Nov 9, 2011 · Main outcome measures: Mean neuron number and size in the DL-PFC and M-PFC were compared between autistic and control postmortem cases. Correlations of neuron number with deviation in brain weight from normative values for age were also performed.

Oct 25, 2007 · We speculate that excess neuron numbers may be one possible cause of early brain overgrowth and produce defects in neural patterning and wiring, with exuberant local and short-distance cortical interactions impeding the function of large-scale, long-distance interactions between brain regions.

Nov 9, 2011 · Schematic of 2 prefrontal subregions, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (green) and mesial prefrontal cortex (pink). Within each region, neuron counts, neuron size, and glia counts were performed using blinded stereological methods.

Oct 25, 2007 · This has given rise to a new hypothesis: early brain development in autism is characterized by two phases of brain growth pathology (Courchesne et al., 2001, 2003; Courchesne and Pierce, 2005a): early brain overgrowth at the beginning of life and slowing or arrest of growth during early childhood .

Eric Courchesne is an autism researcher and Professor of Neurosciences in University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Director of the UCSD Autism Center located in La Jolla, California.

First, in an MRI study, Courchesne et al. (2001) reported evidence of an unusual brain growth trajectory in autism. They discovered abnormal brain and cerebrum enlargement in autistic 2–4 year olds, but then slightly smaller overall brain volumes by 12 to 16 years of age (Fig. 2).

Corresponding Author: Eric Courchesne, PhD, De-partment of Neuroscience, NIH-UCSD Autism Cen-terofExcellence,SchoolofMedicine,UniversityofCali-fornia San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093 (ecourchesne @ucsd.edu). Context Autism often involves early …

We discuss evidence of brain maldevelopment in the first years of life in autism and new neuroanatomical and functional evidence from later ages of development.

(Courchesne et al., 1993). Most recently, Hadjikhani et al. (2006) provided a detailed cortical map showing abnor-mally thin cortices in multiple superior parietal, temporal, and frontal regions in adolescents with autism. Interest-ingly, these regions include the mirror neuron system, which has been hypothesized by some to be critical in

Neuron number and size in prefrontal cortex of children with autism. JAMA. 2011 Nov 09; 306(18):2001-10. Courchesne E, Mouton PR, Calhoun ME, Semendeferi K, Ahrens-Barbeau C, Hallet MJ, Barnes CC, Pierce K. PMID: 22068992.