Children who have autism and their healthy siblings share patterns of brain activity that are different than those seen in children with no family history of the disorder, according to unpublished research presented Thursday at the IMFAR 2010 conference in Philadelphia.Because the siblings do not show even mild autistic behaviors, the brain activity represents a useful 'endophenotype' — a quantifiable trait that arises from carrying autism risk genes, rather than as the result of having the disorder, the researchers say."We were stunned that we could find something out about the brain that seems to not be observable with any of your standard clinical tools," says lead investigator Kevin Pelphrey, associate professor of child psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center.Read more at...SFARI, May 2010.