Pineal gland volume in children with intellectual disability.

OBJECTIVE

Pineal gland volume (PGV), which is associated with sleep and circadian rhythm, is known to be changed in some psychiatric disorders such as major depression, mood disorders and schizophrenia. This study aimed to compare the PGV of children with mild and moderate intellectual disability (ID) and healthy children.

METHODS

This multicentre retrospective study included 40 children with ID (patient group), aged 6-12 years and 40 age- and sex-matched healthy children (control group). The children were examined for their sociodemographic characteristics and for PGV using magnetic resonance imaging.

RESULTS

The PGV of the patient group was significantly larger than that of the controls (p = 0.023). There was no statistically significant difference in PGV between mild and moderate ID. A moderate and positive correlation was found between Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children-revised (WISC-R) performance score and PGV (p = 0.049, r = 0.313) only in the patient group. In the receiver operating characteristic analysis, the area under the curve was 0.648, and the sensitivity was 70.0%, and the specificity was 60.0%.

CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion, this study demonstrated that the increased PGV levels were associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and PGV could be a risk factor in the aetiology of ID. Further research with larger sample sizes is needed to clarify this issue.