Brain Differences at 6 Months in Infants Who Develop Autism

This study from the Infant Brain Imaging network, a nationally funded research network with four primary sites, including the Center for Autism Research at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, suggests that autism does not appear suddenly in young children, but instead develops over time during infancy.

The study was published February 17th in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Its results are the latest from the ongoing Infant Brain Imaging Study (IBIS), which is led at CHOP by Dr. Paterson and Robert Schultz, PhD, who are co-authors on this study.

Participants in the study were 92 infants considered to be at high risk for ASD, because they all have older siblings with autism. Each infant had diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) – a type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) – at 6 months and behavioral assessments at 24 months. Most of the children also had additional brain imaging scans at either or both 12 and 24 months.

At 24 months, 28 infants (30 percent) met criteria for ASDs while 64 infants (70 percent) did not. The two groups differed in white matter fiber tract development – pathways that connect brain regions – as measured by fractional anisotropy (FA). FA measures white matter organization and development, based on the movement of water molecules through brain tissue.

The findings come on the heels of a recent study from London published in Current Biology, which found that infants at high risk for autism who were later diagnosed with the condition showed different brain responses from low-risk babies, or from high-risk babies that did not develop autism when shown images of faces looking at or away from the baby. Paterson said that the two findings strengthen one another and are encouraging evidence that scientists are on the right track towards finding markers for identifying autism much earlier than is currently possible.

In addition to the Center for Autism Research at CHOP, other institutions that took part in the study include The University of North Carolina, University of Utah, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Washington, McGill University, and the University of Alberta.

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