My Son Was Autistic. Is He Still?

Jayne Lytel:

Paging through 176 MRI scans of my 9-year-old's brain on my home computer, I discovered a button that let me play them as a movie. Gray swirls burst onto the screen, dissolving into one another and revealing a new set of patterns. Beams of light faded in and out, some curving and traveling around the different regions of his brain. I saw the squiggly folds of his cerebral cortex, the gray matter that is the center of human intelligence.

These scans, the most intimate pictures I had ever seen of my son, Leo, may help researchers understand what's going on in his head -- and relieve him of a diagnosis that I have devoted several years to helping him overcome.

Leo, identified as No. C1059, underwent the scans as part of a research study at the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut. He was thrilled to earn $200 for taking part. I smiled along with him, because I could remember the days when he had a limited range of emotions, and pride was not one of them.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at November 19, 2008 1:33 AM
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