Unique Brain Pattern Could Predict Autism in Youngest Children
I was just reading an article on Time Magazine that said that scientists found stronger connections within many critical brain networks in the autistic children, including those responsible for introspection, vision and movement.
It also said that they also saw more robust links in networks that help the brain to triage the flood of incoming information from both our bodies and our environment that assaults us constantly. Called the salience network, it’s responsible for determining which internal or external sensations need our immediate attention. Using a computer program that the researchers developed to make sense of the brain imaging data, they found that by mapping the salience network alone, they could accurately classify autistic or non-autistic children in their study 78% of the time — and could do so 83% of the time using data from other researchers.
The findings suggest that from an early age, children with autism develop differently from those without the condition, and that these changes may be detectable through brain imaging.
What do you think? Is this good news? Has your child had brain imaging done?