Abnormal Brain Structure May Be Linked To Autism
LONDON, ENGLAND -- June 11, 1998 -- Abnormal brain
structure is the latest suspect for
researchers looking for a cause for autism. Scientists
in the United States have found that some
stunted regions of the brain may be to blame for the
most severe symptoms of the condition, while
other undersized regions may cause the milder symptoms
often suffered by close relatives of autistics.
Wendy Kates and her colleagues at Johns Hopkins School
of Medicine in Baltimore, MD, used
magnetic resonance imaging to look at the brains of
seven-year-old identical twins. One of the boys
had classical autism, while his twin had some of the
symptoms of autism, including language and social
problems. Kates said that about half of all close
relatives of autistic children have these milder
symptoms.
Their report appears in the Annals of Neurology.
When the researchers compared the brain scans of the
two boys, they found several differences. The
amygdala, a structure involved in emotion and the
hippocampus, important for learning and memory,
were about half the size in the autistic child compared
with his twin brother. The cerebellum and the
caudate nucleus, thought to be involved in shifting
attention from one task to another, were also
significantly smaller.