Corpus callosum size in adults with high-functioning autism and the relevance of gender

Tepest, Ralf; Jacobi, Esther; Gawronski, Astrid; Krug, Barbara; Möller-Hartmann, Walter; Lehnhardt, Fritz G.; Vogeley, Kai

doi:10.1016/j.pscychresns.2010.04.007

« Previous Next »Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging
Volume 183, Issue 1 , Pages 38-43, 30 July 2010

Corpus callosum size in adults with high-functioning autism and the relevance of gender

Ralf Tepest
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Cologne, Germany
- Corresponding author. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Cologne, Kerpener Str. 62, 50294 Köln (Cologne), Germany. Tel.: +49 221 478 5012.
Esther Jacobi
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Cologne, Germany
Astrid Gawronski
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Cologne, Germany
Barbara Krug
- Department of Radiology, University of Cologne, Germany
Walter Möller-Hartmann
- Department of Radiology, University of Cologne, Germany
Fritz G. Lehnhardt
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Cologne, Germany
Kai Vogeley
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Cologne, Germany

Received 19 August 2009; received in revised form 8 April 2010; accepted 8 April 2010.

Abstract

The goal of the study was to investigate the size of the corpus callosum (CC) and its subsegments in relation to total brain volume (TBV) as an empirical indicator of impaired connectivity in autism with special respect to gender. In MRI data sets of 29 adults with high-functioning autism (HFA) and 29 age-, gender- and IQ-matched control subjects, the TBV was measured and the CC was analyzed as a whole and in subsegments employing two different manual segmentation procedures. With respect to diagnosis, there were no significant differences in the dependent variables (CC, CC subsegments, and TBV). With respect to gender, only TBV was significantly increased in males compared with females, resulting in a significantly decreased CC/TBV ratio in males. This finding, however, was independent from gender and can be fully attributed to brain size. Our findings do not support the following hypotheses: (1) a hypothesis of impaired CC in HFA adults as a subgroup of patients with autism spectrum disorders, and (2) the sexual dimorphism hypothesis of the CC.

Keywords: Sexual dimorphism, Morphometry, MRI