Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a lifelong heterogeneous neurodevelopmental condition that is associated with differences in brain anatomy and connectivity. Yet, the molecular and cellular mechanisms that underpin the atypical developmental of the brain in ASD remain poorly understood. Here, we review the findings of in vivo neuroimaging studies examining the time course of atypical brain development in ASD and relate the different neurodevelopmental stages that are atypical in ASD to the known neurobiological mechanisms that drive the maturation of the typically developing brain. In particular, we focus on the notion of ‘early brain overgrowth’ in ASD, which may lead to differences in the formation of the brain’s micro- and macro-circuitry. Moreover, we attempt to link the in vivo reports describing differences in brain anatomy and connectivity on the macroscopic level to the increasing number of post-mortem studies examining the neural architecture of the brain in ASD on the microscopic level. In addition, we discuss future directions and outstanding questions in this particular field of research and highlight the need for establishing the link between micro- and macro-pathology in the same set of individuals with ASD based on advances in genetic, molecular and imaging techniques. In combination, these may proof to be invaluable for patient stratification and the development of novel pharmacotherapies in the future.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Abrahams BS, Geschwind DH (2008) Advances in autism genetics: on the threshold of a new neurobiology. Nat Rev Genet 9:341–355. doi:10.1038/nrg2346
Alexander AL, Lee JE, Lazar M et al (2007) Diffusion tensor imaging of the corpus callosum in Autism. Neuroimage 34:61–73. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.08.032
Amaral DG, Schumann CM, Nordahl CW (2008) Neuroanatomy of autism. Trends Neurosci 31:137–145. doi:10.1016/j.tins.2007.12.005
Association AP (2013) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders (DSM-5®). American Psychiatric Publishing, Arlington, VA
Bailey A, Luthert P, Dean A et al (1998) A clinicopathological study of autism. Brain 121(Pt 5):889–905
Bauman M, Kemper TL (1985) Histoanatomic observations of the brain in early infantile autism. Neurology 35:866–874
Belmonte MK, Allen G, Beckel-Mitchener A et al (2004) Autism and abnormal development of brain connectivity. J Neurosci 24:9228–9231. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3340-04.2004
Benowitz LI, Routtenberg A (1997) GAP-43: an intrinsic determinant of neuronal development and plasticity. Trends Neurosci 20:84–91
Blakemore S-J (2008) The social brain in adolescence. Nat Rev Neurosci 9:267–277. doi:10.1038/nrn2353
Brito AR, Vasconcelos MM, Domingues RC et al (2009) Diffusion tensor imaging findings in school-aged autistic children. J Neuroimaging 19:337–343. doi:10.1111/j.1552-6569.2009.00366.x
Buxhoeveden DP, Casanova MF (2002) The minicolumn and evolution of the brain. Brain Behav Evol 60:125–151
Buxhoeveden DP, Semendeferi K, Buckwalter J et al (2006) Reduced minicolumns in the frontal cortex of patients with autism. Neuropathol Appl Neurobiol 32:483–491. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2990.2006.00745.x
Campbell DJ, Chang J, Chawarska K (2014) Early generalized overgrowth in autism spectrum disorder: prevalence rates, gender effects, and clinical outcomes. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 53:1063–1073.e5. doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2014.07.008
Carper RA, Moses P, Tigue ZD, Courchesne E (2002) Cerebral lobes in autism: early hyperplasia and abnormal age effects. Neuroimage 16:1038–1051
Casanova M, Trippe J (2009) Radial cytoarchitecture and patterns of cortical connectivity in autism. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 364:1433–1436. doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0331
Casanova MF, Buxhoeveden DP, Brown C (2002) Clinical and macroscopic correlates of minicolumnar pathology in autism. J Child Neurol 17:692–695
Casanova MF, van Kooten IAJ, Switala AE et al (2006) Minicolumnar abnormalities in autism. Acta Neuropathol 112:287–303. doi:10.1007/s00401-006-0085-5
Castelli F, Frith C, Happé F, Frith U (2002) Autism, Asperger syndrome and brain mechanisms for the attribution of mental states to animated shapes. Brain 125:1839–1849. doi:10.1093/brain/awf189
Catani M, Jones DK, Daly E et al (2008) Altered cerebellar feedback projections in Asperger syndrome. Neuroimage 41:1184–1191. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2008.03.041
Chaste P, Klei L, Sanders SJ et al (2013) Adjusting head circumference for covariates in autism: clinical correlates of a highly heritable continuous trait. Biol Psychiatry 74:576–584. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.04.018
Cheng Y, Chou K-H, Chen I-Y et al (2010) Atypical development of white matter microstructure in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders. Neuroimage 50:873–882. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.01.011
Clancy B, Darlington RB, Finlay BL (2001) Translating developmental time across mammalian species. Neuroscience 105:7–17
Collin G, van den Heuvel MP (2013) The ontogeny of the human connectome: development and dynamic changes of brain connectivity across the life span. Neuroscientist 19:616–628. doi:10.1177/1073858413503712
Conturo TE, Williams DL, Smith CD et al (2008) Neuronal fiber pathway abnormalities in autism: an initial MRI diffusion tensor tracking study of hippocampo-fusiform and amygdalo-fusiform pathways. J Int Neuropsychol Soc 14:933–946. doi:10.1017/S1355617708081381
Courchesne E (2002) Abnormal early brain development in autism. Mol Psychiatry 7(Suppl 2):S21–S23. doi:10.1038/sj.mp.4001169
Courchesne E, Pierce K (2005) Why the frontal cortex in autism might be talking only to itself: local over-connectivity but long-distance disconnection. Curr Opin Neurobiol 15:225–230. doi:10.1016/j.conb.2005.03.001
Courchesne E, Karns CM, Davis HR et al (2001) Unusual brain growth patterns in early life in patients with autistic disorder: an MRI study. Neurology 57:245–254
Courchesne E, Carper R, Akshoomoff N (2003) Evidence of brain overgrowth in the first year of life in autism. JAMA 290:337–344. doi:10.1001/jama.290.3.337
Courchesne E, Campbell K, Solso S (2011) Brain growth across the life span in autism: age-specific changes in anatomical pathology. Brain Res 1380:138–145. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2010.09.101
Daymont C, Hwang W-T, Feudtner C, Rubin D (2010) Head-circumference distribution in a large primary care network differs from CDC and WHO curves. Pediatrics 126:e836–e842. doi:10.1542/peds.2010-0410
Deoni SCL, Mercure E, Blasi A et al (2011) Mapping infant brain myelination with magnetic resonance imaging. J Neurosci 31:784–791. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2106-10.2011
Ecker C, Suckling J, Deoni SC et al (2012) Brain anatomy and its relationship to behavior in adults with autism spectrum disorder: a multicenter magnetic resonance imaging study. Arch Gen Psychiatry 69:195–209. doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.1251
Ecker C, Ronan L, Feng Y et al (2013) Intrinsic gray-matter connectivity of the brain in adults with autism spectrum disorder. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 136:2799–2815. doi:10.1073/pnas.1221880110
Ecker C, Shahidiani A, Feng Y et al (2014) The effect of age, diagnosis, and their interaction on vertex-based measures of cortical thickness and surface area in autism spectrum disorder. J Neural Transm 121:1157–1170. doi:10.1007/s00702-014-1207-1
Ecker C, Bookheimer SY, Murphy DGM (2015) Neuroimaging in autism spectrum disorder: brain structure and function across the lifespan. Lancet Neurol 14:1121–1134. doi:10.1016/S1474-4422(15)00050-2
Ecker C, Andrews D, Dell’Acqua F et al (2016) Relationship between cortical gyrification, white matter connectivity, and autism spectrum disorder. Cereb Cortex 26:3297–3309. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhw098
Fatemi SH, Halt AR, Realmuto G et al (2002) Purkinje cell size is reduced in cerebellum of patients with autism. Cell Mol Neurobiol 22:171–175
Fletcher PT, Whitaker RT, Tao R et al (2010) Microstructural connectivity of the arcuate fasciculus in adolescents with high-functioning autism. Neuroimage 51:1117–1125. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.01.083
Freitag CM, Luders E, Hulst HE et al (2009) Total brain volume and corpus callosum size in medication-naïve adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorder. Biol Psychiatry 66:316–319. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.03.011
Geschwind DH, Levitt P (2007) Autism spectrum disorders: developmental disconnection syndromes. Curr Opin Neurobiol 17:103–111. doi:10.1016/j.conb.2007.01.009
Giedd JN (2008) The teen brain: insights from neuroimaging. J Adolesc Health 42:335–343. doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2008.01.007
Giedd JN, Blumenthal J, Jeffries NO et al (1999) Brain development during childhood and adolescence: a longitudinal MRI study. Nat Neurosci 2:861–863. doi:10.1038/13158
Gogtay N, Giedd JN, Lusk L et al (2004) Dynamic mapping of human cortical development during childhood through early adulthood. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101:8174–8179. doi:10.1073/pnas.0402680101
Grydeland H, Walhovd KB, Tamnes CK et al (2013) Intracortical myelin links with performance variability across the human lifespan: results from T1- and T2-weighted MRI myelin mapping and diffusion tensor imaging. J Neurosci 33:18618–18630. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2811-13.2013
Hampson DR, Blatt GJ (2015) Autism spectrum disorders and neuropathology of the cerebellum. Front Neurosci 9:420. doi:10.3389/fnins.2015.00420
Hardan AY, Libove RA, Keshavan MS et al (2009) A preliminary longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging study of brain volume and cortical thickness in autism. Biol Psychiatry 66:320–326. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.04.024
Hazlett HC, Poe M, Gerig G et al (2005) Magnetic resonance imaging and head circumference study of brain size in autism: birth through age 2 years. Arch Gen Psychiatry 62:1366–1376. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.62.12.1366
Hazlett HC, Poe MD, Gerig G et al (2011) Early brain overgrowth in autism associated with an increase in cortical surface area before age 2 years. Arch Gen Psychiatry 68:467–476. doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.39
Hazlett HC, Gu H, McKinstry RC et al (2012) Brain volume findings in 6-month-old infants at high familial risk for autism. Am J Psychiatry 169:601–608. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.11091425
Hüppi PS, Warfield S, Kikinis R et al (1998) Quantitative magnetic resonance imaging of brain development in premature and mature newborns. Ann Neurol 43:224–235. doi:10.1002/ana.410430213
Hutsler JJ, Zhang H (2010) Increased dendritic spine densities on cortical projection neurons in autism spectrum disorders. Brain Res 1309:83–94. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2009.09.120
Huttenlocher PR (1990) Morphometric study of human cerebral cortex development. Neuropsychologia 28:517–527
Huttenlocher PR, Dabholkar AS (1997) Regional differences in synaptogenesis in human cerebral cortex. J Comp Neurol 387:167–178
Iai M, Yamamura T, Takashima S (1997) Early expression of proteolipid protein in human fetal and infantile cerebri. Pediatr Neurol 17:235–239
Innocenti GM, Price DJ (2005) Exuberance in the development of cortical networks. Nat Rev Neurosci 6:955–965. doi:10.1038/nrn1790
Keller TA, Kana RK, Just MA (2007) A developmental study of the structural integrity of white matter in autism. Neuroreport 18:23–27. doi:10.1097/01.wnr.0000239965.21685.99
Kemper TL, Bauman ML (1993) The contribution of neuropathologic studies to the understanding of autism. Neurol Clin 11:175–187
Kostovic I, Rakic P (1980) Cytology and time of origin of interstitial neurons in the white matter in infant and adult human and monkey telencephalon. J Neurocytol 9:219–242
Kriegstein A, Noctor S, Martínez-Cerdeño V (2006) Patterns of neural stem and progenitor cell division may underlie evolutionary cortical expansion. Nat Rev Neurosci 7:883–890. doi:10.1038/nrn2008
Lainhart JE, Piven J, Wzorek M et al (1997) Macrocephaly in children and adults with autism. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 36:282–290. doi:10.1097/00004583-199702000-00019
Lainhart JE, Bigler ED, Bocian M et al (2006) Head circumference and height in autism: a study by the collaborative program of excellence in Autism. Am J Med Genet A 140:2257–2274. doi:10.1002/ajmg.a.31465
LaMantia AS, Rakic P (1990) Axon overproduction and elimination in the corpus callosum of the developing rhesus monkey. J Neurosci 10:2156–2175
Lange N, Travers BG, Bigler ED et al (2014) Longitudinal volumetric brain changes in autism spectrum disorder ages 6-35 years. Autism Res 8:82–93. doi:10.1002/aur.1427
Langen M, Leemans A, Johnston P et al (2011) Fronto-striatal circuitry and inhibitory control in autism: findings from diffusion tensor imaging tractography. Cortex 48:183–193. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2011.05.018
Langen M, Bos D, Noordermeer SDS et al (2013) Changes in the development of striatum are involved in repetitive behavior in autism. Biol Psychiatry 76:405–411. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.08.013
Laurence JA, Fatemi SH (2005) Glial fibrillary acidic protein is elevated in superior frontal, parietal and cerebellar cortices of autistic subjects. Cerebellum 4:206–210. doi:10.1080/14734220500208846
Lawrence YA, Kemper TL, Bauman ML, Blatt GJ (2010) Parvalbumin-, calbindin-, and calretinin-immunoreactive hippocampal interneuron density in autism. Acta Neurol Scand 121:99–108. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0404.2009.01234.x
Lee M, Martin-Ruiz C, Graham A et al (2002) Nicotinic receptor abnormalities in the cerebellar cortex in autism. Brain 125:1483–1495
Lefebvre A, Beggiato A, Bourgeron T, Toro R (2015) Neuroanatomical diversity of corpus callosum and brain volume in autism: meta-analysis, analysis of the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (Abide) project, and simulation. Biol Psychiatry 78:126–134. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.02.010
Leipsic PFO (1901) Developmental (myelogenetic) localisation of the cerebral cortex in the human subject. Lancet 158:1027–1030. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(01)01429-5
Lombardo MV, Chakrabarti B, Bullmore ET et al (2010) Atypical neural self-representation in autism. Brain 133:611–624. doi:10.1093/brain/awp306
Low LK, Cheng H-J (2006) Axon pruning: an essential step underlying the developmental plasticity of neuronal connections. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 361:1531–1544. doi:10.1098/rstb.2006.1883
Lowery LA, Van Vactor D (2009) The trip of the tip: understanding the growth cone machinery. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 10:332–343. doi:10.1038/nrm2679
Mak-Fan KM, Taylor MJ, Roberts W, Lerch JP (2011) Measures of cortical grey matter structure and development in children with autism spectrum disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 42:419–427. doi:10.1007/s10803-011-1261-6
McAlonan GM, Cheung V, Cheung C et al (2005) Mapping the brain in autism. A voxel-based MRI study of volumetric differences and intercorrelations in autism. Brain 128:268–276. doi:10.1093/brain/awh332
McKavanagh R, Buckley E, Chance SA (2015) Wider minicolumns in autism: a neural basis for altered processing? Brain 138:2034–2045. doi:10.1093/brain/awv110
Molnár Z, Kaas JH, de Carlos JA et al (2014) Evolution and development of the mammalian cerebral cortex. Brain Behav Evol 83:126–139. doi:10.1159/000357753
Morgan JT, Chana G, Abramson I et al (2012) Abnormal microglial-neuronal spatial organization in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in autism. Brain Res 1456:72–81. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2012.03.036
Morgan JT, Barger N, Amaral DG, Schumann CM (2014) Stereological study of amygdala glial populations in adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorder. PLoS One 9:e110356. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0110356
Mountcastle VB (1997) The columnar organization of the neocortex. Brain 120(Pt 4):701–722
Mrzljak L, Uylings HB, Van Eden CG, Judás M (1990) Neuronal development in human prefrontal cortex in prenatal and postnatal stages. Prog Brain Res 85:185–222
Mukaetova-Ladinska EB, Arnold H, Jaros E et al (2004) Depletion of MAP2 expression and laminar cytoarchitectonic changes in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in adult autistic individuals. Neuropathol Appl Neurobiol 30:615–623. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2990.2004.00574.x
Nordahl CW, Scholz R, Yang X et al (2012) Increased rate of amygdala growth in children aged 2 to 4 years with autism spectrum disorders: a longitudinal study. Arch Gen Psychiatry 69:53–61. doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.145
Oblak AL, Rosene DL, Kemper TL et al (2011) Altered posterior cingulate cortical cyctoarchitecture, but normal density of neurons and interneurons in the posterior cingulate cortex and fusiform gyrus in autism. Autism Res 4:200–211. doi:10.1002/aur.188
Parikshak NN, Luo R, Zhang A et al (2013) Integrative functional genomic analyses implicate specific molecular pathways and circuits in autism. Cell 155:1008–1021. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2013.10.031
Pauls DL, Abramovitch A, Rauch SL, Geller DA (2014) Obsessive-compulsive disorder: an integrative genetic and neurobiological perspective. Nat Rev Neurosci 15:410–424. doi:10.1038/nrn3746
Pelphrey KA, Mitchell TV, McKeown MJ et al (2003) Brain activity evoked by the perception of human walking: controlling for meaningful coherent motion. J Neurosci 23:6819–6825
Pessoa L (2008) On the relationship between emotion and cognition. Nat Rev Neurosci 9:148–158. doi:10.1038/nrn2317
Pickett J, London E (2005) The neuropathology of autism: a review. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol 64:925–935
Pinto D, Pagnamenta AT, Klei L et al (2010) Functional impact of global rare copy number variation in autism spectrum disorders. Nature 466:368–372. doi:10.1038/nature09146
Pontious A, Kowalczyk T, Englund C, Hevner RF (2008) Role of intermediate progenitor cells in cerebral cortex development. Dev Neurosci 30:24–32. doi:10.1159/000109848
Pugliese L, Catani M, Ameis S et al (2009) The anatomy of extended limbic pathways in Asperger syndrome: a preliminary diffusion tensor imaging tractography study. Neuroimage 47:427–434. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.05.014
Rakic P (1995) A small step for the cell, a giant leap for mankind: a hypothesis of neocortical expansion during evolution. Trends Neurosci 18:383–388
Raymond GV, Bauman ML, Kemper TL (1996) Hippocampus in autism: a Golgi analysis. Acta Neuropathol 91:117–119
Raznahan A, Wallace GL, Antezana L et al (2013) Compared to what? Early brain overgrowth in autism and the perils of population norms. Biol Psychiatry 74:563–575. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.03.022
Ronan JL, Wu W, Crabtree GR (2013) From neural development to cognition: unexpected roles for chromatin. Nat Rev Genet 14:347–359. doi:10.1038/nrg3413
Russell AJ, Mataix-Cols D, Anson M, Murphy DGM (2005) Obsessions and compulsions in Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism. Br J Psychiatry 186:525–528. doi:10.1192/bjp.186.6.525
Sahyoun CP, Belliveau JW, Mody M (2010) White matter integrity and pictorial reasoning in high-functioning children with autism. Brain Cogn 73:180–188. doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2010.05.002
Santos M, Uppal N, Butti C et al (2011) Von Economo neurons in autism: a stereologic study of the frontoinsular cortex in children. Brain Res 1380:206–217. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2010.08.067
Scherf KS, Elbich D, Minshew N, Behrmann M (2015) Individual differences in symptom severity and behavior predict neural activation during face processing in adolescents with autism. Neuroimage Clin 7:53–67. doi:10.1016/j.nicl.2014.11.003
Schumann CM, Amaral DG (2006) Stereological analysis of amygdala neuron number in autism. J Neurosci 26:7674–7679. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1285-06.2006
Schumann CM, Bloss CS, Barnes CC et al (2010) Longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging study of cortical development through early childhood in autism. J Neurosci 30:4419–4427. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5714-09.2010
Simms ML, Kemper TL, Timbie CM et al (2009) The anterior cingulate cortex in autism: heterogeneity of qualitative and quantitative cytoarchitectonic features suggests possible subgroups. Acta Neuropathol 118:673–684. doi:10.1007/s00401-009-0568-2
Skefos J, Cummings C, Enzer K et al (2014) Regional alterations in purkinje cell density in patients with autism. PLoS One 9:e81255. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0081255
Sowell ER, Peterson BS, Thompson PM et al (2003) Mapping cortical change across the human life span. Nat Neurosci 6:309–315. doi:10.1038/nn1008
Stiles J, Jernigan TL (2010) The basics of brain development. Neuropsychol Rev 20:327–348. doi:10.1007/s11065-010-9148-4
Stoner R, Chow ML, Boyle MP et al (2014) Patches of disorganization in the neocortex of children with autism. N Engl J Med 370:1209–1219. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1307491
Surén P, Stoltenberg C, Bresnahan M et al (2013) Early growth patterns in children with autism. Epidemiology 24:660–670. doi:10.1097/EDE.0b013e31829e1d45
Suzuki K, Sugihara G, Ouchi Y et al (2013) Microglial activation in young adults with autism spectrum disorder. JAMA Psychiatry 70:49–58. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2013.272
Tau GZ, Peterson BS (2010) Normal development of brain circuits. Neuropsychopharmacology 35:147–168. doi:10.1038/npp.2009.115
van Kooten IAJ, Palmen SJMC, Cappeln von P et al (2008) Neurons in the fusiform gyrus are fewer and smaller in autism. Brain 131:987–999. doi:10.1093/brain/awn033
Vargas DL, Nascimbene C, Krishnan C et al (2005) Neuroglial activation and neuroinflammation in the brain of patients with autism. Ann Neurol 57:67–81. doi:10.1002/ana.20315
Waiter GD, Williams JHG, Murray AD et al (2005) Structural white matter deficits in high-functioning individuals with autistic spectrum disorder: a voxel-based investigation. Neuroimage 24:455–461. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.08.049
Wallace GL, Dankner N, Kenworthy L et al (2010) Age-related temporal and parietal cortical thinning in autism spectrum disorders. Brain 133:3745–3754. doi:10.1093/brain/awq279
Wegiel J, Kuchna I, Nowicki K et al (2010) The neuropathology of autism: defects of neurogenesis and neuronal migration, and dysplastic changes. Acta Neuropathol 119:755–770. doi:10.1007/s00401-010-0655-4
Whitney ER, Kemper TL, Bauman ML et al (2008) Cerebellar Purkinje cells are reduced in a subpopulation of autistic brains: a stereological experiment using calbindin-D28k. Cerebellum 7:406–416. doi:10.1007/s12311-008-0043-y
Williams RS, Hauser SL, Purpura DP et al (1980) Autism and mental retardation: neuropathologic studies performed in four retarded persons with autistic behavior. Arch Neurol 37:749–753
Wolff JJ, Gu H, Gerig G et al (2012) Differences in white matter fiber tract development present from 6 to 24 months in infants with autism. Am J Psychiatry 169:589–600. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2011.11091447
Yu Y-C, Bultje RS, Wang X, Shi S-H (2009) Specific synapses develop preferentially among sister excitatory neurons in the neocortex. Nature 458:501–504. doi:10.1038/nature07722
Zielinski BA, Prigge MBD, Nielsen JA et al (2014) Longitudinal changes in cortical thickness in autism and typical development. Brain 137:1799–1812. doi:10.1093/brain/awu083
Zikopoulos B, Barbas H (2010) Changes in prefrontal axons may disrupt the network in autism. J Neurosci 30:14595–14609. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2257-10.2010
Zikopoulos B, Barbas H (2013) Altered neural connectivity in excitatory and inhibitory cortical circuits in autism. Front Hum Neurosci 7:609. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00609
Zwaigenbaum L, Young GS, Stone WL et al (2014) Early head growth in infants at risk of autism: a baby siblings research consortium study. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 53:1053–1062. doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2014.07.007
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Autism Imaging Multicentre Study Consortium funded by Medical Research Council UK Grant (G0400061) and EU-AIMS, which receives support from the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking under grant agreement no. 115300, resources of which are composed of financial contributions from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (P7/2007–2013), from EFPIA companies in kind contribution and from Autism Speaks. CE also gratefully acknowledges support from the German Research Foundation (DFG) under the Heisenberg Programme (grant number EC480/1-1 and EC480/2-1). MJS was further supported by the Baustein programme of Ulm University (L.SBN.0081), the Care-for-Rare Foundation and the Elite programme of the Baden-Wuerttemberg Foundation. Moreover, the authors would like to thank the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health and the Dr Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ecker, C., Schmeisser, M.J., Loth, E., Murphy, D.G. (2017). Neuroanatomy and Neuropathology of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Humans. In: Schmeisser, M., Boeckers, T. (eds) Translational Anatomy and Cell Biology of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Advances in Anatomy, Embryology and Cell Biology, vol 224. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52498-6_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52498-6_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-52496-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-52498-6
eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)