1. Dr. Temple Grandin: A multimodal neuroimaging case study of a savant with autism
Cooperrider JR1,2, Grandin T5, Bigler ED2,6, Anderson JS1,3, Alexander AL7,8, Doran S7,9, Ennis C7,9,10, Prigge MBD2, Froehlich AL2, Zielinski BA4, Lange NT11, Adluru N7,12, Lainhart JE1,2,7
University of Utah
1Interdepartmental Program in Neuroscience, 2Departments of Psychiatry, 3Radiology, & 4Pediatrics
Colorado State University
5Department of Animal Sciences
Brigham Young University
6Department of Psychology, Neuroscience Center
University of Wisconsin at Madison
7Waisman Center Brain Imaging Laboratory, 8Departments of Medical Physics and Psychiatry, 9Neuroscience, 10Psychology, & 11Biostatistics and Medical Informatics
Harvard University
7Departments of Psychiatry and Biostatistics, Schools of Medicine and Public Health

2. Dr. Temple Grandin Internationally renowned scientist with autism
Provided science with many insights into the mind of individuals with autism
Exceptional memory and savant visuospatial abilities
Ph. D. in Animal Science
Tenured professor of Animal Science at CSU
Written many books/articles, given many talks

4. Rationale
Dr. Grandin a well known public figure with interesting cognitive abilities
No published studies on Dr. Grandin’s brain and cognitive abilities
Few published studies on the neuroimaging of exceptional abilities in savants and only 1 other so extensively multimodal (Corrigan et al., 2011)
Dr. Grandin’s interest in exploring the brain basis of her cognitive strengths and weaknesses

5. How are brain structure and function related to outstanding ability and disability within the same brain?

6. Participants Dr. Grandin: age 63.1 years
confirmed to have autism via ADOS & ADI (UPitt)
3 control participants: mean age 62.3 years, age range years
Matched to TG on age, sex, and handedness
1 with Ph. D., 1 with Bachelor’s degree, 1 did not complete college

7. Data Acquisition
All scans done on 3-Tesla Siemens Magnetom Trio MR scanner with 12-channel, receive-only head coil at UU’s Imaging and Neurosciences Center
Whole brain and regional volumes (FreeSurfer)
Cortical thickness (Free Surfer)
DTI to examine white matter microstructure (analysis completed at UW-M’s Waisman Center)
Resting state and task-based fMRI (Matlab, SPM8)
Neuropsychological assessment targeting known strengths and weaknesses (TG only, 39 months post scan)

8. >1SD>control mean
Intracranial Volume
>1SD>control mean

9. Leftward Volumetric Asymmetry of Lateral Ventricles
45.5% for TG vs. 14.5% for controls

10. Bilateral Amygdala Volumes
>1SD>control mean

11. Left Cerebral White Matter Volume
>1SD>control mean

12. Bilateral Entorhinal Cortical Thickness
>2SD>control mean

14. “Enhanced” White Matter Microstructure
FA, MD, λ1, λ3 compared to control mean in:
Left precuneus ( episodic memory & visuospatial processing?)
Left inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus ( processing of visual info?)
Left superior occipital gyrus ( visuospatial processing?)

15. “Compromised” White Matter Microstructure
FA, MD, λ1, λ3 compared to control mean in:
Left superior temporal gyrus and bilateral (especially left) superior longitudinal fasciculus ( language function—autism?)
Left inferior frontal gyrus ( expressive language ability—autism?)
Right fusiform gyrus ( social/facial information processing—autism?)
Bilateral (especially right) posterior thalamic radiation (unusual visuospatial abilities?)

16. Increased Brain Activity
Auditory language task: no difference
Visual language task: increased parietal cortex activity compared to controlsincreased visual attention and/or visualization?
Music task (Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven): increased medial prefrontal cortex activity compared to control meanincreased self reflection and/or value judgment
q < 0.05, FDR

17. Visual Language fMRI

18. Music fMRI

19. Quote from Thinking in Pictures (2006)
“I think in pictures. Words are like a second language to me. I translate both spoken and written words into full-color movies, complete with sound, which run like a VCR tape in my head. When somebody speaks to me, his words are instantly translated into pictures” (p. 19).

20. Neuropsychological Assessments
Superior visuospatial: Spatial Relations subtest of Hiskey-Nebraska (at ceiling), Raven’s Coloured Progressive Matrices (perfect score), Visuospatial/ Constructional domain of RBANS (97th%ile)
Poor verbal working memory: RBANS Attention domain lowest score of 5 domains
Better recall of themed/bundled info rather than individual items (RAVLT & WMS-III)
Exceptional verbal ability: Verbal Ability subtest of Woodcock-Johnson (95th%ile), Reading subtest of WRAT (90th%ile), Spelling subtest of WRAT (77th%ile)
Poor sequential processing (Trails B 1.5 SDs<Trails A)

21. Sincere thanks to Dr. Grandin and the control participants
Acknowledgements
Sincere thanks to Dr. Grandin and the control participants
Tricia Merkley & Tracy Abildskov
Dr. Nancy Minshew and colleagues
Dr. June Taylor
Melody Johnson
UU Neuroscience, SfN, and NIH
Funding sources: NIH NIMH RO1MH080826; Neuroscience Training Grant NIH NIDCD T32DC (University Utah)