Research May Unlock Mystery of Autism's Origin in the Brain

Research from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine holds out hope for earlier treatment and better medications for children with autism.

It has long been believed that brain cells in children with autism do not connect properly between the sections of the brain, but the recent tests show that the connections may also be inadequate within one section of the brain as well.

The researchers used magnetoencephalography, brain imaging that is used to measure electrical activity in the brain. They used the 40 hertz, or cycles per second, auditory steady-state response test which measures electromagnetic wave cycles and will recognize when a brain cell operates at the 40 hertz level. It will measure how well the brain is able to mimic what it is hearing.

The test subjects were 10 children and adolescent who have autism and 10 who do not. They listened to a series of clicks that sounded every 25 milliseconds and the test lasted for a total of 500 milliseconds. They were able to measure the way the brain responded to the clicks.

The right hemisphere of the brain controls attention and spatial processing there was no really significant difference between the results of the two groups, but when they look at how the left hemisphere which is the half of the brain that controls language and logic functioned, the results were very different.

In the hearing area of the left hemisphere, the group that does not have autism delivered a brain response to the 40 hertz stimulation 200 ms after it began. When it came to the group with autism, they got no response at all.

The results do show that the previous beliefs regarding the miss communication between sections of the brain are correct, but it also provides new evidence that shows that the whole network of communication within the brain is broken and also that the preciously known long range connectivity between the sections of the brain may actually start with trouble in individual brain regions, what is known as local connectivity.

A good example of just how the brain works is to take a look at how vision works in the brain. For instance one part of your brain has the capacity to identify color and another recognizes motion. Each one of the these brain sections uses local connectivity between the cells in just that part of the brain. Without proper local connectivity, that one part of the brain does not work right.

Now lets say you watch someone throw a red ball across the room. In order to see this properly the two sections of the brain must work together perfectly, the one to see the color and the one to recognize that the ball is in motion. If there is a mix up in signals, you may not recognize the ball as being red or may not realize the ball is in motion. While the problem will be in communicating between two sections of the brain, the origin will be in one section.

The lead researcher is Tony Wilson, Ph.D., who is currently assistant professor of neurology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. The research was conducted while he was at the University of Colorado and he has plans to continue while at Wake Forest

Source: Wake Forest University School of Medicine http://www1.wfubmc.edu/