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Autism Diagnosed With a Fifteen Minute Brain Scan

Posted by samzenpus on from the 15-minutes-definitely-15-minutes dept.

kkleiner writes "A new technique developed at King's College London uses a fifteen minute MRI scan to diagnose autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The scan is used to analyze the structure of grey matter in the brain, and tests have shown that it can identify individuals already diagnosed with autism with 90% accuracy. The research could change the way that autism is diagnosed – including screening children for the disorder at a young age."

10 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Or.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Counting the number of first posts you get on slashdot

    1. Re:Or.. by w0mprat · · Score: 3, Funny

      Damn, missed first post. I was too busy counting the words in the summary.

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  2. Re:Unacceptable false positive rate by Thanshin · · Score: 2, Funny

    I wonder how many false positives you can give to a family before they stop believing in modern medicine.

    "Your kid is autistic!
    No, wait, he wasn't. But he's got ADHD! Nope. A tumor! Nope, that's not it.

    *five hours later*

    The pox! Nope. ... Plutonium poisoning! Yeee... Nope. ...

    Does your kid have any south asian prostitute friend?"

  3. Re:Unacceptable false positive rate by mangu · · Score: 4, Funny

    I probably have Asperger's too, because I'm an analyzer and often come to the conclusion that some widely accepted behaviour is often rather stupid.

    Then I must have Asperger's too. I don't go to church, I don't watch sports on TV, I believe that men went to the moon, I believe that heavy use of fossil fuels is causing global warming, and I believe fluor is good for your teeth.

    Maybe I was vaccinated when I was a kid.

  4. Re:I'm not exactly impressed... by Shrike82 · · Score: 4, Funny

    While I understand that your post was humerous, I feel somehow compelled to point out that you'd have a 0% true positive rate with your rock, a 0% false positive rate, a 99% true negative rate and a 1% false negative rate.

    Hmm, I think I might be autistic myself judging by my inability to resist making this post.

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  5. Re:Unacceptable false positive rate by aastanna · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sounds like every episode of House.

  6. Re:I'm not exactly impressed... by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hmm, I think I might be autistic myself judging by my inability to resist making this post.

    Here, hold this rock for a second.

  7. Re:Shamans? by russotto · · Score: 2, Funny

    What are the operators of these machines called technically? Shamans?

    Technologists, actually. It's the ones who READ the tea lea...err, brain scans who are the shamans, not the ones who do them. Beware of radiologists with bones through their noses.

  8. Re:I'm not exactly impressed... by infinite9 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Here, hold this rock for a second.

    Autistic kids rock.

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  9. Re:Base rate fallacy by mhajicek · · Score: 3, Funny

    A test that raises that to 5% is a huge improvement (almost an order of magnitude).

    Because of course we want a test that increases the child's chance of having autism. :)