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Autism Starts Months Before Symptoms Appear, Study Shows (scientificamerican.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the early-treatment dept.

A new study published this week in the journal Nature suggests there is evidence of autism in the brain well before symptoms start to appear. Typically, the earliest that children are diagnosed with the disorder is at the age of two, although often times it is even later. Scientists may now be able to detect the disorder well before a child's first birthday via a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. Scientific American reports: Researchers conducted MRI scans on 150 children three times: at six months old, one year and two years. Just over 100 of the children were at high risk because they had an older sibling diagnosed with autism. The faster growth rate of the surface areas of their brains correctly predicted eight times out of 10 which of the high-risk children would go on to be diagnosed with the condition. Enlargement of the brain seemed to correlate with the arrival of symptoms, says Heather Hazlett, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina's Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (CIDD), and the paper's lead author. Still, with only 100 at-risk children, the study is too small to be considered definitive -- nor should doctors rush to use MRIs to diagnose autism, Hazlett says. But if the study results are confirmed in future research, it could offer a new option for screening high-risk children before their symptoms become obvious -- and possibly at a time when treatment will be most effective.

12 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Can't Be True! by ScentCone · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because that might mean that autism is already setting in before certain Eeeeeevil vaccines have been given.

    Of course those government vaccines may have secret alien time travel substances which go back to start the autism before they are administered. That seems most likely.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    1. Re:Can't Be True! by JoshuaZ · · Score: 2

      It means that the vaccines are so bad that they are violating basic physics. Apparently vaccines can cause harm before they are even injected. Someone should talk to the physicists and let them know that the MMR vaccine contains tachyons.

    2. Re:Can't Be True! by quenda · · Score: 5, Funny

      vaccines may ... go back to start the autism before they are administered.

      Physicists have actually demonstrated this sort of thing is possible, using quantum entanglement contrary to common sense.

      You can actually have the past depend on the present, but the catch is that it cannot be used to transmit information back in time. Causality is not violated so long as the effects are not observed until after the cause.

      This is important: the very act of detecting autism with the MRI will break the quantum entanglement and stop the vaccine from causing autism.
      This may be a cure!

      (I hope there are still enough nerds on slashdot to appreciate this potential breakthrough.)

    3. Re:Can't Be True! by Zaelath · · Score: 2

      There is no ACTUAL EVIDENCE. You're on the wrong site. Go away.

    4. Re:Can't Be True! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

      There is no ACTUAL EVIDENCE.

      Indeed. There is no evidence, and even if there was evidence, it would be meaningless, because even the hypothesis is invalid. The hypothesis was that the mercury based preservatives ( thimerosal) in some vaccines caused autism. There were a few reports of a correlation. Those reports were discredited, and the researcher was accused of fraud and lost his medical license. But even if there was evidence (there is not), it wouldn't matter because mercury based vaccine preservatives are no longer used.

    5. Re:Can't Be True! by gweihir · · Score: 3, Informative

      There is exactly one study that deserves the name, and it was not only proven to be based on manipulated data, it did only prove it for one specific vaccine, because the author stood to profit form an alternate vaccine that was to come out soon and would not have the autism-risk. So even the original study, faked as it may have been, does not actually support the claims the anti-vaxxers are making! These people must be complete demented and functionally illiterate. Or probably just so deep in fear that they have no rationality left and are jumping at every shadow. Because there are no "facts" supporting the vaccine-autism link.

      Science says it is strongly genetic factors and some environmental factors like some infections during pregnancy, and use of alcohol or cocaine during pregnancy. Vaccination is not one of them and it has been looked into extremely carefully. Nothing there. But I guess even if medicine will eventually reliably be able to predict the condition well before any vaccinations are done, the anti-vaxxers will cling to their baseless beliefs.

      Oh, wait, there is one link: The mother _not_ getting vaccinated before pregnancy does increase the autism risk for children. So not only are the anti-vaxxers completely wrong, their mistaken belief actually makes the problem worse.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    6. Re: Can't Be True! by gweihir · · Score: 2

      And it is even more: He was only "proving" that for one specific vaccine, because he wanted to promote another one without the risk that was to come out shortly (and earn him a pretty penny). So even the "original" faked study did not show what these morons think it did.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  2. FAKE NEWS by DonaId+Trump · · Score: 4, Funny

    Believe me, folks, this study by so-called "scientists" is dead wrong. Anyone with a brain knows vaccines are what cause autism. I refused to have Barron vaccinated and look, he's the best at cyber, he's a huge cyber, he's going to be running the whitehouse.ru website.

  3. everything starts before symptoms appear by turkeydance · · Score: 4, Insightful

    even by a little bit

    1. Re:everything starts before symptoms appear by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      The actual article is about how they can detect autism before symptoms start.

      That could already be done. Autism can be predicted by extracting stem cells, and prompting them to grow into little bundles of nerve cells. If each neuron has fewer than a normal number of connections, that person is predisposed to develop autism. A higher than normal number of neural connections correlates with Williams Syndrome, which is sort of "inverse-autism", with a high level of empathy and social engagement, but an astonishing inability to reason quantitatively.

  4. Re:Not likely to help diagnosis by BigDukeSix · · Score: 3, Informative

    With respect, you have missed the point (completely). This isn't about finding a screening test. This is an objective, likely quantitative readout from a standard imaging study that can be used as an endpoint in clinical trials. Most clinical trials in this area fail because they use some sort of subjective behavioral scoring system, rather than a quantity that can be measured (with a very expensive ruler) from the patient. And ... 2% of the population? That's a fucking wet dream for a big pharmaceutical company. This finding has the potential to take autism from the realm of voodoo into a treatable clinical entity.

  5. Re: Evidence by hackwrench · · Score: 2

    Without a citation there is no indication that the evidence exists. And no you can't just Google it, because there are too many invalid results.