ePrints

Autism as a disorder of neural information processing: Directions for research and targets for therapy

Lookup NU author(s): Emeritus Professor Elaine Perry

Downloads

Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.

Abstract

The broad variation in phenotypes and severities within autism spectrum disorders suggests the involvement of multiple predisposing factors, interacting in complex ways with normal developmental courses and gradients. Identification of these factors, and the common developmental path into which they feed, is hampered by the large degrees of convergence from causal factors to altered brain development, and divergence from abnormal brain development into altered cognition and behaviour. Genetic, neurochemical, neuroimaging, and behavioural findings on autism, as well as studies of normal development and of genetic syndromes that share symptoms with autism, offer hypotheses as to the nature of causal factors and their possible effects on the structure and dynamics of neural systems. Such alterations in neural properties may in turn perturb activity-dependent development, giving rise to a complex behavioural syndrome many steps removed from the root causes. Animal models based on genetic, neurochemical, neurophysiological, and behavioural manipulations offer the possibility of exploring these developmental processes in detail, as do human studies addressing endophenotypes beyond the diagnosis itself.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Belmonte MK, Cook Jr EH, Anderson GM, Rubenstein JLR, Greenough WT, Beckel-Mitchener A, Courchesne E, Boulanger LM, Powell SB, Levitt PR, Perry EK, Jiang YH, DeLorey TM, Tierney E

Publication type: Review

Publication status: Published

Journal: Molecular Psychiatry

Year: 2004

Volume: 9

Issue: 7

Pages: 646-663

ISSN (print): 1359-4184

ISSN (electronic): 1476-5578

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sj.mp.4001499

DOI: 10.1038/sj.mp.4001499

PubMed id: 15037868

Share