A study conducted at the University of Utah, US, has suggested that MRI could be used to help diagnose autism.
Researchers enrolled 90 people, 53 of whom had autism, and used MRI to compare the brains of autistic individuals to those without the disorder.
The MRIs of autistic patients showed that regions of the left and right hemispheres associated with motor skills, facial recognition, attention and social functioning had trouble communicating with each other.
However, these signs were not present on the MRIs of patients without autism however.
Principal investigator Janet Lainhart said they also hoped to use the data to biologically describe different subtypes of autism.
"We hope the information can lead us to characterising different types of autism that may have different symptoms or prognoses," Lainhart added.
