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According to the results of a study, brain changes are observable throughout the cerebral cortex, in people with autism. A line of work that could potentially help scientists develop new drug treatments for patients.
It is well known: autism is a poorly understood disorder and many scientists continue to study the human brain to better understand it. An American team from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) has just made an important discovery. Their findings are published in the journal Nature.
Study of brain tissue samples
The researchers wanted to characterize autism spectrum disorders (ASD) at the molecular level. So they compared brain tissue samples obtained after the death of 112 people with ASD with healthy brain tissue. They also examined gene expression in 11 cortical regions, by sequencing RNA from each of the four major cortical lobes.
Eleven cortical regions analyzed
The brain changes observed by the authors of this work are located throughout the brain – the eleven cortical regions analyzed – and are not limited to areas controlling social behavior and language, as previously imagined.
These brain regions control functions such as reasoning, language, social cognition and mental flexibility, but also primary sensory functions.
RNA changes
The researchers also found strong evidence that RNA changes in the brain are likely the cause of ASD rather than the result of the disorder.
They noted that the biggest drop in gene levels occurred in the visual cortex and parietal cortex, two areas that process information such as touch, pain and temperature. The researchers speculated that this may reflect the sensory hypersensitivity commonly reported in people with ASD.
New therapeutic avenues
According to Dr. Daniel Geschwind, professor emeritus of humanities at UCLA and author of the study “This work represents the culmination of more than a decade of work by many members of the lab, which was necessary to perform such a comprehensive analysis of the autism brain.”
For the specialist, “We are finally starting to get a picture of the brain state, at the molecular level, of the brain in people who have been diagnosed with autism. This provides us with both molecular pathology which, like other brain disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and stroke, but also a key starting point for understanding disease mechanisms, which will inform and accelerate the development of disease-modifying therapies.”.