Autism is not a single condition and there is no cause, scientists conclude
New research from The University of Cambridge suggests that autism must not be understood as a homogeneous condition of a single cause. Scientists have discovered that people are diagnosed in early childhood often have a different genetic profile than those diagnosed later in life, spreading understanding how the condition is developing.
The study analyzed the behavior of the autistic nation during childhood and adolescence in the UK and Australia. He also assessed the genetic data of more than 45,000 patients with the situation from different cohorts in Europe and the United States.
By connecting genetic information to age in diagnostics, researchers have noticed that the profiles of those who were different early to the situation differed early from those who received confirmation in later phases. They found only mild overlap between the two groups, which indicates that biological mechanisms are associated with autism may differ from those associated with autism identified in adolescence or adult.
Analysis, posted last week in the magazine NatureThey showed that children were diagnosed six years ago more likely to have behavioral difficulties – such as social interaction problems – from early age. In contrast, those diagnosed after 10 years were more likely to experience social and behavior difficulties during adolescence. They also had a larger predisposition in mental health conditions, such as depression.
The study adds that the average genetic profile of those diagnosed later was closer to the ADHD and the conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder than the “classical” autism identified in early childhood.
The study concludes that timing diagnosis is not fully randomly, but reflects the fundamental genetic differences that match the risk for other conditions in some cases.
“We first discovered that the autism was diagnosed even later,” said Varun Warrier, a researcher at the Psychiatry Department at the University of Cambridge and the paper guide, in the press statement. “The term” autism “probably describes more conditions.”