Complex Disorder

Defining ‘autism’, a single word encompassing a wide spectrum of behaviours, is no easy task.Each person with autism has a different combination of symptoms, and the combination may change over that person’s lifetime. Some people with autism don’t speak at all, whereas others are fluent. Some are bothered by sounds, whereas others are musical prodigies. Some are intellectually disabled, whereas others are savants. No wonder then that many researchers have begun referring instead to ‘autisms’.It has become clear over the past few years that the biology underlying autism is similarly multifarious, with hundreds of potential genetic, developmental and environmental causes.Still, researchers are on the hunt for a biological signature of autism, one they say is the unmistakable core — a distinctive mix of social disinterest and repetitive behaviours — that marks every individual with the disorder.Read more at...Nature, October 2012.