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Autism Diagnosed With a Fifteen Minute Brain Scan
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."
With Autism being so prevalent in humans you do have to wonder if it is really a disease or mistake, or perhaps either a previous evolutionary step or our next evolutionary step. While people who suffer at the extreme ends of the autistic spectrum would have difficulty maintaining a society, some of the more moderate autistic individuals are leaders in engineering, technology, and science. I do worry that when you diagnose someone with autism there is this natural "I'm broken" feeling along with it, and everyone treats you like you're disabled and thus useless. So I cannot say if being able to identify autism more often is a good or bad thing.
It is interesting, but unsurprising, that they found that ADHD and autism had no link thus far. Based on the symptoms I expect we'll find that if ADHD exists at all that it will be localised around control, while autism is localised around right/left brain communication.