Does Autism Start At Birth?
Did you know that autism begins in pregnancy? Researchers in college analyzed 25 genes of post-mortem brain tissue of children with and without autism. They included genes that serve as biomarkers for brain cell types in different layers of the cortex, genes implicated in autism and several control genes. Building a baby’s brain during pregnancy involves creating a cortex that has six layers. During early brain development, each cortical layer develops its own specific types of brain cells, each one with specific patterns that perform unique and important roles. The visual cortex, an area of the brain associated with perception that tends to be spared in autism displays no abnormalities. The fact that they were able to find these patches is great, given that the cortex is the size of the surface of a basketball, and they only examined pieces of tissue the size of a pencil eraser. See more at https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140326181909.htm