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Abnormal asymmetry in language association cortex in autism.
Martha R Herbert1, Gordon J Harris, Kristen T Adrien
1Center for Morphometric Analysis, Massachusetts General Hospital, CNY-149, Room 6012, Boston, MA 02114, USA. mherbert1@partners.org
Annals of Neurology
|October 29, 2002
Summary
Boys with autism show reversed frontal lobe asymmetry, with the right side being larger. This structural brain difference may underlie language and social challenges in autism.
Area of Science:
- Neuroimaging
- Developmental Neuroscience
- Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
Background:
- Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition impacting cognitive, language, and social skills.
- Language and social communication deficits are hallmarks of ASD, yet structural brain differences in language-related areas remain under-investigated.
- Previous research has not sufficiently explored cortical asymmetry in language-processing regions in individuals with autism.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate structural brain asymmetry in language-related cortical regions in children with autism.
- To compare patterns of cortical asymmetry between boys with autism and age-matched neurotypical controls.
- To determine if abnormal asymmetry in specific brain regions correlates with language and social processing deficits.
Main Methods:
- Utilized magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to acquire brain scans from 16 boys with autism (aged 7-11) and 15 controls.
- Segmented MRI data into gray and white matter and parcellated the cerebral cortex into 48 gyral-based regions per hemisphere.
- Assessed brain asymmetry a priori in frontal and temporal language regions and post hoc in all regions.
Main Results:
- Boys with autism exhibited significant asymmetry reversal in frontal language-related cortex, with the right hemisphere being larger (27% vs. 17% larger on the left in controls).
- Abnormal asymmetry was also observed in the posterior temporal fusiform gyrus (more left-sided in autism).
- Adjacent inferior temporal regions, implicated in visual face processing, showed trends towards abnormal asymmetry in autism.
Conclusions:
- Structural abnormalities, specifically reversed frontal lobe asymmetry, are present in boys with autism.
- Language and social/face processing-related brain regions display altered asymmetry in autism.
- These neuroanatomical differences may contribute to the characteristic language and social communication impairments observed in autism spectrum disorder.