Measures of cortical grey matter structure and development in children with autism spectrum disorder.
Thicker front-brain tissue and thinner eye-area tissue pair with social-communication severity in autism.
01Research in Context
What this study did
M et al. scanned kids with and without autism. They measured how thick the outer brain layer was.
They tracked thickness across age and compared it to social-communication scores.
What they found
Kids with autism had a different thickness pattern as they grew.
Thicker front-of-brain tissue went hand in hand with worse social skills.
Younger kids with more social trouble also had thinner tissue behind the eyes.
How this fits with other research
Tarchi et al. (2026) adds a new layer. They show the same thickness gaps line up with serotonin hot spots. This hints that future medicines could target those spots.
Lanfranchi et al. (2021) widens the lens. In typical kids with mild autistic traits, the brain folds less and surface area shrinks. Together the papers say the structural story is not just for diagnosed autism—it sits on a continuum.
Ma et al. (2022) updates the timeline. They swap thickness for brain wiring and still see age-linked change that tracks symptoms. The 2012 thickness map and the 2022 wiring map both flag the same developmental drift.
Why it matters
You can’t scan every client, but you can borrow the idea. Track social growth early and often. If a young learner’s social scores stall, intensify practice right then. The brain is still soft wax, so your teaching may shape it faster.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Several brain regions show structural and functional abnormalities in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), but the developmental trajectory of abnormalities in these structures and how they may relate to social and communicative impairments are still unclear. We assessed the effects of age on cortical thickness in individuals with ASD, between the ages of 7 and 39 years in comparison to typically developing controls. Additionally, we examined differences in cortical thickness in relation to symptomatology in the ASD group, and their association with age. Analyses were conducted using a general linear model, controlling for sex. Social and communication scores from the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) were correlated with the thickness of regions implicated in those functions. Controls showed widespread cortical thinning relative to the ASD group. Within regions-of-interest, increased thickness in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex was associated with poorer social scores. Additionally, a significant interaction between age and social impairment was found in the orbitofrontal cortex, with more impaired younger children having decreased thickness in this region. These results suggest that differential neurodevelopmental trajectories are present in individuals with ASD and some differences are associated with diagnostic behaviours.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2012 · doi:10.1007/s10803-011-1261-6