Researchers have detected the early signs of autism in babies as young as six months before parents begin to notice symptoms of the condition. Parents begin to notice autistic symptoms in children at age one or two and kids are not usually diagnosed until an average age of five.
Research team from University of North Carolina, examining how the brain develops in early life, found that tracts of white matter, which connect different regions of the brain did not form as quickly in kids who later develop autism, in comparison to kids who did not develop the condition.
The new study involving brain scans of ninety-two infants with an older autistic sibling ,who had completed diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), a sort of MRI scan, at the age of six months one year and two years and behavior assessments at the age of two years. Younger siblings of one autistic child had nearly twenty percent risk of being diagnosed with the condition.
By the age of two years thirty percent met the diagnostic criterion of for autism spectrum disorders. The brain scans of infants with autism showed changes in the pathways that connect brain regions to one another. In particular, the researchers found changes in multiple fibre pathways of white matter in the brain.
At age of six months, these multiple fibre pathways were more developed than those of typically developing children. By reaching the age of two years, the autistic kids’ brain development had dropped back. The study was reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry. The first year of life is an important time in development of the brain.
According to study researchers Jason Wolff, the way the wiring was changing was dampened in the children with autism. It was a more dulled change over time, in how the brain was being wired. In contrast, in the brains of infants who did not later develop autism, white matter tracts were swiftly forming. Their brains were organizing themselves in a pretty rapid fashion.
The study findings shed light on the basic differences in the brains of autistic children and could help lead to earlier detection and treatment. Changes in the brain’s communication pathways may take place silently, long before children begin to exhibit tell-tale problems of communicating and socializing, or exhibiting repetitive behaviors, explained study co-author Geraldine Dawson.