Anton Lab Researchers pinpoint signaling problems in the progenitor cells crucial for proper neuron generation and organization.

As part of a five-year, $7.5 million award, UNC researchers led by Joseph Piven, MD, will follow up on innovative imaging studies to create interventions to help children with autism.

“In a new study, Emerson et al. show that brain function in infancy can be used to accurately predict which high-risk infants will later receive an autism diagnosis…These findings must be replicated, but they represent an important step toward the early identification of individuals with autism before its characteristic symptoms develop.” (http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/9/393/eaag2882)

This first-of-its-kind study used MRIs to image the brains of infants, and then researchers used brain measurements and a computer algorithm to accurately predict autism before symptoms set in.