Understanding Autism presents the state-of-the-art research on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of autism.

Features:

• Covers genetic and genomic technologies currently used to dissect the molecular basis of autism
• Provides an exhaustive review of cytogenetic, linkage, association, candidate gene, and genetic mapping studies
• Describes new approaches to the analysis of gene expression and the extension of current studies to include endophenotypes in families of autistic probands
• Examines the potential role of epigenetic mechanisms in the etiology of autism through the regulation of gene expression by mechanisms that do not alter gene sequences
• Includes current clinical findings that focus on neuroanatomy and neurochemistry, functional neuroimaging, structural neuroimaging, and neurophysiology and neuropsychology
• Includes a theoretical and methodological outline of how to identify the public health costs of autism

Contents

1. Autism Spectrum Disorders: Phenotype and Diagnosis
2. Past and Future Perspectives on Autism Epidemiology
3. Genetic Basis of Autism
4. Finding Genes in Spite of Heterogeneity: Endophenotypes, QTL Mapping, and Expression Profiling in Autism
5. A Mixed Epigenetic and Genetic and Mixed De Novo and Inherited Model for Autism
6. Neurobiology of Related Disorders: Fragile X Syndrome
7. Fear and Anxiety Pathways
8. Cerebellar Networks and Autism: An Anatomical Hypothesis
9. Language in Autism
10. Prefrontal Cortex
11. The Social Brain, Amygdala, and Autism
12. The Thalamus and Neuromodulatory Systems
13. Modeling Features of Autism in Animals
14. Neuroanatomical and Neurochemical Studies of the Autistic Brain: Current Thought and Future Directions
15. The Social Brain in Autism: Perspectives from Neuropsychology and Neuroimaging
16. Structural Neuroimaging
17. Neuropsychology and Neurophysiology of Autism Spectrum Disorders
18. Pharmacological Treatments
19. Behavioral, Educational, and Developmental Treatments for Autism
20. The Costs of Autism

Index

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