An interesting new study examined functional connectivity between different areas of the brain in 6-month-olds who have an older sibling with autism. A team led by researchers at the University of North Carolina and Washington University School of Medicine used machine learning to predict patterns of brain connectivity that were associated with a diagnosis of autism at 24 months in high-risk siblings. Will we eventually be able to predict a future diagnosis of autism in high-risk siblings as early as 6-months of age? Maybe…but not quite yet. These results need to be replicated on larger, independent samples before we know whether this method will be useful for clinical purposes. Read the full article here >
