Brainstem enlargement in preschool children with autism: Results from an intermethod agreement study of segmentation algorithms
Publication Date:
September 5, 2018
The intermethod agreement between automated algorithms for brainstem segmentation is investigated, focusing on the potential involvement of this structure in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Inconsistencies highlighted in previous studies on brainstem in the population with ASD may in part be a result of poor agreement in the extraction of structural features between different methods. In this investigation, conducted on a age-, gender- and intelligence-matched sample of ASD and controls, it was detected an enlargement of brainstem volume in the whole sample and in the male cohort across multiple segmentation methods, a feature particularly driven by the subgroup of children with idiopathic intellectual disability associated with ASD.