Autism correlations

Yao Y, Walsh WJ, McGinnis WR, Pratico D. (2006) Altered vascular phenotype in autism correlation with oxidative stress. Arch Neurol 63 1161-1164. 

If there is an association between the extent or severity of abnormal neurotransmitter functioning and the global measure of severity of autism, the direction and mechanism of causality may still be unclear (as has been discussed in mental retardation). However, neurotransmitter correlates of specific aspects of autism, such as social isolation or obsessional behaviour, are likely to be more revealing and of greater relevance to the study of consciousness. 

Correlates of Psychomotor Symptoms in Autism Laura Stoppelbein, Sara Sytsma-Jordan, and Leilani Greening... 

McCauley, J.L., Li, C., Jiang, L., Olson, L.M., Crockett, G., Gainer, K., Folstein, S.E., Haines, J.L., and Sutcliffe, J.S., 2005, Genome-wide and ordered-subset linkage analyses provide support for autism loci on 17q and 19p with evidence of phenotypic and interlocus genetic correlates. BMC. Med. Genet. 6 1-15. 

Sacco R, Militerni R, Frolli A, Bravaccio C, Gritti A, Elia M, Curatolo P, Manzi B, Trillo S, Lenti C, Saccani M, Schneider C, Melmed R, Reichelt KL, Pascucci T, Puglisi-Allegra S, Persico AM (2007) Clinical, morphological, and biochemical correlates of head circumference in autism. Biol Psychiatry 62 1038-1047... 

Other researchers have looked more directly at the possible link between autism and prenatal and current testosterone. There is evidence that the ratio of the lengths of the second and fourth digit (2D 4D) may be negatively correlated with prenatal... 

Ring H, Baron-Cohen S, Williams S, Wheelwright S, BuUmore E, Brammer M, Andrew C (1999) Cerebral correlates of preserved cognitive skills in autism. A functional MRl study of Embedded Pigures task performance. Brain 122 1305-1315. 

Neuroanatomical-Behavioral Correlates in Autism A Working Hypothesis... 

This chapter has selected limbic and cerebellar structures that have consistently been found in neuropathological studies to be abnormal in autism, and attempted to formulate a theoretical model or hypothesis about how these abnormalities correlate... 

Nagarajan RP, Hogart AR, Gwye Y, Martin MR, LaSalle JM (2006) Reduced MeCP2 expression is frequent in autism frontal cortex and correlates with aberrant MECP2 promoter methylation. Epigenetics l el-ll. 

Dawson G, Meltzoff AN, OsterUng J, Rinaldi J (1998) Neuropsychological correlates of early symptoms in autism. Child Dev 69 1276-1285. 

Wang AT, Dapretto M, Hariri AR, Sigman M, Bookheimer SY (2004) Neural correlates of facial affect processing in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 43 481-490. 

This chapter correlates emotions and attachment behavior in autism with the disturbed neuroanatomy found in the brains of these individuals. Neuropathological postmortem studies have consistently found abnormalities in the limbic system and the cerebellum of autistic individuals. Abnormal limbic structures include the amygdala, hippocampus, septal nucleus, and anterior cingulate cortex. In the cerebellum, abnormalities have been found in the cerebellar hemispheres and in the fastigial, emboliform, and globose nuclei. 

The study of psychological-neuroanatomical correlates of autism can provide a new understanding of this perplexing disorder. 

Researchers at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, MD, found that children with autism have increased white matter in the motor region of the brain. In normally developing children, increased white matter is correlated with improved motor skills, but later may contribute to motor dysfunction, as well as abnormal socialization and communication. 

Zuckerman KE, Hill AP, Guion K, Voltolina L, Fombonne E. Overweight and obesity prevalence and correlates in a large clinical sample of children with autism spectrum disorder. / Autism Dev Disord. 2014 [Epub ahead of print]. 

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