New Research Sheds Light On Previously Under
Autism Study Shows Link to Brain Overgrowth
Autism affects different parts of the brain in females with autism than males with autism, a new study reveals. The research is published today in the journal Brain as an open-access article. Scientists at the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge used magnetic resonance imaging to examine whether autism affects the brain of males and females in a similar or different way. They found that the anatomy of the brain of someone with autism substantially depends on whether an individual is male or female, with brain areas that were atypical in adult females with autism being similar to areas that differ between typically developing males and females. This was not seen in men with autism. One of our new findings is that females with autism show neuroanatomical masculinization, said Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, senior author of the paper. This may implicate physiological mechanisms that drive sexual dimorphism, such as prenatal sex hormones and sex-linked genetic mechanisms. Autism affects 1% of the general population and is more prevalent in males. Most studies have therefore focused on male-dominant samples. As a result, our understanding of the neurobiology of autism is male-biased. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page. Do These Differences Impact SymptomsMost likely the result of these connections manifest into the signs and the symptoms that we see. However, Dr. Anderson cautions that it is hard to know exactly what brain connection correlates to what sign. Ultimately, theres still an awful lot that we need to know, he says. Just looking at that brain imaging, we arent really able to explain all of the behaviors that we see. Cohens D Effect SizesThe t-statistic for the factor diagnosis in each linear mixed effects model was used to calculate Cohens d, with where n1 and n2 are the number of cases and controls, and df the degrees of freedom. The latter was derived from the lme summary table in R, but can also be calculated using df=obs , where obs equals the number of observations, x1 the number of groups and x2 the number of factors in the model. The 95% confidence intervals for Cohens d were calculated using 95% CI=d±1.96 SE, with the standard error around Cohens d calculated according to: For visualization of cerebral cortical results, Cohens d values were loaded into Matlab , and 3D images of left hemisphere inflated cortical and subcortical structures were obtained using FreeSurfer-derived ply files. Read Also: What Is The Best Pet For An Autistic Child How Does The Autism Brain Change Through The LifespanAutism spectrum disorder is generally a lifelong condition, but there is currently very little understanding of how the brain changes in people with ASD as they age. One researcher who is focusing on changes in the brain in people with autism during development is Dr. Cyndi Schumann at the UC Davis MIND Institute. Dr. Schumann has carried out magnetic resonance imaging studies on people with autism as well as microscopic studies on postmortem tissue for multiple age groups to describe the different phases of brain development in those with ASD.1 When her team looked specifically at the amygdala, a brain region responsible for processing emotional information, they found that changes depended on the age studied. As you can see from the drawing below, there is a phase of early amygdala overgrowth in ASD followed, at later ages, by a decrease in neurons. What causes this alteration in the trajectory of amygdala growth is not known but may have profound effects on the behavior of individuals with ASD. Research studies like these need your help. To learn more about the Autism BrainNet and to receive more information about why it takes brains to understand autism, go to www.takesbrains.org/signup.
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