A new research suggests that brain imaging technique may aid in early diagnosis of autism, a disorder of neural development.

Findings of the study suggest that autistic children process language and sound a fraction of second slower than the unaffected kids. However, brain imaging can detect the condition in early infancy.

The researchers
are hopeful that if successful, the discovery "may be refined into the first imaging biomarker for autism."

Autism is a neurological disorder characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs begin before a child is three-years-old.

Details of the study
To come up with these findings, researchers carried out a study on 25 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) with an average age of 10 years and on 17 other children in the same age group who were in the initial stages of developing the neurological disorder.

For the study, researchers used an imaging technique called Magnetoencephalography (MEG), which uses magnetic fields in the brain to detect delayed brain response.

The children wore helmets through which they were made to listen to a series of recorded beeps, vowels, and sentences.

As the children responded to the different sounds, the non-invasive detectors in the MEG machine kept tracking the magnetic fields in their brains.

Children with ASD showed delayed responses
On analysing the brain scans of the children, it was found that those with ASD showed an average delay of 11 milliseconds (about 1/100 of a second) in their brain response to the varied sounds compared to other children who were treated as controls.

On the other hand, within the ASD group, similar delays were recorded in the brain responses, regardless of the fact whether or not these children had language impairments.

Dr Timothy Roberts, the lead researcher at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, said, "An 11-millisecond delay is brief, but it means, for instance, that a child with ASD, on hearing the word 'elephant' is still processing the 'el' sound while other children have moved on," he said.

"The delays may cascade as a conversation progresses, and the child may lag behind typically developing peers."

Results of the study may have important implications in finding potential treatments of the disorder, the researchers stated.

It may also enable diagnosis of different types of ASDs such as classic autism and Asperger's syndrome in individual patients, they said.

The study appears in the journal Autism Research.