自閉症候群是一種神經發育障礙，患者會呈現社交溝通、人際互動障礙及特定的行為模式。一般來說，過去的神經影像研究顯示自閉症患者的大腦皮質厚度可能在部分區域發現異常，但在海馬迴和杏仁核上的體積研究結果卻不一致。本研究希望透過測量本地蒐集到的受試者，以獲得排除性別、患者手足等可能影響結果的因素的亞洲人實驗結果。使用表面式大腦皮質厚度量測方法(FreeSurfer)計算自閉症青少年(17 名;平均年齡17.15±1.13 歲)和年齡匹配的典型發展對照組的大腦皮質厚度(10 名;平均年齡16.68±1.77 歲)。研究結果顯示，相較於對照組，自閉症青少年在顳葉和枕葉上皮質厚度較厚，扣帶迴中皮質厚度較薄，並且有較大的右側海馬迴絕對體積。這些結果符合一些以前的研究結果，但也與其他研究有些不一致。大腦結構和自閉症候群恐無絕對因果關係或診斷價值，現階段亦無確定有關發展上改變的結論。

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder which leads to impairment in social communication and specific behavior repertoire. In general, neuroimaging studies support the concept that regional abnormalities of the cerebral cortical thickness are associated with autism, while results from volumetric studies done on hippocampus and amygdala are inconsistent. The purpose of this study is to measure the results of local experiments that exclude factors such as gender, patient's siblings that might affect the results. In this study, the cortical thickness and volumes of hippocampus and amygdala were obtained by using a surface-based method (FreeSurfer) on 17 adolescents diagnosed with ASD (mean age=17.15±1.13 years old) and 10 age-matched typically developing controls (mean age=16.68±1.77 years old). The results revealed that the ASD adolescents have thicker cortical thickness on the temporal and occipital lobes and scattered thinner thickness in cingulate. In addition, a statistically significant increase of right hippocampal absolute volume is found in adolescents with ASD but becomes non-significant after normalization to individual’s intracranial volume. The finding of this study corroborates to several previous literatures, but also somewhat inconsistent with reports by others. However, there is no absolute cause-effect relationship or diagnostic value between brain structures and ASD. Besides, there are no consistent conclusions about structural changes in development at present.

論文審定書………………………………………………………………………… i
致謝………………………………………………….……………………………… ii
中文摘要………………………………………………….…………………….….. iii
Abstract……………...………………………………………...……………………. iv
Contents……………...………………………………………...…………………… vi
List of figures……………...…………………………..……………………………. viii
List of tables……………...………………………………………...……………….. ix
Chapter 1 Introduction…………………………………………………...………….. 1
1.1 Background…….………………………………………………..…………. 1
1.1.1 ASD…….……………………………………...……………..……. 1
1.1.2 MRI…….……………………………………...…..................……. 2
1.1.3 Cortical thickness (CT) …………………………....................……. 2
1.1.4 Previous structural MRI studies in autism spectrum disorder……… 3
1.2 Purpose of this study…….………………………..………………………… 7
Chapter 2 Materials & Method……………………………...……………………… 9
2.1 Materials…….……………………………………………………………. 9
2.1.1 Participants…….……………………………...…………………… 9
2.1.2 Structural imaging parameters………………………………….… 11
2.2 Method…….………………………………………………...…………... 12
2.2.1 FreeSurfer………………………………………………………... 12
2.2.2 Cortical reconstruction………………………….……………….. 12
2.2.3 Cortical areas…………………………………..…………………. 16
2.2.4 General linear model (GLM) correction……………….…………. 18
Chapter 3 Results………………………………………………………………… 25
3.1 Gaussian kernel…..……………………………………………………… 25
3.2 Cortical thickness……………………………………………………… 27
3.3 Volume of Hippocampus and Amygdala………………………………… 31
3.4 Relative volume of Hippocampus and Amygdala…..…………………… 31
Chapter 4 Discussion…………………………………………………………....… 33
4.1 Gaussian kernel...………………………………………………...……… 33
4.2 Cortical thickness………………………………………………...……… 33
4.3 Hippocampus and Amygdala………………………...…………..……… 37
4.4 Limitations…………………………...………………………………… 39
4.5 Conclusion…………………...……………………………………….… 40
Reference…………………………………………………………………….……… 41

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