Developing screening method of autism using fractal analysis

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The aim of the present study was to apply fractal analysis of the human brain morphology to efficient screening of the autistic brains. Individuals with pervasive developmental disorders(PDD) and controls with typical development were recruited from clinic and community samples. Original MR images were then converted to BMP axial images and analyzed with Benoit for MatlabR specialized for fractal analysis of the imaging data. Three-dimensional fractal dimension(FD) was calculated as an index for estimating the complexity of the cortical folding and/or cortical volume. As predicted, two diagnostic groups were different both in cerebral and cerebellar FD. Compared to the controls, the PDD had smaller cerebral FD and larger cerebellar FD, suggesting aberrant or compensatory neurodevelopment in PDD and possible clinical use of the fractal analysis in this field.