Autism: Now Can Be Easily Predicted!!

A research team led by Dartmouth has come up with new identificationof a neural marker of autism that is non-verbal.The marker clearly indicates that howindividuals with autism are slower to dampen the neural activity in response to visual signals occurring in the brain. The marker which is first-of-its kind was found to be an independent marker, which is freefrom intelligence and also offers an objective way. This will help in potentially diagnosing autism for future perspective. The results of this are now published in Current Biology.

Autism spectrum disorder basically impacts the nervous system and overall affects and touches many points like the cognitive, emotional, social and physical health of the individual who is affected.

The lead author Caroline Robertson, who is an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Dartmouthand is also the director of the Dartmouth Autism Research Initiative explains that Autism is hard to screen for children especially when only the first signs are visible. If a person is a trained clinician, he/she may be able to detect autism in a baby of at least 18-months or even younger than that. However, it is known that the average age of a diagnosis of autism in the U.S. ranges to about four years.

If we witness the past, people suffering from autism have always thought to have differences in perceiving and inhibiting the neural signals occurring in the brain. The new technology revealed the fact that how used brain imaging can be used to measure the slower rate of binocular rivalry in individuals with autism.

The research also revealed that neural data could also be used to check and predict whether an individual is struck with autism or not with 87 percent accuracy. The visual test will play a pivotal role in this and will follow a role of non-verbal marker for autism in adults; the only concern is that whether this test could potentially be used to detect autism in pre-verbal children.Meanwhile, this is also resulted about new insight into the brain regarding autism which shows that visual regions of the brain are affected. The researchers havenoted that the visual sensitivities individuals suffering with autism experience differences in visual processing.

By: Prerana Sharma

Content:https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190815113730.htm