Children's Neurobiological Solutions Foundation: Imaging study finds evidence of brain abnormalities in toddlers with autism 6/5/09 8:07 PM

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Imaging study finds evidence of brain abnormalities in toddlers with autism
May 4, 2009
Source: JAMA and Archives Journals
Drug's epilepsy-prevention effect
Toddlers with autism appear more likely to have an enlarged amygdala, a brain area associated with may be widely applicable
numerous functions, including the processing of faces and emotion, according to a report in the May
issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. In addition, this brain
A drug with potential to prevent
abnormality appears to be associated with the ability to share attention with others, a fundamental ability
epilepsy caused by a genetic
thought to predict later social and language function in children with autism.
condition may also help prevent
"Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder likely involving multiple brain systems," the authors more common forms of epilepsy
write as background information in the article. "Converging evidence from magnetic resonance imaging, caused by brain injury, according to
head circumference and postmortem studies suggests that brain volume enlargement is a characteristic researchers
feature of autism, with its onset most likely occurring in the latter part of the first year of life." Based both
on its function and studies of changes in its structure, the amygdala has been identified as a brain area Findings in epilepsy gene in animals
potentially associated with autism. may guide treatment directions for
infants
Matthew W. Mosconi, Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill conducted
a magnetic resonance imaging study involving 50 autistic children and 33 control children. Participating
children underwent brain scans along with testing of certain behavioral features of autism at ages 2 and Researchers studying a difficult-to-
4. This included a measure of joint attention, which involves following another person's gaze to initiate a treat form of childhood epilepsy
shared experience. called infantile spasms have
developed a line of mice that
Compared to control children, those children with autism were more likely to have amygdala experiences seizures with features
enlargement both at age 2 and age 4. "These findings suggest that, consistent with a previous report of closely resembling those occurring in
head circumference growth rates in autism and studies of amygdala volume in childhood, amygdala patients with infantile seizures
growth trajectories are accelerated before age 2 years in autism and remain enlarged during early
childhood," the authors write. "Moreover, amygdala enlargement in 2-year-old children with autism is Protein linked to mental retardation
disproportionate to overall brain enlargement and remains disproportionate at age 4 years." controls synapse maturation,
plasticity, CSHL team finds
Among children with autism, amygdala volume was associated with an increase in joint attention ability
at age 4. This suggests that alterations to this brain structure may be associated with a core deficit of
autism, the authors note. Oligophrenin-1, a Rho-GTPase-
activating protein, stabilizes
"The amygdala plays a critical role in early-stage processing of facial expression and in alerting cortical postsynaptic AMPA receptors
areas to the emotional significance of an event," the authors write. "Amygdala disturbances early in
development, therefore, disrupt the appropriate assignment of emotional significance to faces and social
Caltech scientists reveal how
interaction." Continued follow-up of research participants, now under way, will help determine whether
neuronal activity is timed in brain's
amygdala growth rates continue at the same rate or undergo another period of accelerated growth or a
memory-making circuits
period of decelerated growth in autistic children after age 4.
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