英国科学家发明新型扫描仪 可快速诊断自闭症
中新网8月11日电 据外电报道，英国医学专家日前宣称，他们发明出一种高度准确的脑部扫描仪，可以在短短15分钟之内检测出儿童自闭症。
来自伦敦国王大学精神病学研究所的科学家们用新的扫描设备测试了40名成年男子，他们20人为一组。一组为身体健康的人，而另一组则是已确诊的20名自闭症患者。新型扫描仪在其中找出自闭症患者的准确率高达90%。
自闭症是一种影响儿童的社交能力的疾病，它限制儿童与外部世界的互动能力。目前对儿童自闭症的检测手段费时而又昂贵，给患者父母和他们的医生带来非常大的精神压力。这种新型诊断方法将可以大量减少目前诊断所需的时间和费用。
一个简单的15分钟脑部扫描能够确认他们大脑内部的结构差异，从而帮助医生确诊自闭症。科学家称，扫描将能加快确诊过程，更快地确定有患自闭症风险的儿童。目前的确诊过程很漫长，而且在感情上也很受折磨。
伦敦大学国王学院精神病治疗学院的克莉丝汀-埃克尔称：“我们已经知道，患自闭症人士的脑部结构存在不同，脑部的一些区域更大或者更小，或者形状不同。我们的技术可以利用这一信息来确认患自闭症的人士。”
泛自闭症障碍是由于脑部发育异常而引发的持续终身的状况，英国有近五十万人患此病。大多数病人为男性，确诊通常涉及很长的访谈过程，让与病人关系密切的家人和朋友提供各自的讲述。
精神病治疗学院的医学研究者对比了20位患自闭症成人和20位正常人的脑部扫描图片。他们发现，大脑额叶和顶叶灰质组织的厚度存在很大的差异。大脑额叶和顶叶负责包括行为和语言在内的功能。埃克尔在实验中表明，她的成像技术能够发现她的实验人群中患自闭症的人士，准确度达百分之九十。她说：“如果我们有一个新的病例，我们也很有希望给出准确度达百分之九十的诊断。”获得医学研究委员会、威廉信托、国家卫生研究院支持的研究将于今日刊登在《神经科学》月刊。
Study shows 90% success rate in detecting adult males with ASD, and researches hope the simple technique will rapidly identify children at risk
A simple 15-minute brain scan could help doctors diagnose people with autism by identifying structural differences in their brains. Scientists say the scans would speed up what is currently a long and emotional diagnostic procedure and allow the identification of at-risk children more rapidly。
"We know already that people with autism have differences in brain anatomy and some regions are just bigger and smaller or just different in shape," said Christine Ecker of King's College Institute of Psychiatry in London. "Our technique can use this information to identify someone with autism."
Autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) is a lifelong condition caused by abnormalities in the development of the brain that affects around half a million people in the UK. The vast majority of these are male, and diagnosis usually involves a lengthy process of interviews and personal accounts from family and friends close to the patient。
Medical researchers at the IoP compared the brain scans of 20 adults with autism against those of 20 adults without. They found significant differences in the thickness of tissue in parts of the grey matter in areas of the frontal and parietal lobes which are responsible for functions including behaviour and language。
In the experiment, Ecker showed that her imaging technique was able to detect which people in her group had autism, with 90% accuracy. "If we get a new case, we will also hopefully be 90% accurate," she said. The research, supported by the Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust and National Institute for Health Research, is published today in the Journal of Neuroscience。
Declan Murphy, professor of psychiatry and brain maturation at the IoP said the new method would help people with ASD to be diagnosed more quickly and cost effectively. "Most importantly, their diagnosis will be based on an objective "biomarker" and not simply on the opinion of a clinician, which is formed after an interview. Simply being diagnosed means patients can take the next steps to get help and improve their quality of life."
Uta Frith, emeritus professor of cognitive development at University College London's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said: "This study shows that the sub#p#分页标题#e#tle brain abnormalities associated with autism show a distinctive pattern. However, it will need many more studies before the technique used in this study can be used for diagnosis. It is crucial that we learn more about what the brain abnormalities mean. The authors in the paper itself say their results are preliminary and serve as 'proof of concept' rather than a definitive means of diagnosis."
Ecker found there was a correlation between the severity of a person's autism and the amount of structural difference observed in their brain scans, compared with the control group. "We can see that, on the basis of the brain scan, some brains are simply located quite far away from the 'control' brain, whereas some are more like the controls, so the autism wouldn't be that severe."
The IoP team scanned the brains of 20 healthy men and 20 men with ASD, aged between 20 and 68 years. The men with ASD had already been diagnosed by traditional methods, which includes IQ tests, a psychiatric interview, physical examinations and a blood test. Once all the brains had been imaged using a standard clinical MRI scanner, the pictures were analysed for differences using a technique called pattern classification, which is widely used in facial recognition technology but has not, until now, been used on brain scans。
So far, Ecker's team has only looked at men but there are plans to extend the work to women and children. "We think this approach will work even better with kids because the brain abnormalities you see in autism develop over the life span and they're most prominent during childhood," she said. "If we can get up to 90% accuracy in adults, we think it'll be even better in kids."
Carol Povey, director of the National Autistic Society's Centre for Autism, said the study gave a valuable insight into the way people with autism process and understand the world around them. "Eventually, the researchers hope that brain scans might also be a useful diagnostic tool. While further testing is still required, any tools which could help identify autism at an earlier stage, have the potential to improve a person's quality of life by allowing the right support to be put in place as soon as possible."
She added: "However, diagnosis is only the first step. At the National Autistic Society, we frequently receive calls from people who have struggled to get support, leaving them anxious, frustrated and in some cases depressed or even suicidal. Research that improves our understanding of autism, is therefore part of a wider struggle to enable people with autism to access appropriate support at every stage of their life."
(卫报)
