Absence of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Evidence of Pontine Abnormality in Infantile Autism

Brainstem volumetric alterations in children with autism

“…In contrast, several studies have failed to report findings similar to that of the current investigation; however, these investigations limited their measurements to subdivisions of the brainstem (i.e. pons only or pons and midbrain) which could account for the differences in findings (Elia et al , 2000, Garber and Ritvo, 1992, Hsu et al , 1991, Kleiman et al , 1992, Piven et al , 1992). …”

“…Earlier imaging studies assessed its size using area measurements calculated from midsagittal images. Using this method, reductions in brainstem size were reported in some (Ciesielski et al , 1997, Gaffney et al , 1988, Hashimoto et al , 1995), but not all studies (Elia et al , 2000, Garber and Ritvo, 1992, Hsu et al , 1991, Kleiman et al , 1992, Piven et al , 1992). More recently, two volumetric MRI investigations observed no significant differences in the brainstem volume between individuals with autism and healthy controls (Hardan et al , 2001, Herbert et al , 2003); however, neither of these studies examined gray and white matter differences.…”

Characterization of the Pathological and Biochemical Markers that Correlate to the Clinical Features of Autism: The Neuropathological Markers of Abnormal Brain Development and Aging in Autism

“…The reduced size of the pons, midbrain, and medulla in autism reported by Hashimoto et al (1992 was not confi rmed in other studies (Hsu et al, 1991;Piven et al, 1992 Changes in neurons in the deep cerebellar nuclei were noticed by some authors (Kemper and Bauman, 1998) but not by others . Structural MRI shows variable patterns of changes.…”

Characterization of the of the Pathological and Biochemical Markers That Correlate to the Clinical Features of Autism. Subproject 2. Contribution of Significant Delay of Neuronal Development and Metabolic Shift of Neurons to Clinical Phenotype of Autism

“…The reduced size of the pons, midbrain, and medulla in autism reported by Hashimoto et al (1992Hashimoto et al ( , 1993 was not confirmed in other studies (Hsu et al, 1991;Piven et al, 1992).…”