TY - JOUR T1 - Age-Dependent Brain Gene Expression and Copy Number Anomalies in Autism Suggest Distinct Pathological Processes at Young Versus Mature Ages A1 - Chow, Maggie L. A1 - Pramparo, Tiziano A1 - Winn, Mary E. A1 - Barnes, Cynthia Carter A1 - Li, Hai-Ri A1 - Weiss, Lauren A1 - Fan, Jian-Bing A1 - Murray, Sarah A1 - April, Craig A1 - Belinson, Haim A1 - Fu, Xiang-Dong A1 - Wynshaw-Boris, Anthony A1 - Schork, Nicholas J. A1 - Courchesne, Eric Y1 - 2012/03/22 N2 - Author Summary Autism is a disorder characterized by aberrant social, communication, and restricted and repetitive behaviors. It develops clinically in the first years of life. Toddlers and children with autism often exhibit early brain enlargement and excess neuron numbers in the prefrontal cortex. Adults with autism generally do not display enlargement but instead may have a smaller brain size. Thus, we investigated DNA and mRNA patterns in prefrontal cortex from young versus adult postmortem individuals with autism to identify age-related gene expression differences as well as possible genetic correlates of abnormal brain enlargement, excess neuron numbers, and abnormal functioning in this disorder. We found abnormalities in genetic pathways governing cell number, neurodevelopment, and cortical lateralization in autism. We also found that the key pathways associated with autism are different between younger and older autistic individuals. These findings suggest that dysregulated gene pathways in the early stages of neurodevelopment could lead to later behavioral and cognitive deficits associated with autism. JF - PLOS Genetics JA - PLOS Genetics VL - 8 IS - 3 UR - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1002592 SP - e1002592 EP - PB - Public Library of Science M3 - doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1002592 ER -