Autism in infants has been detected by a group of researchers who used eye-tracking technology to measure the ways that infants look at and respond to social cues.
From the age of two months onward, infants who showed less and less attention to the eyes of other people were later diagnosed with autism, the researchers found.
“By following these babies from birth, and intensively within the first six months, we were able to collect large amounts of data long before overt symptoms are typically seen,” said Warren Jones, the lead author on the study and a professor at Emory University School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics, in a statement.
“First, these results reveal that there are measurable and identifiable differences present already before 6 months,” said Ami Klin, director of Marcus Autism Center. “And second, we observed declining eye fixation over time, rather than an outright absence. Both these factors have the potential to dramatically shift the possibilities for future strategies of early intervention.”
The researchers say that the infants who end up with autism show less attention to the eyes of other people but do not completely avoid the eyes, so early intervention could make a difference.
“The genetics of autism have proven to be quite complex. Many hundreds of genes are likely to be involved, with each one playing a role in just a small fraction of cases, and contributing to risk in different ways in different individuals,” said Jones. “The current results reveal one way in which that genetic diversity may be converted into disability very early in life. Our next step will be to expand these studies with more children, and to combine our eye-tracking measures with measures of gene expression and brain growth.”
The researchers published their study in the journal Nature.
