It seems the medical research has moved a step ahead in the field of autism, as it has been told that a medical team, from the University of California San Diego Autism Center of Excellence, has managed to figure out a link between number of neurons in the prefrontal cortex of autistic children and their risk of autism.

It is very much required that there must be right number of brain cells to ensure that brain development occurs at its natural pace, but it has been found that in autistic children, there is significant increase in number of neurons in a specific area of brain.

“If there is an excess number of neurons, there must be a negative consequence to that in the way the brain gets wired or organized”, said a Professor of neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Director of the Autism Center of Excellence, Eric Courchesne, who is also leading the study.

For the study, the team managed to examine the brain tissues of seven boys with autism who lost their life due to the same, and six other boys without autism who lost their life due to some other reason. It was found that those children in the sample group of autism were having nearly 67% more neurons than those who were not suffering from autism.

The most significant result was that the autistic children have neurons more than 79% in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and nearly 29% more in that of mesial prefrontal cortex as compared to other healthy children.

If medical experts are to be heard, a normal child has 1.16 billion neurons in the prefrontal cortex, while autistic children have about 1.94 billion. Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex being a key part of human brain to stimulate reasoning ability is found to be a significant link in understanding the reason behind autism. With concrete proof in hands, the team is keen to extend the research to next level.