Abstract
Autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia have been variously characterized as separate nosological entities with overlapping deficits in social cognition or diametrical extremes of a phenotypic continuum. This study aimed to determine how these models apply to comparative morphometric data. MRI scans of the brain were obtained in 49 subjects with schizophrenia, 20 subjects with autism and 39 healthy controls. Images were parcellated into 40 Brodmann areas and entered into repeated-measures ANOVA for between-group comparison of global and localized gray and white matter volumes. A pattern of lower gray mater volumes and greater white matter volumes was found in subjects with schizophrenia in comparison to subjects with autism. For both gray and white matter, this pattern was most pronounced in regions associated with motor-premotor and anterior frontal cortex, anterior cingulate, fusiform, superior and middle temporal gyri. Patient groups tended to diverge from healthy controls in opposite directions, with greater-than-normal gray matter volumes and lower-than-normal white matter volumes in subjects with autism and reversed patterns in subjects with schizophrenia. White matter reductions in subjects with autism were seen in posterior frontal lobe and along the cingulate arch. Normal hemispheric asymmetry in the temporal lobe was effaced in subjects with autism and schizophrenia, especially in the latter. Nearly identical distribution of changes and diametrically divergent volumetry suggest that autism and schizophrenia may occupy opposite extremes of the same cognitive continuum.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by NARSAD Young Investigator Award and NIMH MH 077146 grant to Serge A. Mitelman and by NIMH grants P50 MH 66392-01, MH 60023, and MH 56489 to Monte S. Buchsbaum.
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All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Mount Sinai institutional research committee, as well as with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments. The project was approved by the institutional review board of The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
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This work was partly supported by NARSAD Young Investigator Award and NIMH MH 077146 grant to Serge A. Mitelman and by NIMH grants P50 MH 66392–01, MH 60023, and MH 56489 to Monte S. Buchsbaum.
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Author Serge A. Mitelman declares that he has no conflict of interest to report.
Author Marie-Cecile Bralet declares that she has no conflict of interest to report.
Author M. Mehmet Haznedar declares that he has no conflict of interest to report.
Author Eric Hollander has received consultation fees from Transceit, Neuropharm, and Nastech.
Author Lina Shihabuddin declares that she has no conflict of interest to report.
Author Erin A. Hazlett declares that she has no conflict of interest to report.
Author Monte S. Buchsbaum declares that he has no conflict of interest to report.
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Mitelman, S.A., Bralet, MC., Haznedar, M.M. et al. Diametrical relationship between gray and white matter volumes in autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia. Brain Imaging and Behavior 11, 1823–1835 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-016-9648-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-016-9648-9