15 minute Autism diagnosis?

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http://www.onlykent.com/20100811/autism ... ain-scans/

This a link to a story about brain scans soon replacing the DSM method. I'm interested in knowing if anyone thinks this would ever be possible?

I think that it will be possible, in 10 years time.

The first things that come to my mind are:

With so many neurological disorders (ADHD, Bi Polar, OCD, giftedness etc etc) I would wonder how this test would distinguish Autism from something else that is similar, or has a lot of overlap but is not "autism". If this test is not definitive, I wonder how many of those who are lucky enough to get help would lose it because of this test not bringing that diagnosis because the characteristics of this spectrum disorder varies between people. I wonder too if the criteria for autism and other related disorders would change, and if you could use this to really identify what is really going on. Also with autism being a developmental disorder, how would that picture change over the years, and how would they compensate for the vast differences between autistic people as a whole?



I'm a skeptic

Wow, third topic about this today.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt134610.html

There's the main topic, go over there and discuss. I guess we're all pretty excited about this, but really, let's hold the (quiet, organized) party until after this has been researched more and shown to actually work in the field.

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Is it possible to provide a quality autism diagnosis/workup in 15 minutes or less?

No (my view).

Too many options have to be looked at first.

Many brain scans today take more than 15 minutes to do (let alone take a look at and slowly evaluate).

Some doctors (not all doctors) will schedule two office visits before any sort of preliminary diagnosis is made so the essentials/signs/symptoms can be started to be slowly sorted out.

Is it about time that Psychiatry (the Middle Ages) begins to start to use brain scans like a CT scan and MRI scan which Neurology (the Space Age) has been using for decades?

Yes.

Is it possible that brain scans can be slowly improved over decades and decades and decades to the point where a brain scan can be used to accurately diagnosis something as vague as Autism - Asperger - the 4 ADHDs - Dyslexia - and so on?

Yes.

Guessing that such a brain scan is at least 100 years away. I do not believe today (2010) a brain scan can accurately track the movement of a single neuron in the brain which shifts as to where the neuron is physically located, whether a customer is lying on their left side, right side, facing the ceiling, or facing the floor. The human brain is the consistency of jello. A neuron is smaller than a black dot (period) at the end of sentence.

That's my understanding.

Last edited by pgd on 11 Aug 2010, 1:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This got posted twice yesterday that I know of, now three times today...enough.

I must have missed the article describing how they've pinpointed the specific regions of the brain where Autism resides, because of course, without that knowledge, you can't very well scan the brain to find it.

And I hope these machines are more reliable than virtually every other mechanical device made by man, otherwise lots of Autistic people are going to be denied services and assistance because the machine says they aren't Autistic enough. I'm sure a machine will be able to make a more qualified determination than months of observation, since it knows where in the brain Autism can be found and humans don't.

There is already a thread discussing the study, with some good observations made. Im fairly happy with the idea, as i am SICK of people thinking a.s is psychological, and that one can therefore 'man up', or that one is simply exaggerating mild symptoms, or one has only a mild form of a/s.

Lile the comment about a spinal xray, id love to be able to know, and have others know, there was a testable, objevtive, physical basis for it.
Its not been on tv, but i heard it on local radio- its a london hosp, and i live in lon, and they said itd be easier to see in kids as the symptoms are more marked at that age.
Not sure how the scan works, but i dont see why tests couldnt be done during a scan anyway, as there are already known neurone differences in processing. Why doesnt that happen already???! !!
Re- failing to recognise some peole- yes- but then since a lot of places, eg Class ( sasha baron cohen etc) refuse to test people without parental input lots of peole are already falling thru the dx cracks at the first hurdle, due, ironically in many cases, their a/s causing them to have poor familial relationships. I think this is a total scandal- but thats just my own obsession!! !
Anyway, id def be 100% up for this, and since its just a couple miles away i will try getting into any follow up studies.

Also, eg me, there are lots of women girls especially still getting seen by millions of 'professionals' and their a/s not getting picked up on for years ( ive seen like 19 drs and psychologists before now- just told always to be posative and pull
myself togeher and stop actin up etc!! ! Arruugghh!! !) Like someone from the nas said, without better awareness, its still pot luck getting to dx.

Perhaps you should read the actual articles about this study.

The researchers found that there are minute differences in various areas of the brain that distinguish autistic from non-autistic brains, and in the study they did, which used actual test subjects, the results were 90% accurate.

I'd like to go through the process, just to see what parts of my brain, are affected and to get a cool picture of my brain, to take home.

People need to remember that scientists need to hype their research to keep the funding coming it. They're always making best-case-scenario claims about some breakthrough practical application as if it's going to happen tomorrow. The study had 20 people, which is tiny. If or when they replicate this study, it might not even work out. At best this stuff is a long way off.

There was a famous virologist who confidently predicted he'd have an HIV vaccine in a few years, and that was in the 1980's.

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So true. It seems at times it is really about promoting a university or a doctor (aka free world wide publicity) aka hype.

For some reason, the international news media goes along for the ride and accepts whatever the university or doctor says without really checking out the facts/the probability such (outlandish) statements made are really accurate.

The public gets caught in the process by being given preliminary research reports as being reported as ~ objective facts.

In this case of the autism brain scan, am pretty sure some people will see their doctors and ask to have one right away and that's due to how the news media reported the story in the headline as if a 15 minute brain scan has already been perfected and is available today to diagnosis all autism with a 100% accuracy rate - no mistakes or errors ever.

All hype or predominantly hype (aka fibs/even lies) it seems to me.