 News
7th January 2008
How electrodes
are uncovering autism secretsScientists are hoping for a breakthrough
in the understanding of autism, by attaching electrodes to babies heads. The
Baby Lab project, which studies up to 20 children at a time, is monitoring electromagnetic
brain activity in babies by attaching 128 electrodes to their scalps. Researchers
at Uppsala University, north of Stockholm, invested hundreds of thousands of pounds
in developing equipment suitable for the studies, which are being conducted on
children between four and 12 months. The equipment allows them to examine
what is going on inside the babies' heads as they are shown a variety of different
objects or colours. "Our goal is to learn how we communicate with each
other, how we interpret other people's feelings and other peoples reactions,"
said project leader Dr Par Nystrom. "Kids with autism have problems in
these specific areas. In the future we hope to be able to help them." Over
half a million people in the UK suffer from autism, which leaves them struggling
to communicate effectively. Boys are four times more likely to develop it than
girls and there is no known cause and no cure. Initially the probes were
too heavy and uncomfortable for the babies, but engineers-have now created a lightweight
net of foam-covered sensors which makes the experience much more palatable. Sessions
last for less than half an hour and parents are always by the baby's side. "The
difficult thing with kids is that we have to arrange the experiment as a kind
of playtime to keep them happy," said Dr Nystrom. "So we play with objects,
for example a toy train, and monitor their gaze as we move it around." The
brain more than doubles its volume over the first year of life and changes substantially
as the baby develops. The Swedish scientists established the experiment
to help them learn more about that rapid early development. One of the
key areas of study is eyesight, which changes dramatically from the first few
weeks when a baby cannot focus on objects further than eight to 15 inches away,
to being able to track objects such as a toy at greater distances. Where
to next? | 
