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Is autism hard to diagnose? It seems that if anything the important thing about this study is the factors it discovered that allowed the populations to be separ

Is autism hard to diagnose? It seems that if anything the important thing about this study is the factors it discovered that allowed the populations to be separable.

mikecb 12y ago
The purpose of this study would seem to be more to validate the utility and/or robustness of fMRI than a novel diagnosis scheme for Autism.
- Toenex 12y ago
  I've not read the paper fully but it does look an interesting piece of work. I did notice that the controls were aged and IQ matched which doesn't suggest they we looking to differentially diagnose Autism from other disorders which is likely to be the more useful clinical technique. Also, the subjects were adult and I would expect most diagnosis to be performed in a much younger age group. This isn't the first attempt to apply fMRI techniques to the understanding of autism, plenty of prior work here (http://goo.gl/oW41Vm http://goo.gl/oW41Vm). Earlier in my career I did some fMRI and, whilst an interesting technique, I've never been convinced that it quite delivers on the claims. Firstly, you aren't looking at an electrical signal but rather changes in blood flow which are (reasonably) assumed to be coupled with areas of increased neural activity. This felt to me a bit like trying to debug a computer program by pointing a heat sensitive camera at your motherboard. Also all fMRI experiments are characterised by a block design - periods of activation and inactivation - and the response is expected to correlate with these in some way. However, the brain is pretty busy and thus how does one select a baseline; what about the parts of the brain that just stay on?
  - Houshalter 12y ago
    >Earlier in my career I did some fMRI and, whilst an interesting technique, I've never been convinced that it quite delivers on the claims. Firstly, you aren't looking at an electrical signal but rather changes in blood flow which are (reasonably) assumed to be coupled with areas of increased neural activity. This felt to me a bit like trying to debug a computer program by pointing a heat sensitive camera at your motherboard. It's pretty crude but it works. fMRI has been useful for a ton of things, it's even possible to read people's minds with it (from seeing what words they are thinking to an entire video reconstruction.)
duaneb 12y ago
Autism actually can be hard to diagnose, as there are many different flavors of symptoms. This should be read as more of a machine learning exercise in attributes (so yes, you're correct), not as a medical breakthrough.
splinterofchaos 12y ago
There exist very accurate tests for autism, but /getting/ a diagnosis can be difficult. A teacher spotted autistic symptoms in me back when I was ten and recommended I get tested. It wasn't until three years later that a couple thousand dollars got taken out of my college fund and I received a day's trial of tests to determine that I have it. Insurance did not cover the procedure. Now-a-days, people have more understanding and awareness (this was a little over ten years ago), but it is still an expensive procedure, involving many specialists of different areas, sometimes neurologists and brain scans.

Is autism hard to diagnose? It seems that if anything the important thing about this study is the factors it discovered that allowed the populations to be separable.

mikecb 12y ago

The purpose of this study would seem to be more to validate the utility and/or robustness of fMRI than a novel diagnosis scheme for Autism.

Toenex 12y ago
I've not read the paper fully but it does look an interesting piece of work. I did notice that the controls were aged and IQ matched which doesn't suggest they we looking to differentially diagnose Autism from other disorders which is likely to be the more useful clinical technique. Also, the subjects were adult and I would expect most diagnosis to be performed in a much younger age group. This isn't the first attempt to apply fMRI techniques to the understanding of autism, plenty of prior work here (http://goo.gl/oW41Vm http://goo.gl/oW41Vm). Earlier in my career I did some fMRI and, whilst an interesting technique, I've never been convinced that it quite delivers on the claims. Firstly, you aren't looking at an electrical signal but rather changes in blood flow which are (reasonably) assumed to be coupled with areas of increased neural activity. This felt to me a bit like trying to debug a computer program by pointing a heat sensitive camera at your motherboard. Also all fMRI experiments are characterised by a block design - periods of activation and inactivation - and the response is expected to correlate with these in some way. However, the brain is pretty busy and thus how does one select a baseline; what about the parts of the brain that just stay on?
- Houshalter 12y ago
  >Earlier in my career I did some fMRI and, whilst an interesting technique, I've never been convinced that it quite delivers on the claims. Firstly, you aren't looking at an electrical signal but rather changes in blood flow which are (reasonably) assumed to be coupled with areas of increased neural activity. This felt to me a bit like trying to debug a computer program by pointing a heat sensitive camera at your motherboard. It's pretty crude but it works. fMRI has been useful for a ton of things, it's even possible to read people's minds with it (from seeing what words they are thinking to an entire video reconstruction.)

duaneb 12y ago

Autism actually can be hard to diagnose, as there are many different flavors of symptoms. This should be read as more of a machine learning exercise in attributes (so yes, you're correct), not as a medical breakthrough.

splinterofchaos 12y ago

There exist very accurate tests for autism, but /getting/ a diagnosis can be difficult. A teacher spotted autistic symptoms in me back when I was ten and recommended I get tested. It wasn't until three years later that a couple thousand dollars got taken out of my college fund and I received a day's trial of tests to determine that I have it. Insurance did not cover the procedure. Now-a-days, people have more understanding and awareness (this was a little over ten years ago), but it is still an expensive procedure, involving many specialists of different areas, sometimes neurologists and brain scans.