Autism & Dyslexia - Ambitious new project studies origins

Vol. 18 •Issue 11 • Page 13 Autism & Dyslexia

Ambitious new project studies origins

Two prominent experts in neuroimaging and human brain development will head an ambitious new project to study the origins of autism and dyslexia. Cognitive neuroscientists Nancy Kanwisher, PhD, and John Gabrieli, PhD, will lead the $8.5 million project at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT in Cambridge, MA.
Autism and dyslexia are complex brain disorders that first appear in early childhood. Little is known about the causes of either disorder, although both are highly heritable. In both cases it is thought that the earlier treatments begin, the more effectively they help the child compensate. Therefore, it is important to develop methods for early diagnosis.
Scientists believe that non-invasive brain-imaging may be a means to this end. Neuroimaging methods have advanced greatly over the last five years, and a major emphasis of the new project will be to translate these advances to pediatric neuroimaging. Brain-imaging with young children presents many challenges, not least of which is their inability to lie still for long periods in the scanner.
Drs. Kanwisher and Gabrieli will collaborate with neuroimaging experts at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston. Larry Wald, PhD, director of the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Core at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at MGH; Bruce Fischl, PhD, associate professor of radiology; and Ellen Grant, MD, director of pediatric radiology, will develop scanning coils designed specifically for children's heads, as well as new procedures to shorten scan times and methods to analyze data from brains that are not yet fully developed.
"We expect these technological advances to radically improve pediatric neuroimaging and help us make major strides in understanding typical and atypical human brain development," commented Dr. Kanwisher, a member of the National Academy of Sciences. She will lead the work on autism; and Dr. Gabrieli, a professor of health sciences and technology, will lead the dyslexia component.
The researchers plan to study a cohort of children, scanning them at regular intervals to examine the development of brain systems that have been implicated in social cognition for autism and reading for dyslexia. They hope to include children who are at increased risk for autism or dyslexia, due to their family history, and to compare them to control subjects with no special risk factors.
The investigators also will look at children who already have been diagnosed. They will look for telltale markers that could be useful for diagnosing and tracking the progression of the disorders. They also plan to examine the effects of therapeutic interventions in the hope of identifying markers that will guide the development of more effective therapies.
In the longer term the researchers hope to link their findings to future advances in understanding the genetics of autism and dyslexia. By combining both approaches, Dr. Gabrieli said, eventually it may be possible to develop genetic tests that will be easier and less expensive than brain scans.
He and Dr. Kanwisher also will collaborate with Rebecca Saxe, PhD, assistant professor of neurobiology in the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, who will focus on the development of neural mechanisms for social cognition to identify the earliest stage at which an infant's brain becomes specialized to perceive other people and understand language.
Other collaborators are Laura Schulz, PhD, an assistant professor of cognitive sciences at MIT; April Benasich, PhD, director of the Infancy Studies Laboratory, Center for Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience, at Rutgers University, in Newark, NJ; Maryanne Wolf, EdD, director of the Reading and Language Research Center at Tufts University, in Medford, MA; David Pauls, PhD, director of the Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit at MGH; Matti Hamalainen, PhD, director of the MEG (Magnetoencephalography) Core at the Martinos Center; and Glenn Rosen, PhD, an associate professor of neurology, and Albert Galaburda, MD, a professor of neurology, at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
The project is supported by a grant from the Ellison Medical Foundation.
For More Information
McGovern Institute for Brain Research: http://web.mit.edu/mcgovern