ABSTRACT
Objective:To explore the abnormal gray matter volume regions of brain and the developmental characteristic of abnormal regions in patients with high functioning autism during 6-18 years old.Methods:The study enrolled 19 patients and 16 age,sex and intelligent quotient matched normal controls.The patients met the diagnostic criteria of autism in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,Fourth Edition.The full scale intelligence quotients of patients and normal controls were greater than or equal to 70.The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to collected brain images.Voxel-based morphometry was used to process the MRI images and two sample t-test in Statistical Parametric Mapping-8 (SPM8) was used to analyze differences between the two groups in gray matter volume of brain.The results were controlled with false discovery rate (FDR) multiple comparison correction (P ＜ 0.05).Partial correlative analysis was performed to examine correlation between gray matter volume of abnormal brain region and age in two groups.Results:Compared with normal controls,patients with high functioning autism during 6-18 years old exhibited smaller gray matter volume at right inferior orbital frontal (P ＜ 0.05,FDR corrected).In patients with high functioning autism,the volume of right inferior orbital frontal was negatively correlated with age(r =0.70,P ＜0.01).The negative correlation between the volume of right inferior orbital frontal and age was also found in normal controls(r =-0.59,P ＜ 0.05).Conclusion:It suggests that right inferior orbital frontal of brain is abnormal in patients with high functioning autism during 6-18 years old.The fight inferior orbital frontal may be significant for pathological mechanism of autism.