Abnormal cerebral cortical thinning pattern in adolescent girls with idiopathic scoliosis

Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is a 3-D spinal deformity with uncertain etiology; abnormalities in brain development represent one of the possible explanatory concepts for its pathogenesis. The objective of this study is to investigate the brain maturation by thickness of cerebral cortex among female adolescents with and without idiopathic scoliosis. Fifty AIS patients with a typical right-thoracic curve pattern were compared with 40 age-matched healthy controls. Based on the T1-weighted magnetic resonance images, the thickness of cortical gray-matter was calculated using a well-validated surface measurement method. Focusing on adolescent participants within the age range with the frequent occurrences of AIS cases (i.e., 12 to 17 years), we observed that the cortical thickness declined significantly in almost all cortical lobes in normal subjects (Spearman correlation < − 0.4; P ≤ 0.05) except temporal lobe in LH, while in AIS patients this decline was weakly correlated with age (Spearman correlation > − 0.4) and largely insignificant (P ≥ 0.05). Quadratic regression results expressed the detailed difference in the age-related cortical changing pattern between the two groups. In addition, focal cortical thickness was significantly different in AIS patients compared with healthy controls in areas involved in motor and vestibular functions as well as object recognition. The findings from this study imply a different thinning pattern of the cerebral cortex during adolescence in patients with AIS; this may be primary (i.e. etiopathogenetic) or secondary (i.e. adaptation) to the development of scoliosis.