Growing awareness: This week, we highlight two papers from the Infant Brain Imaging Study, a U.S.-based collaboration to describe developmental trajectories in infants, particularly those with an autistic sibling, who have elevated odds of being diagnosed with autism, referred to as high-likelihood infants. One paper found that executive function measures stayed the same from 12 to 24 months of age in these high-likelihood infants, whereas low-likelihood infants showed functional improvements. The other paper sought to correlate visual evoked potentials at ages 6 and 12 months with developmental skills at 24 months. The researchers reported that variability in EEG waveforms—specifically the P1 latency—during the first year of life was the strongest predictor of functioning in cognitive, language and motor skills at age 2.
Autism research spotted this week:
- “Pharmaco-behavioral profiling identifies suppressors of autism gene–associated phenotypes in zebrafish” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
