Brain overgrowth might explain why some children experience severe autism, researchers say Toddlers with autism have gray matter roughly 40% larger than children without the disorder The larger the overgrowth, the more profound a child’s autism symptoms FRIDAY, June 7, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Severe forms of autism could be linked to overgrowth of the brain’s outer layer that starts while a baby is in the womb, a new study finds. Toddlers with autism have cerebral cortexes -- often referred to as “gray matter” -- that are roughly 40% larger than those of children without the developmental disorder, researchers reported recently in the journal Molecular Autism . Further, the larger a toddler’s gray matter size, the more severe their social and language symptoms were later in life.
“The bigger the brain, the better isn’t necessarily true,” said researcher Alysson Muotri , director of the stem cell program at the University of California, San Diego. Results show that in “toddlers with profound autism, there are more cells and sometimes more neurons -- and that’s not always for the best,” Muotri noted in a university news release. One continuing mystery of autism is why some children with the disorder experience profound symptoms like developmental delay, social struggles and an inability to speak, while others have milder symptoms that improve with time.
For this study, researchers used blood stem cells from 10 toddlers ages 1 through 4 to create brain cor.
