High-risk autism gene 'changes brain patterns'RSS Feed

Children who have a high risk gene for autism have a distinct pattern of brain connections, according to new findings.

Researchers at UCLA and Scripps performed brain scans on children with and without the autism risk gene while they were performing a learning task.

Those with the CNTNAP2 gene had groups of brain connections throughout the frontal lobes, but not as many in the rest of the brain.

This indicates that the frontal lobes are not communicating well with the rest of the brain, but instead talking to themselves.

However, this pattern was not only seen in children who were diagnosed with autism, but in those who had the gene but had not been diagnosed with the condition.

Ashley Scott-Van Zeeland, a Dickinson Research Fellow at the Scripps Translational Science Institute, explained how the study could potentially help those with this brain disorder.

"If we determine that the CNTNAP2 variant is a consistent predictor of language difficulties, we could begin to design targeted therapies to help rebalance the brain and move it toward a path of more normal development," he said.

This comes after reports by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, that if brain injury occurs to the part of the brain that controls memory or attention, other sections of the brain will take over this function when needed.

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Posted by Paul Breen
 

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