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Comment by neurotech1 | Hacker News Reader

Its possible that the cyst might worsen symptoms associated with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder, although treatment wouldn't completely cure the patient. There is an above average rate of Hydrocephalus [0], particularly Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus [1] (NPH) and other forms of Hydrocephalus, as well as Spina Bifida [2], associated with Autistic Spectrum Disorders.

The worst part is that moderately severe symptoms of NPH, including severe headaches can sometimes present similar to ASD in children.

There is some (but not conclusive) references in the medical journals.

[0] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16502210

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_pressure_hydrocephalus

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spina_bifida

Disclaimer: I'm not a physician etc. although I did record dozens of EEGs on Autistic Spectrum Disorder patients

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What disturbs me the most is: are we really not taking MRIs of most autistic patients? How come we don't have enough data to draw clear correlations?

I'm not a physician either, but it seems a perfectly valid, testable hypothesis that a cerebellar cyst is the cause of the author's brother condition, and this kind of malformation bears an impact on those conditions at large.

Definitely not. Ask most doctors if an MRI is warranted for an autism diagnosis and they'll laugh at you.

I don't see why laughter would be warranted for such a question. Yeah, MRIs are expensive, but wouldn't measurement of the brain's internals among those with autism be helpful in identifying the contributing factors and - maybe someday - a proper treatment?

You've proposed the reasonable step of using MRI to scan the brains of people with ASD diagnoses. That's already happening. We could probably do more of it. http://www.nhs.uk/news/2010/12December/Pages/new-brain-scan-...

http://autism-center.ucsd.edu/what-causes-autism/Pages/fmri....

Parent post is talking about scanning an individual. That's less useful. The second link I provide gives some reasoning: ASD is often suspected early. Many parents recognise somethings are different at about two years of age. You can't put an awake two year old in an MRI machine because you need the scanned person to stay still.

MRIs were certainly performed on autistic patients in order to determine that certain physical variations in brain structure are associated with autism. But if your goal is to diagnose autism, there are much cheaper (and more accurate) ways to do so, and if your goal is to treat it, the MRI results don't really inform your treatment options, so the consensus is probably that an MRI would be nothing more than an extremely expensive way to get a vague confirmation of the diagnosis.

(Of course, if the author's hypothesis is correct, that may be about to change.)

It seems that Dandy-Walker Syndrome is a known cause of some of the symptoms that show up in people on the Spectrum. i.e - there is an overlap. http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/dandy-walker-syndrome

And Dandy-Walker syndrome appears to be directly linked to Cyst growth and hence at least diagnosiable via MRI.

Dandy-Walker Syndrome is rare, though. MRI scanning all people diagnosed with autism just to check for it would be not be justified.

I imagine a study would be warranted, if one does not already exist. If a statistically significant link could be established, why not run tests? How much does it cost to have an MRI performed? How does it compare to the lifetime medical (and social) costs of an autism sufferer?

http://www.medifee.com/tests/mri-scan-cost/ in India. So to the tune of $200 max.

However in US it costs on average $3000 USD. :(

I'm just guessing here, but if even 1% of autism cases were caused by cysts or other treatable brain abnormalities, and hypothetical interventions had a 25% success rate, you'd end up spending $1.2M per case of autism cured (using the other poster's figure of $3K for an MRI scan). That seems well worth it to me. Certainly the cost delta between a functional member of society and someone that requires costly support their whole life is way more than $1.2M over a lifetime.

Of course this is like Drake's equation; taking an unknown and breaking it down into made-up numbers doesn't actually increase certainty, but fortunately, these numbers are a lot more knowable than the coefficients in Drake's equation. It's simply that I don't know them.

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