Corpus Callosum Area and Brain Volume in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Quantitative Analysis of Structural MRI from the ABIDE Database

Reduced corpus callosum area and increased brain volume are two commonly reported findings in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We investigated these two correlates in ASD and healthy controls using T1-weighted MRI scans from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE). Automated methods were used to segment the corpus callosum and intracranial region. No difference in the corpus callosum area was found between ASD participants and healthy controls (ASD 598.53 ± 109 mm2; control 596.82 ± 102 mm2; p = 0.76). The ASD participants had increased intracranial volume (ASD 1,508,596 ± 170,505 mm3; control 1,482,732 ± 150,873.5 mm3; p = 0.042). No evidence was found for overall ASD differences in the corpus callosum subregions.

[1]  S. F. Witelson.  Hand and sex differences in the isthmus and genu of the human corpus callosum. A postmortem morphological study. , 1989, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[2]  E. Courchesne,et al.  Reduced size of corpus callosum in autism. , 1995, Archives of neurology.

[3]  Simonetta Panerai,et al.  Clinical Correlates of Brain Morphometric Features of Subjects With Low-Functioning Autistic Disorder , 2000, Journal of child neurology.

[4]  P. Decouflé,et al.  Prevalence of autism in a United States population: the Brick Township, New Jersey, investigation. , 2001, Pediatrics.

[5]  Stephen M. Smith,et al.  Improved Optimization for the Robust and Accurate Linear Registration and Motion Correction of Brain Images , 2002, NeuroImage.

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

[7]  E. Courchesne,et al.  When Is the Brain Enlarged in Autism? A Meta-Analysis of All Brain Size Reports , 2005, Biological Psychiatry.

[8]  Erin D Bigler,et al.  Macrocephaly, Corpus Callosum Morphology, and Autism , 2005, Journal of child neurology.

[9]  Guido Gerig,et al.  User-guided 3D active contour segmentation of anatomical structures: Significantly improved efficiency and reliability , 2006, NeuroImage.

[10]  Andrew L. Alexander,et al.  Diffusion tensor imaging of the corpus callosum in Autism , 2007, NeuroImage.

[11]  D. Amaral,et al.  Neuroanatomy of autism , 2008, Trends in Neurosciences.

[12]  J. R. Hughes.  Update on autism: A review of 1300 reports published in 2008 , 2009, Epilepsy & Behavior.

[13]  C. Freitag,et al.  Total Brain Volume and Corpus Callosum Size in Medication-Naïve Adolescents and Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder , 2009, Biological Psychiatry.

[14]  A. Hardan,et al.  A Meta-Analysis of the Corpus Callosum in Autism , 2009, Biological Psychiatry.

[15]  Kai Vogeley,et al.  Corpus callosum size in adults with high-functioning autism and the relevance of gender , 2010, Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.

[16]  T Loucas,et al.  IQ in children with autism spectrum disorders: data from the Special Needs and Autism Project (SNAP) , 2010, Psychological Medicine.

[17]  E. Courchesne,et al.  Brain growth across the life span in autism: Age-specific changes in anatomical pathology , 2011, Brain Research.

[18]  R Core Team,et al.  R: A language and environment for statistical computing. , 2014 .

[19]  Daniel P. Kennedy,et al.  The Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange: Towards Large-Scale Evaluation of the Intrinsic Brain Architecture in Autism , 2013, Molecular Psychiatry.

[20]  Michael P Milham,et al.  Multicenter mapping of structural network alterations in autism , 2015, Human brain mapping.

[21]  Sigal Berman,et al.  Anatomical Abnormalities in Autism? , 2016, Cerebral cortex.