Does autism affect brain development?

A brain-tissue study suggests that children affected by autism have a surplus of synapses, or connections between brain cells. The excess is due to a slowdown in the normal pruning process that occurs during brain development, researchers say.

At what age is the autistic brain fully developed?

This difference fades between ages 10 and 15, as brain volume in controls increases. After this period, controls continue to show gains in brain volume until their mid-20s, whereas the brains of people with autism begin shrinking.

What are the evolutionary benefits of autism?

Genetic risk of autism spectrum disorder linked to evolutionary brain benefit. Genetic variants linked to autism spectrum disorders (ASD) may have been positively selected during human evolution because they also contribute to enhanced cognition, a new Yale study suggests.

What is the evolution of autism?

Autism was originally described as a form of childhood schizophrenia and the result of cold parenting, then as a set of related developmental disorders, and finally as a spectrum condition with wide-ranging degrees of impairment. Along with these shifting views, its diagnostic criteria have changed as well.

What is the relationship between autism and evolution?

Autism and brain evolution. The fact that many of the HAR mutations linked to autism spectrum disorder affect noncoding DNA sequences, especially gene enhancers, suggests that autism spectrum disorder sometimes results from disordered levels or patterns of gene expression in the brain that might be amenable to intervention, according to Walsh.

How does Autism affect the function of the entire brain?

Study Provides Evidence That Autism Affects Functioning of Entire Brain. Uniformly, however, they had trouble with complex tasks. For example, regarding visual and spatial skills, the children with autism were very good at finding small objects in a cluttered visual field, on tasks like finding Waldo in the “Where’s Waldo” picture books series.

How common are recessive mutations in autism spectrum disorder?

The children with autism spectrum disorder had 43 percent more recessive mutations in HARs when compared with unaffected children. In all, the researchers estimated that 5 percent of these children had recessive mutations in HARs that were related to brain function and likely to be disease-causing.

Is autism limited to communication behavior and reasoning?

Previous View Held Autism Limited to Communication, Social Behavior, and Reasoning. A recent study provides evidence that autism affects the functioning of virtually the entire brain, and is not limited to the brain areas involved with social interactions, communication behaviors, and reasoning abilities, as had been previously thought.