Cortical Thickness Differences in Autistic Children With and Without Intellectual Disability.
Derek S Andrews, Andrew J Dakopolos, Joshua K Lee and 5 others
PMID 39887572WHAT IT FOUND
Autistic children with intellectual disability showed thicker cortex in temporal regions than autistic children without intellectual disability.
Cortical thickness patterns linked to IQ differed between these groups, and associations with IQ overlapped significantly with associations to autism symptom severity.
Key findings
01Autistic children with intellectual disability had significantly thicker cortex in the right entorhinal cortex, fusiform gyrus, and temporal regions compared to autistic children without intellectual disability.
02The spatial pattern of how cortical thickness relates to IQ was not significantly similar between autistic children with and without intellectual disability.
03Cortical thickness associations with IQ overlapped significantly with associations to autism symptom severity across the whole autistic group.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot show how these brain structures change over time. Intellectual disability was defined by IQ scores only; adaptive functioning data was missing for some participants and not used for grouping. The non-autistic group had higher average IQs than the autistic group, limiting direct comparison of IQ-brain links across the full range. MRI resolution cannot identify the specific cellular reasons for the thickness differences. The sample size is relatively small for neuroimaging, and findings need replication in larger groups.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret these brain thickness differences as causes of intellectual disability or as markers for clinical diagnosis. The study is cross-sectional and cannot determine if the thicker cortex leads to lower IQ or results from it, nor can it be used to assess individual patients.