Imaging Study Discovers Brain Development Differences in Kids With Fragile X Syndrome

**Nate** · #1 05-04-2010, 11:44 AM

Imaging Study Discovers Brain Development Differences in Kids With Fragile X Syndrome

ScienceDaily (May 3, 2010) —" Fragile X syndrome is the most common known cause of inherited intellectual disability and autism. Now, researchers using advanced, noninvasive imaging techniques have shown how the brains of very young boys with fragile X syndrome differ from those of young boys without it, providing critical information for the development of treatments for the condition.

In a longitudinal study to be published online May 3 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine and collaborators from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill monitored anatomical changes that, over time, progressively differentiate the brains of children with fragile X syndrome from those of children without it.
Triggered by a mutation in a gene located on the X chromosome, fragile X syndrome affects about one in every 4,000 people, with more significant symptoms occurring in males than females. This condition's genetics and neurobiology are relatively well understood, accelerating the pace with which potential drug therapies have been moving through the pharmaceutical pipeline, said the study's senior author, Allan Reiss, MD, the Howard C. Robbins Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and professor of radiology.
Reiss, who directs Stanford's Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research, has been studying fragile X syndrome for more than two decades. "A number of years ago, we saw new treatments quickly coming down the line," he said. "So we wanted to provide information that could be used to guide those treatments." Application of these new findings might enable scientists and clinicians to tell if a therapy is working in the very youngest of children diagnosed with this condition..."

Click on the link for the full article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100503161239.htm

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