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Two recent preclinical studies may aid in treatment decisions for both child and adult autistic patients.
Chow and colleagues conducted postmortem mRNA and gene expression analyses in dorsolateral prefrontal cortical regions corresponding to areas found to have elevated numbers of cortical neurons in children (but not adults) with autism (JW Psychiatry Dec 5 2011). Compared with tissue from seven nonautistic control children, tissue from the nine children with autism (age range, 2–14 years) demonstrated differential expression of 102 genes related to neurodevelopment (e.g., cortical patterning). In analyses of brain tissue from older individuals (age range, 15–56; 6 with autism and 11 without), autism was associated with elevated expression …