Brain overgrowth between the ages of six and twelve months may may contribute to the development of autism, suggests research presented at last week's American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. The study, led by Joseph Piven, M.D., director of the Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, backs up previous research that has found brain overgrowth by two years in autistic children. Piven suggests that the normal process of "pruning" brain connections that are not used occurs less frequently in the brains of autistic infants, leading to larger brains.
Read more: New Studies Suggest Brain Overgrowth in One-Year-Olds Linked to Development of Autism (PDF)