Diffusion tensor imaging in autism spectrum disorder: a review.

Duerden et al. (2012) read 48 brain-scan papers that used DTI. DTI is a scan that shows the cables that link brain areas.

All papers were about people with autism. The team wrote a plain-story review to see which cables differ most often.

The biggest cable changes live in three places. These are the corpus callosum, the cingulum, and the temporal lobe.

These tracks carry social, talk, and sound signals. The review says these spots give the steadiest DTI signal for autism.

Seiverling et al. (2012) looked at the same 48 DTI papers plus many fMRI ones. Their wider scan still found weak proof for DSM-5 rules. Together, the two 2012 papers say brain cables are odd in autism, yet not odd enough to diagnose alone.

Cauda et al. (2017) ran a bigger meta-analysis five years later. They mixed autism, schizophrenia, and OCD scans. They saw shared cable changes, not unique ones. This widens Duerden et al. (2012): the same cable hits may cross diagnoses.

Osipowicz et al. (2015) counted gray-matter volume across the lifespan. Less gray sat near the very white-matter tracks G et al. flagged. The two studies line up: in autism, both the wires and the wire hubs can shrink.

You cannot scan a child and get an autism score today. Still, knowing the cable roads most often hurt gives you solid clues. When a learner struggles with joint attention or rapid cues, check if tasks cross the corpus callosum or temporal lobe. Break the task, slow the pace, or add visual aids. These tracks are shaky in autism, so give the brain less traffic at once.