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Washington DC: The signs and symptoms of autism in children are hard to detect, but new research suggests that simple quantifiable measures of artificial intelligence could help diagnose Rett syndrome much earlier and possibly other disorders similar to those of autism.
The study published in the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences". unveiled an automatic learning algorithm capable of detecting abnormalities of predictive pupil dilation of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in mice.
He also showed that the algorithm can accurately detect if a girl has Rett's syndrome, a genetic disorder that alters cognitive, sensory, motor and autonomic function from 6 to 18 months, as well as behaviors similar to autism.
The researchers hope that this system could provide an early warning signal, not only for Rett's syndrome, but for ASDs in general. In the future, they think that this could also be used to monitor the response of patients to treatments; currently, a clinical trial is testing the ketamine drug for Rett syndrome and a gene therapy trial is planned.
"We want to get a glimpse of what's going on in the brain in a quantitative, objective, subtle change-sensitive way, and we generally lack biomarkers that reflect brain activity, which are easy to quantify and unbiased. could measure a biomarker and not be affected by subjective interpretations of how the patient is doing, "said one of the researchers in the study, Fagiolini.
The researchers began by thinking that people with autism exhibited altered behavioral states. Previous evidence indicates that cholinergic brain circuits involved in stimulation are particularly disturbed and that altered stimulation affects both spontaneous dilation / constriction of the pupil and heart rate.
The team also discovered that spontaneous dilatation and constriction of the pupils had been altered even before the animals began to exhibit symptoms similar to those of an ASD.
In an earlier study with researchers, visual evoked potentials, an EEG measure of visual processing in the brain, have also been shown to be potential biomarkers of Rett's syndrome.
She believed that together, these biomarkers could provide robust and affordable screening tools for infants and toddlers, warning of impending neurodevelopmental issues and helping to track the progression of their development or treatment.
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