Abstract
Background: Gender differences in clinical features is a prominent feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and the corpus callosum (CC) is the largest commissural tract connecting the left and right hemispheres associated with autism symptoms. This study aimed to analyze the relationship between gender-associated clinical features and CC size in children aged 2-4 years.Methods: A prospective study of 100 children aged 2-4 years, including 50 cases with ASD (ASD group) and 50 cases with typically developing (TD group) who were matched with equivalent samples of ASD, were recruited with assessments of demographic data (gender, age, and body mass index [BMI]), clinical features (full-scale/verbal/performance IQ, ADOS, and ADI-R), and CC size measured by Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging. SPSS version 22 was used to analyze the data.Results: The mid-posterior CC (MPCC), anterior-middle CC (AMCC), and total CC (TCC) volumes in ASD were higher than that in TD, and the significance these sub-regions volumes between ASD-Females and ASD-Males was existed in ASD group (all P < 0.05). Analogously, the mean of verbal IQ score in ASD-Males was significantly higher than in ASD-Females, but the scores of ADOS communication (AC) and ADOS total (AT) were lower in ASD-Males (all P < 0.05). AC and AT scores were significantly and positively related to MPCC, AMCC and TCC volumes (all P < 0.05), but verbal IQ score was significantly and negatively associated with MPCC, AMCC and TCC volumes (all P < 0.05). In ASD-Males and -Females, both AC and AT scores increase with the change of MPCC, AMCC and TCC volumes, but VIQ decline.Conclusion: The language ability, including communication and verbal IQ, of ASD aged 2-4 years old has gender differences, which may be related to the CC size, especially the MPCC and AMCC.
Gross anatomical study on the gender differences in the corpus callosum
