The Autism News | English


There’s growing evidence that the brains of autistic children are very different from the brains of other youngsters.

Now a new study that found an excess of brain cells in children with autism comes closer to pinpointing the origins of the condition: in utero versus in toddlerhood.

In research reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), scientists at the University of California, San Diego, found that autistic children have about 67% more nerve cells in a part of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex than children without autism. The prefrontal cortex is involved in processing social skills, communication, cognitive functions and language — all areas in which autistic children often show abnormal development.

Lead researcher Eric Courchesne studied the brains of seven autistic boys between the ages of 2 and 16 after their death and compared his analysis to the brains of six unaffected boys who died at similar ages. The excess of neurons was a bit of a surprise since in most cases, deficits in social skills — like the ones autistic children typically have — are linked to less, not more, nerve tissue.

“When we think of the inability to handle complicated information, we usually think of too little in the way of connections or brain cells,” he says. “But this is just the opposite.”

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