RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Cerebellar volume in autism: Meta-analysis and analysis of the ABIDE cohort
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 104984
DO 10.1101/104984
A1 Nicolas Traut
A1 Anita Beggiato
A1 Thomas Bourgeron
A1 Richard Delorme
A1 Laure Rondi-Reig
A1 Anne-Lise Paradis
A1 Roberto Toro
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/07/104984.abstract
AB Cerebellar volume abnormalities have been often suggested as a possible endophenotype for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We aimed at objectifying this possible alteration by performing a systematic meta-analysis of the literature, and an analysis of the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE) cohort. Our meta-analysis sought to determine a combined effect size of ASD diagnosis on different measures of the cerebellar anatomy, as well as the effect of possible factors of variability across studies. We then analysed the cerebellar volume of 328 patients and 353 controls from the ABIDE project. The meta-analysis of the literature suggested a weak but significant association between ASD diagnosis and increased cerebellar volume (p=0.049, uncorrected), but the analysis of ABIDE did not show any relationship. The studies in the literature were generally underpowered, however, the number of statistically significant findings was larger than expected. Although we could not provide a conclusive explanation for this excess of significant findings, our analyses would suggest publication bias as a possible reason. Finally, age, sex and IQ were important sources of cerebellar volume variability, however, independent of autism diagnosis.