Core-Symptom-Defined Cortical Gyrification Differences in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heterogeneous disease that is characterized by abnormalities in social communication and interaction as well as repetitive behaviors and restricted interests. Structural brain imaging has identified significant cortical folding alterations in ASD; however, relatively less known is whether the core symptoms are related to neuroanatomical differences. In this study, we aimed to explore core-symptom-anchored gyrification alterations and their developmental trajectories in ASD. We measured the cortical vertex-wise gyrification index (GI) in 321 patients with ASD (aged 7–39 years) and 350 typically developing (TD) subjects (aged 6–33 years) across 8 sites from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange I (ABIDE I) repository and a longitudinal sample (14 ASD and 7 TD, aged 9–14 years in baseline and 12–18 years in follow-up) from ABIDE II. Compared with TD, the general ASD patients exhibited a mixed pattern of both hypo- and hyper- and different developmental trajectories of gyrification. By parsing the ASD patients into three subgroups based on the subscores of the Autism Diagnostic Interview—Revised (ADI-R) scale, we identified core-symptom-specific alterations in the reciprocal social interaction (RSI), communication abnormalities (CA), and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior (RRSB) subgroups. We also showed atypical gyrification patterns and developmental trajectories in the subgroups. Furthermore, we conducted a meta-analysis to locate the core-symptom-anchored brain regions (circuits). In summary, the current study shows that ASD is associated with abnormal cortical folding patterns. Core-symptom-based classification can find more subtle changes in gyrification. These results suggest that cortical folding pattern encodes changes in symptom dimensions, which promotes the understanding of neuroanatomical basis, and clinical utility in ASD.

Outlier-Based Autism Detection Using Longitudinal Structural MRI

“…The study discovered that at across time, Fractional Anisotropy (FA) and brain volume of white matter was higher in ASD subjects. Ning et al [36] analyzed the developmental patterns of core-symptom-anchored cortical vertex-wise Gyrification Index (GI) in ASD. They used data from 321 ASD and 350 healthy subjects from ABIDE I, and 14 ASD plus 7 healthy subjects' longitudinal data from the ABIDE II dataset.…”

Gray matter asymmetry atypical patterns in subgrouping minors with autism based on core symptoms

“…For instance, social cognition mainly relies on certain social brain regions, such as the fusiform face area, amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, superior temporal sulcus, and inferior frontal gyrus, RRB has been linked to abnormalities in motor regions, and reduced activation in the right parahippocampal gyrus, cerebellum, left anterior cingulate, and bilateral cingulate in face-processing social tasks has been reported in patients with ASD ( Spencer et al, 2011 ; Patriquin et al, 2016 ; Duret et al, 2018 ; Wilkes and Lewis, 2018 ). In addition, our previous research showed that atypical gyrification patterns encode changes in the symptom dimensions of ASD ( Ning et al, 2021 ). The analysis is complicated by likely distinct symptom clusters or subgroups that exist among patients with ASD ( Lenroot and Yeung, 2013 ).…”

Regional decreases of cortical thickness in major depressive disorder and their correlation with illness duration: a case-control study

“…After removing brain stem and cerebellum, the cortical thickness was computed by using a projection scheme ( 11 ), which resulted in individual cortical thickness maps. This projection-based thickness estimation is fast and robust, which has been applied in other studies of neuropsychiatric disorders ( 12 , 13 ). The individual maps of cortical thickness cannot be compared because they have a different number of vertexes.…”