quantitative trait locus on chromosome 7q in multiplex autism families. , 2002, American journal of human genetics.

[101]  T. Kemper,et al.  Neuropathology of infantile autism , 1998, Molecular Psychiatry.

[102]  D. Braus,et al.  Lateralized organization of the cerebellum in a silent verbal fluency task: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in healthy volunteers , 2002, Neuroscience Letters.

[103]  A. Blamire,et al.  Cerebellar morphology in developmental dyslexia , 2002, Neuropsychologia.

[104]  G. Conti-Ramsden.  Processing and linguistic markers in young children with specific language impairment (SLI). , 2003, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[105]  J. Bower,et al.  Involvement of the cerebellum in semantic discrimination: An fMRI study , 2003, Human brain mapping.

[106]  B. Rosen,et al.  Human Cerebellum: Surface-Assisted Cortical Parcellation and Volumetry with Magnetic Resonance Imaging , 2003, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[107]  J. Tomblin,et al.  Autism and autism risk in siblings of children with specific language impairment. , 2003, International journal of language & communication disorders.

[108]  Y. Levy,et al.  Language Competence Across Populations: Towards a definition of Specific Language Impairment , 2003 .

[109]  David A. Ziegler,et al.  Dissociations of cerebral cortex, subcortical and cerebral white matter volumes in autistic boys. , 2003, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[110]  J. Soares,et al.  Brain anatomy and development in autism: review of structural MRI studies , 2003, Brain Research Bulletin.

[111]  S. Mostofsky,et al.  Specificity of Cerebellar Vermian Abnormalities in Autism: A Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study , 2003, Journal of child neurology.

[112]  P. Strick,et al.  Cerebellar Loops with Motor Cortex and Prefrontal Cortex of a Nonhuman Primate , 2003, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[113]  J. Tomblin,et al.  Association of specific language impairment (SLI) to the region of 7q31. , 2003, American journal of human genetics.

[114]  H. Tager-Flusberg,et al.  Identifying neurocognitive phenotypes in autism. , 2003, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[115]  A. Monaco,et al.  Deciphering the genetic basis of speech and language disorders. , 2003, Annual review of neuroscience.

[116]  D. Bishop.  Autism and specific language impairment: categorical distinction or continuum? , 2003, Novartis Foundation symposium.

[117]  M. Eckert,et al.  Anatomical correlates of dyslexia: frontal and cerebellar findings. , 2003, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[118]  David A. Ziegler,et al.  Localization of white matter volume increase in autism and developmental language disorder , 2004, Annals of neurology.

[119]  J. Giedd.  Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Adolescent Brain , 2004, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[120]  Matthew D. Albaugh,et al.  Decreased Absolute Amygdala Volume in Cocaine Addicts , 2004, Neuron.

[121]  David A. Ziegler,et al.  Language‐association cortex asymmetry in autism and specific language impairment , 2004, Annals of neurology.

[122]  Y. Samson,et al.  Perception of complex sounds in autism: abnormal auditory cortical processing in children. , 2004, The American journal of psychiatry.

[123]  J. Schmahmann,et al.  Disorders of the cerebellum: ataxia, dysmetria of thought, and the cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome. , 2004, The Journal of neuropsychiatry and clinical neurosciences.

[124]  M. Harada,et al.  Difference of signal change by a language task on autistic patients using functional MRI. , 2004, The journal of medical investigation : JMI.

[125]  M. Just,et al.  Cortical activation and synchronization during sentence comprehension in high-functioning autism: evidence of underconnectivity. , 2004, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[126]  J. Schmahmann.  Disorders of the cerebellum: ataxia, dysmetria of thought, and the cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome. , 2004, The Journal of neuropsychiatry and clinical neurosciences.

[127]  D. Geschwind,et al.  Early Asymmetry of Gene Transcription in Embryonic Human Left and Right Cerebral Cortex , 2005, Science.

[128]  A. Jansen,et al.  Crossed cerebro–cerebellar language dominance , 2005, Human brain mapping.

[129]  H. Tager-Flusberg,et al.  Self-ordered pointing in children with autism: failure to use verbal mediation in the service of working memory? , 2005, Neuropsychologia.

[130]  Jeremy D. Schmahmann,et al.  MRI-based surface-assisted parcellation of human cerebellar cortex: an anatomically specified method with estimate of reliability , 2005, NeuroImage.

[131]  H. Tager-Flusberg.  Defining language phenotypes in autism , 2006, Clinical Neuroscience Research.

[132]  M. Reite,et al.  Regional gray matter volumetric changes in autism associated with social and repetitive behavior symptoms , 2006, BMC psychiatry.

[133]  C. Chabris,et al.  Brain activation during semantic processing in autism spectrum disorders via functional magnetic resonance imaging , 2006, Brain and Cognition.

[134]  S. Folstein,et al.  Communicative Competence in Parents of Children with Autism and Parents of Children with Specific Language Impairment , 2007, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[135]  E. Il’ina,et al.  Clinical-psychological characteristics of children with dysgenesis of the cerebellar vermis , 2007, Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology.

[136]  H. Tager-Flusberg,et al.  Language disorders: autism and other pervasive developmental disorders. , 2007, Pediatric clinics of North America.

[137]  A. Chun.  On the brain , 2007 .

[138]  M. García-Fiñana,et al.  Sulcal variability, stereological measurement and asymmetry of Broca's area on MR images , 2007, Journal of anatomy.

[139]  T. Little,et al.  Reading achievement growth in children with language impairments. , 2008, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[140]  Kathleen T. Williams.  Expressive Vocabulary Test Second Edition (EVT ™ 2) , 2008 .

[141]  G. Hynd,et al.  A Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging Analysis of the Cerebellar Deficit Hypothesis of Dyslexia , 2008, Journal of child neurology.

[142]  S. Lawrie,et al.  Towards a neuroanatomy of autism: A systematic review and meta-analysis of structural magnetic resonance imaging studies , 2008, European Psychiatry.

[143]  R. Rocchi,et al.  Regional cerebral blood flow in childhood autism: a SPET study with SPM evaluation , 2008, Nuclear medicine communications.

[144]  John O. Willis,et al.  NEPSY: A Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment , 2008 .

[145]  R. Kulesza,et al.  Morphological features of the medial superior olive in autism , 2008, Brain Research.

[146]  J. Sebat,et al.  Linkage, association, and gene-expression analyses identify CNTNAP2 as an autism-susceptibility gene. , 2008, American journal of human genetics.

[147]  Jeremy D. Schmahmann,et al.  Functional topography in the human cerebellum: A meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies , 2009, NeuroImage.

[148]  Neurodevelopmental Outcomes of Preterm Birth: Structural magnetic resonance imaging , 2010 .

[149]  Jonathan M. Campbell,et al.  Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test , 2010 .

[150]  Tobias Kober,et al.  Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging , 2011 .

[151]  R. Cabeza,et al.  Present and Future , 2008 .