There are many children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, so many that in the United States statistics say that it is one in 88 children. These data mean that researchers do nothing more than try to know the disorder to help treat it and also prevent it, if possible.
A few months ago a study suggested that induced births and deliveries in which synthetic oxytocin is used increase the risk of autism. Now a new investigation concludes that autism could originate in pregnancy, during the formation of the brain.
Study Data
Researchers from different US research centers They decided that a good way to know the brain of autistic children was to analyze it directly. For this they took brain tissue samples of 22 children after they died. Eleven of them had autism and the remaining eleven did not.
When analyzing and comparing them, they saw that in children with autism they had small areas of disrupted development in the outer layers of the brain. That lack of development should have occurred, according to the study authors, in the prenatal stage.
AdvertisingIt is undoubtedly a great discovery, by finally objectifying the differences between the brains of some children. The problem is that on a practical level it is still hopeless. Researchers do not know what is the time of pregnancy when this defect in brain development occurs nor do they know which or what are the causes of that happening.
Why that deficit
That said, they don't know for sure why, although they suggest that autism may appear due to genetic susceptibility and environmental factors. Something like some children have genes that predispose them to be autistic that, in combination with some factors of the pregnant woman's environment, cause the developmental failure.
To date, a few hundred genes have been linked to the disorder and, although more studies are needed to know the guilty environmental factor, some include the High levels of pollution, a low intake of folic acid and viral infections.
Returning to the samples ...
Returning to the samples that the study authors analyzed, they saw that the areas where there were areas of disrupted development were in brain areas associated with higher order functions such as language comprehension and social adaptation.
This was seen in 10 of the 11 samples of autistic children, which shows that there are other causes for autism, such as the one I commented at the beginning of the entry.
The good news
As we have said, the finding, although important, does not generate high hopes to prevent autism, although not all is bad news. Seeing that the altered areas are small, they realized that the anomaly is not widespread, that is to say, it is not the whole brain that is bad, but small areas, so much of the neocortex of autistic children is equal to that of other children.
This could help explain why young children who receive therapies early often often improve significantly. It is very possible that the brain is able to make new connections that help the child to do what his brain should already be prepared for at birth.
But for this it is important that the diagnosis occurs as soon as possible, and today usually happens after 4 years, which is usually the time when the child already knows how to express himself and when he should already be able to have a certain social competence.
For this, some researchers are working on the search for markers that serve to, with a simple analysis, know whether or not the child suffers from the autism spectrum disorder.
Hopefully, from this discovery we will continue investigating to know when it happens during pregnancy and, more importantly, why it happens.
