Diagnosis of autism: Neural Signatures?

Autism spectrum disorder is a highly prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by striking social deficits. The strong genetic component to this disorder has led researchers to use functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain to study differences between autistic subjects and their unaffected siblings. Their results suggest that brain responses differ between autistic subjects and their unaffected siblings. In addition, unaffected siblings have brain activity which may be compensatory in nature, perhaps related to underlying genetic susceptibility factors. Overall, the observation of potential “neural signatures” in the diagnosis of autism is a promising step towards clearer diagnosis and eventual advances in therapeutics.

Kaiser MD et al., Neural signatures of autism, Proc. Natl. Acad, Sci. USA 107: 21223-21228 (2010).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21078973