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  • Anatomy and Neurobiology of Autism
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Neuropathology of infantile autism

Molecular Psychiatry volume 7, pages S12–S13 (2002)Cite this article

The neuropathology of infantile autism has been reviewed in several recent publications.1,2 We have examined the whole brain serial sections of nine well documented cases of infantile autism in comparison with identically processed age- and sex-matched controls. In these brains comparable anatomic areas of the forebrain, brain stem and cerebellum were viewed side by side at the same magnification in the same field of view. Anatomic areas identified as abnormal by this technique were then subjected to further qualitative and quantitative analysis. Consistent findings were evidence of a curtailment of maturation in the forebrain limbic system, abnormalities in the cerebellar circuits, and an unusual pattern of change of postnatal brain size.

In the forebrain, many components of the limbic system show unusually small neurons that are more closely packed together than those of the age- and sex-matched controls, a pattern similar to that seen at an earlier stage of brain development. The most consistently involved areas were the amygdala, the hippocampal formation and its closely related entorhinal cortex and the mammillary body. The only exception to this pattern of pathological change was found in the septum, in a part of this area that projects to the limbic forebrain, the nucleus of the diagonal band of Broca. In the younger autistic individuals (less than 12 years of age), the neurons in this part of the septum were unusually large but adequate in number and in the older individuals (more than 21 years of age), they were unusually small and decreased in number. All of these limbic areas are key parts of the brain circuitry involved in memory and emotionality,3 disturbances of which are prominent clinical features of infantile autism. Inconsistently noted in the forebrain were malformations of the neocortex. In our material these have been inconspicuous and present in only an occasional brain. However, Bailey et al4 have found them to be a prominent feature in their autopsy material. It is difficult to say at what period of brain development the curtailed maturation arose. However, the presence of malformations in the cerebral cortex indicates a pathology dating to the period of fetal development. The cytoarchitecture of the remaining cerebral cortex showed no abnormality when compared to controls. Thus, the limbic system abnormalities in the forebrain represent a consistent, selective, apparently isolated change in the forebrain.

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References

  1. Bauman ML, Kemper TL . The Neurobiology of Autism The Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore and London 1994

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA

    T L Kemper

  2. Children's Neurology Service, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, MA, USA

    M L Bauman

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  1. T L Kemper
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  2. M L Bauman
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Correspondence to T L Kemper.

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Kemper, T., Bauman, M. Neuropathology of infantile autism. Mol Psychiatry 7 (Suppl 2), S12–S13 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.mp.4001165

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