Diffusion tensor imaging analysis of the corpus callosum in children with high-risk autism spectrum disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder that begins in early infancy and childhood and is characterized by impaired social communication and repetitive stereotyped behaviors.

The purpose of this study was to examine the development of the corpus callosum and its relationship to neurobehavior in young children with high-risk (HR) ASD using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).

Twenty-one children with HR-ASD who visited Anhui Children's Hospital between January 2020 and December 2021 were selected as the study group, while 19 matched children with normal development during the same time were adopted as the control group. Cranial MRI+DTI were performed for all of the enrolled children and fractional anisotropy (FA) measurements were taken in each region of the corpus callosum.

The FA values in all regions of the corpus callosum were higher in the study group than in the control group (0.417 ± 0.016 vs. 0.412 ± 0.02 in the corpus callosum knee, 0.439 ± 0.018 vs. 0.431 ± 0.023 in the corpus callosum body, and 0.446 ± 0.017 vs. 0.434 ± 0.019 in the splenium of corpus callosum [SCC]), where the difference in the FA in the SCC was statistically significant between the two groups (P< 0.05). There was a positive correlation between the FA in the corpus callosum knee and speech scores in the neuropsychological development of the study group (P< 0.05).

There was a premature development tendency for corpus callosum myelination in young children with HR-ASD, and the developmental tendency was visible in the SCC. There was also a positive relationship between corpus callosum knee development and language function.