Autism Spectrum Disorder

     Autism is a complicated neurodevelopmental condition that impacts social interaction, speech, and behavior. Researchers have been working relentlessly to understand the underlying processes and risk factors connected with autism with the goal of creating viable therapies and interventions for afflicted individuals. By understanding the general basis of autism, we can now look at autism spectrum disorder. When patients are diagnosed with this disorder, it is caused by developmental issues due to an imbalance in the brain. This so-called imbalance affects social behavior and causes indifference in a patient's learning ability. Two articles published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Neurology have provided fresh insight into the brain underpinnings behind autism. The first article, “Cortical Source Analysis of the Face Sensitive N290 ERP Component in Infants at High Risk for Autism,” examines the neural responses of newborns who have been genetically at higher risk of having autism when they are shown facial imagery. The second article, "Association of Polygenic Liability for Autism with Face-Sensitive Cortical Responses from Infancy," studies the correlation between genetic variables linked to autism and cortical reactions to faces in infancy.

    The study "Cortical Source Analysis of the Face Sensitive N290 ERP Component in Infants at High Risk for Autism" looks at the neurological processes that underpin face processing in infants at high risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). An electroencephalogram (EEG) is used in the study to evaluate brain activity in response to facial and non-facial stimuli in 6-month-old infants who have an ASD sibling. The researcher tested 54 infants at high risk for autism and 50 low-risk infants while they viewed pictures of faces and toys. When running these tests, the studies show that newborns at high risk for ASD have different neurological processing of faces than low-risk infants. High-risk babies showed lower activity in the right superior temporal sulcus (STS) area of the brain while observing faces, which is known to be important in social processing. This difference in cerebral activity might be a neurological marker for the eventual development of ASD-related social impairments. The study recognizes that electroencephalogram (EEG) measurements of brain activity could potentially be used to identify neural indicators of ASD risk in babies as young as 6 months old, which has crucial implications for ASD early detection and intervention. The second study, led by an organization of researchers from the University of North Carolina, sought to evaluate the relationship between autism-related genetic variables and cerebral reactions to faces in infancy. The researchers utilized EEG to record 547 newborns' brain reactions while they saw photographs of faces and jumbled images. Research revealed that infants with a higher polygenic risk for autism had lower N290 responses to faces than infants with a lower polygenic risk, implying that genetic factors may play a role in the atypical neural responses to social stimuli seen in autistic infants.

    These two conclusions, when combined, shed light on the neurological processes underpinning autism and the role that genetics may have in the development of abnormal social processing. These findings may aid in the development of new therapies and interventions for autistic people, as well as increase our knowledge of the illness and its underlying causes. These studies' conclusions further emphasize the need for early identification and intervention for autism. Early detection and intervention have been demonstrated to improve outcomes for people with autism, and these findings imply that identifying aberrant brain responses to social cues in infancy may be an effective strategy to identify newborns who are at high risk for the illness.

Citations:

Gui, Anna, et al. “Association of Polygenic Liability for Autism with Face-Sensitive Cortical Responses from Infancy.” JAMA Pediatrics, vol. 175, no. 9, 2021, p. 968., https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2021.1338. 

Guy, Maggie W., et al. “Cortical Source Analysis of the Face Sensitive N290 ERP Component in Infants at High Risk for Autism.” Brain Sciences, vol. 12, no. 9, 2022, p. 1129., https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12091129.