Scientists: Language difficulties in people with autism develop as the volume of gray matter in the brain decreases

Children with autism are characterized by a high level of tortuosity in the temporal and frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex, with which verbal activity is directly related.

Russian and American neurophysiologists have clarified that language disorders and difficulties related to language proficiency often occur in children with autism if they are characterized by a relatively low volume of gray matter in the brain and increased sweating in the temporal and frontal lobes of the cortex. 

This was announced Wednesday, April 12, the press service of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

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And according to a statement published by the press service, the volume of gray matter was significantly lower in children with autism, and they also had an increased rate of tortuousness in the cerebral cortex. The analysis showed that language skills depended on the thickness of the gray matter and the severity of tortuousness in the areas of the cerebral cortex that are involved in verbal activity. These regions include sections of the temporal and frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex.

 According to the World Health Organization, one out of every hundred children on our planet has autism spectrum disorders (ASD), yet the number of patients increases every year by 13%. Scientists link its development to genetic factors, the different characteristics of the microflora that surrounds the child, the process of education and other environmental conditions in which the child grows.

A team of Russian and foreign neurophysiologists led by Wartan Arutyunyan, a researcher at the Institute for the Study of Children in Seattle, USA, was interested in whether there are distinctive features of the brain structure of autistic children with various difficulties in language learning.

The experiment included 36 children between the ages of 8 and 14 years, including 18 children with autism spectrum disorders and the same number of children who are normally developing. The participants' brains were scanned using structural MRI, and the children's language skills were assessed with the help of a behavioral test.

The researchers discovered that the volume of white matter in different regions of the brain in children was similar, while the volume of gray matter in children with autism was slightly lower. At the same time, the researchers found that the level of zigzag in the cortex of the autistic children was generally higher than is typical of their peers from the test group.

Subsequent comparison of this data with children's language skills showed that problems related to their development often arise in children with autism, who were characterized by a relatively low thickness of gray matter in the brain, as well as a higher level of venation in the brain and the temporal and frontal cortex directly related to verbal activity.

"Our results contradict the theory that early atypical brain development in children with autism returns to normal by secondary school age," concluded Alena Menigolova, a researcher at the Center for Language and Brain at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.