A study at the University of Minnesota’s Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain in Minneapolis hopes to detect autism in children as young as six months.
The nationwide Infant Brain Imaging Study has Minneapolis as one of five sites participating in the study. To see the progression, participants underwent MRI brain scans at six months, one year and two years.
The brain imaging study is a follow-up study of a 2006 study where researchers recruited babies who had older siblings with autism, as they are more likely to develop it later in life. The current study replicates the original one with 250 more babies across the U.S.
Jason Wolff, a professor of educational psychology at the University who is involved in the new study, said the study is both a way to test findings that might lead to the development of autism in the brain and find these children before a diagnosis is given.
In Minnesota, autism affects one in 42 children and is, on average, diagnosed at age four, according to the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation. The babies receive MRI scans during their natural sleep, so the participants usually come in at night, Wolff said.
“In a nutshell, what we found using a variety of different approaches to MRI is that the babies who go on to develop autism are showing differences in brain structure and neural connectivity, both functional and structural connectivity, well before the cardinal symptoms of autism are observed,” Wolff said.
The first year of life is pivotal for children, as changes to the brain start before any noticeable behavioral differences, Wolff said. Studying those changes at ages 2 or 3 will allow for an accurate judgment of the diagnosis.
The study is mostly funded by the National Institute of Health, University Medical School professor Meghan Swanson said.
Swanson, who is also involved in the study, said the study helps parents proactively identify the signs of autism in their child before the child shows physical signs or falls behind their peers.
The babies who participated in the original study are still a part of the process, even when in primary education, Wolff said. The participants are compensated for their time.
“We find babies once they have a diagnosis. There was no way to figure out what was going on before that diagnosis happened,” Wolff said. “So this infant-sibling design lets us figure that out because we can now follow the babies before they have a diagnosis and so that has shed a lot of light on how autism develops.”
Swanson said the recruiting process for this study is currently ongoing, specifically for families who have a child with autism and a new baby who is 6 months or younger.
“The goal of this study is not to cure autism or kind of even remove a diagnosis from these children,” Swanson said. “The goal of this work is really to support each child in the specific ways that they need to support, that they need support so that they can grow into their own fullest potential.”
