Evidence for normal extra-axial cerebrospinal fluid volume in autistic males from middle childhood to adulthood
Madeline Peterson,
Molly B.D. Prigge,
Erin D. Bigler,
Brandon Zielinski,
Jace B. King,
Nicholas Lange,
Andrew Alexander,
Janet E. Lainhart,
Jared A. Nielsen
Affiliations
Madeline Peterson
Department of Psychology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, 84602, United States
Molly B.D. Prigge
Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84108, United States; Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53705, United States
Erin D. Bigler
Department of Psychology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, 84602, United States; Neuroscience Center, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, 84604, United States; Department of Neurology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84108, United States; Department of Neurology, University of California-Davis, Davis, CA United States
Brandon Zielinski
Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84108, United States; Department of Neurology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84108, United States; Department of Pediatrics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84108, United States
Jace B. King
Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84108, United States
Nicholas Lange
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, United States
Andrew Alexander
Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53705, United States; Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53719, United States; Department of Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53705, United States
Janet E. Lainhart
Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53705, United States; Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53719, United States
Jared A. Nielsen
Department of Psychology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, 84602, United States; Neuroscience Center, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, 84604, United States; Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, 1070 KMBL, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, 84602, USA.
Autism spectrum disorder has long been associated with a variety of organizational and developmental abnormalities in the brain. An increase in extra-axial cerebrospinal fluid volume in autistic individuals between the ages of 6 months and 4 years has been reported in recent studies. Increased extra-axial cerebrospinal fluid volume was predictive of the diagnosis and severity of the autistic symptoms in all of them, irrespective of genetic risk for developing the disorder. In the present study, we explored the trajectory of extra-axial cerebrospinal fluid volume from childhood to adulthood in both autism and typical development. We hypothesized that an elevated extra-axial cerebrospinal fluid volume would be found in autism persisting throughout the age range studied. We tested the hypothesis by employing an accelerated, multi-cohort longitudinal data set of 189 individuals (97 autistic, 92 typically developing). Each individual had been scanned between 1 and 5 times, with scanning sessions separated by 2–3 years, for a total of 439 T1-weighted MRI scans. A linear mixed-effects model was used to compare developmental, age-related changes in extra-axial cerebrospinal fluid volume between groups. Inconsistent with our hypothesis, we found no group differences in extra-axial cerebrospinal fluid volume in this cohort of individuals 3 to 42 years of age. Our results suggest that extra-axial cerebrospinal fluid volume in autistic individuals is not increased compared with controls beyond four years of age.
