August 10, 2010

expert reaction to study to diagnose autism in adults using brain scans

Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London have developed at simple brain scan that they say can be used to detect autism in adults with 90% accuracy.

Uta Frith, Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development, UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said:

“This study shows that the subtle brain abnormalities associated with autism show a distinctive pattern. However, it will need many more studies before the technique used in this study can be used for diagnosis. It is crucial that we learn more about what the brain abnormalities mean. I note that the authors in the paper itself say their results are preliminary and serve as ‘proof of concept’ rather than a definitive means of diagnosis.”

Prof Paul Matthews, Centre for Clinical Neurosciences, Imperial College, London, said:

“The shapes and sizes of parts of each person’s brain are known to be influenced by their genes, which also contribute to a predisposition to the abnormal brain development underlying autism. Ecker and her colleagues have identified specific features that allowed them to distinguish brain scans from autistic and unaffected, healthy adult brains. These features highlight regions of the brain that may hold clues to understanding why people develop symptoms of autism. The findings suggest that sophisticated approaches for the interpretation of brain scans could help to diagnose particular forms of autistic spectrum disorder, although they do not yet offer an approach to more confident, early diagnosis. This work now needs to be extended to study affected children, for whom the impact of more certain prognostic information could be much greater.”

Terry Brugha, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Leicester, said:

“Autism is a major cause of disability. Our research on 7,461 adults throughout England suggests that most adults with autism are undiagnosed. This new study uses a novel approach to looking at the brain. 20 autistic adults was compared with 20 non autistic volunteers. It was not surprising that the differences between them were so clear. Comparisons with 19 adults with attention deficit disorder were less clear cut. Although this method is not ready for normal diagnostic situations any step to easier diagnosis is welcome.”

‘Describing The Brain In Autism In Five Dimensions – MRI-Assisted Diagnosis Using A Multi-Parameter Classification Approach’ by Ecker et al., published in the Journal of Neuroscience on Wednesday 11 August.