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Insular Volume Reduction Is a Common Feature Between Adolescents with High-Functioning Autism and First Episodes of Psychosis

Thursday, 2 May 2013: 14:00-18:00
Banquet Hall (Kursaal Centre)
15:00
M. Parellada1, L. Pina-Camacho2 and J. Janssen3, (1)Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department, Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón, IiSGM. Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, CIBERSAM, Madrid, SPAIN, Madrid, Spain, (2)Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department, Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón, IiSGM. Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, CIBERSAM, Madrid, Spain, (3)Hospital General Unversitario Gregorio Marañón, Imaging Laboratory, Madrid, Spain
Background: Data from neurocognitive and genetic studies show common features and risk factors between autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and psychosis. Social cognition is a domain of abnormal performance in which both ASD and psychosis patients fail. There is very little data available on brain structural abnormalities common to the two groups of disorders.   

Objectives:   To study areas of shared brain structural abnormalities related to the social brain network. 

Methods:   In this study, we MRI scanned 34 adolescents with high-functioning ASD (HF-ASD), 36 with a first episode of psychosis (FEP), and 34 healthy controls. We compared volumes, cortical thickness, and surface area of a priori selected regions of interest associated with social cognition (amygdala, insula, pars opercularis, superior temporal region, and precuneus region). The effect of IQ in the studied regions was also acknowledged via correlating IQ with the dependent variables and using it as a convariate variable when appropriate.

Results:   HF-ASD and FEP patients had smaller insular volumes than normal controls [mean difference in left insula: HF-ASD vs. controls 4.37 cc (p=0.036), psychosis vs. controls 6.39 cc, p=0.006; right insula: HF-ASD vs. controls 5.03 cc (p=0.006), psychosis vs. controls 5.19 cc, p=0.021), after correcting for intracranial volume and age. Mean precuneus volume was smaller in both patient groups, reaching statistical significance in the case of HF-ASD, compared with control subjects (p=0.035 and p=0.01 for left and right precuneus, respectively). 

Conclusions:   This study shows that the insula (considered an important multimodal area involved in high-order mental processes) and, to a lesser extent, the precuneus region (important for self-awareness, episodic memory, and social and other communication) are areas of abnormal structure common to psychosis and HF-ASD patients. Further studies are needed to determine whether these areas of common abnormality are specific to these disorders or are shared with other human mental disorders.

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