At 12 months of age, infant siblings of children with autism have a brain response to unfamiliar faces that is characteristic of typical children at a younger age, according to a study published 26 March in Brain Topography. This developmental delay could be used as an early biomarker for autism.
Small duplications or deletions of DNA regions — called micro-copy number variations — may not lead directly to disease, but could raise the risk of autism when combined with other mutations, according to a study published in March in the American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics.
It’s too soon to call it a diagnostic test for autism, but an algorithm that detects patterns in brain waves shows promise as one component of a screening battery for the disorder, say researchers familiar with the work.
Studies of healthy infants may help identify early risk factors for autism by establishing new developmental milestones.
Relatives of individuals with autism recognize faces and emotions better than people with autism do, but not as well as typically developing controls do, according to a study published in December in Autism Research.
The goal of studying siblings of children with autism is to identify an early diagnostic marker for the disorder. What researchers are finding instead are distinct traits shared by family members who remain healthy.
A variant of the autism risk gene CNTNAP2 may alter the brain to emphasize connections between nearby regions and diminish those between more distant ones, according to a study published 3 November in Science Translational Medicine.
Better performance on intelligence tests that measure spatial rather than verbal ability is inherited in people with autism, according to a paper published online in October in Human Genetics.
Siblings of children with autism who show no signs of the disorder may be compensating with increased activity in two brain regions that detect social cues, according to results presented yesterday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.
People with autism show differences in the levels of various gene products compared with their unaffected siblings, according to a study published online in September in Brain Research.