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: Figuring out if a kid has autism can be tricky. Most clinicians rely on behavioural characteristics to make a diagnosis. A brain imaging technology developed by Harvard University Children’s Hospital and being used at Bright Minds Institute has shown that many of these children diagnosed with autism could actually be suffering from brain seizures that are treatable. Indian hospitals including Max and Apollo are considering this brain imaging technology for diagnosing autism and other mental disorders.
“Despite the fact that these developmental disorders originate in the brain, most of the children are diagnosed solely on the basis of the child’s observable behaviour. For instance, a child is usually diagnosed with autism after a single psychological assessment, often lasting just one hour,” laments Aditi Shankardass, head of neurophysiology at Bright Minds Institute, and head of EEG Laboratory at the department for communicative disorders at California State University Long Beach. Typically, children with impairments in social interaction; impairments in communication; and restricted interests and repetitive behaviour are diagnosed autistic.
According to her, almost half the 200 children who arrived at her clinic, previously diagnosed with autism, were in fact suffering from brain seizures, causing symptoms identical to autism. They used EEG (electroencephalography) technology to record the electric currents developed in the brain by means of electrodes applied to the scalp to look at brains. They found that many children who had been diagnosed autistic were not autistic at all. Many of them had brain seizures which are impossible to see with the naked eye but cause symptoms identical to autism. What the parents thought were moments of spacing out turned out to be moments of seizure activity.
“I do not suggest that this neurophysiological test (EEG scan) be used as a replacement for neuropsychological tests (behavioural assessments), but that they be used in conjunction with such tests, to better triangulate the true source of the child’s symptoms,” Shankardass clarifies.
The brain contains over 100 billion nerve cells called neurons. Each neuron may have hundreds or thousands of connections that carry messages to other nerve cells in the brain and body. The connections and the chemical messengers they send (called neurotransmitters) let the neurons that help you see, feel, move, remember, and work together as they should. Some of the cells and connections in the brain of a kid with autism—especially those that affect communication, emotions and senses—don’t develop properly or get damaged. An...
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