A structural and functional imaging study of autism and its extended phenotype

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The reason why autism may develop within one child and yet spare other family members is perhaps one of the most important of the many unanswered questions within autism research. Important clues may lie in the fact that apparently unaffected siblings of individuals with autism often display impairments in thought processes that resemble those seen in autism.We propose studying forty adolescents with autism (with diagnoses of high functioning autism or Asperger syndrome), forty siblings and forty unrelated controls. By comparing these three groups, we aim to discover factors that relate specifically to autism, in addition to and as distinct from factors that relate to autism-like impairments (regardless of whether the individual has autism or is a sibling).We will use brain scanning techniques (using magnetic resonance imaging that is safe and does not involve any form of radiation) to record the structure of the brain and measure levels of activity in different parts of the brain whilst the participant is performing predefined activities that are believed to be affected by autism. Our overall goal is to better understand the causes of autism by separating out the relative effects of these different potential factors.