Yale School of Medicine (YSM) scientists have discovered a molecular difference in the brains of autistic people compared to their neurotypical counterparts.
Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition associated with behavioral differences including difficulties with social interaction, restrictive or intense interests, and repetitive movements or speech. But it’s not clear what makes autistic brains different.
Now, a new study in The American Journal of Psychiatry has found that brains of autistic people have fewer of a specific kind of receptor for glutamate, the most common excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain. The reduced availability of these receptors may be associated with various characteristics linked to autism.
“We have found this really important, never-before-understood difference in autism that is meaningful, has implications for intervention, and can help us understand autism in a more concrete way than we ever have before,” says James McPartland, PhD, Harris Professor of Child Psychiatry and Psychology in the Child Study Center at YSM and the study’s co-principal investigator.