Slashdot Mirror
Brain Scan Can Detect Autism In Infants
kkleiner writes "A new study shows that brain scans can detect autism in children as young as 6 months old. Researchers at University of North Carolina's Institute for Developmental Disabilities imaged the brains of 92 children who were at high risk for autism. Scans were performed when the children were 6 months, 1-year, and 2-years old. At 2 years, the age when children are typically diagnosed, 30 percent of the children were found to have autism. The researchers then compared the brain images of the autistic children with the others. They saw differences in the brain's white matter, the axon-laden pathways that transmit electrical signals to distant parts of the brain. Of the 15 pathways analyzed, 12 were significantly different between autistic and non-autistic children."
Actually I dropped out of highschool, joined the Army managing networks, worked in Redmond writing business intelligence software and invented an energy storage solution about 2.5x the energy density of the best batteries on the market (in super-capacitor form so a limiting circuit is required for battery-like use) for which I am currently setting up a production line. If you missed the whole fucking point of my previous response - "personality" and "style" are chimp-like forms of thought - might as well greet people with an ear-to-ear grin and shoo off anyone offending you by reaching in your pants and lobbing a handful of shit at them - there's a reason you probably couldn't speak to a person with autism if your life depended upon it.
On the other hand, I do agree with the part that this is all about mis-diagnosis. This article is a great example of the view on Autism, there is no mention of the distinctions in brain matter(relative to Autistic vs Non-Autistic, only a description of white-matter without a ratio), what specific regions the differences are in or anything else that might indicate the stance meant to be generated by the author of this article is that Autism is simply something to be treated early that it might never arise rather than having a focus on utilizing the powerful effects. Yes, I would agree that the extreme forms of Autism are bad on the grounds that too much introversion results in a lack of value to society, a lack of ability to learn from society and a generally ineffectual life - however there are things we can do that other's cannot in the same degree - I can read about a paragraph long differential equation and see the answer without thinking about it, in an imperceptibly quick time-frame. I don't know about you, but as someone who's greatest pleasure is scientific research - I couldn't imagine wanting to waste my time with what the rest of you do, it seems like a waste of time and an evolutionary step backwards (and ironically I'm not even calling for the sterilization of the retards - no wonder we aren't on Mars yet, eh?).