BGU’s Warrior Against Autism
June 19, 2014
The Jewish Sound — On average, children are not diagnosed with autism until at least the ages of three or four.
Ilan Dinstein, a 38 year old senior lecturer in BGU’s Department of Psychology and a member of the Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, is trying to change that.
His fascination with the brain, and particularly autism, is clear.
Dr. Ilan Dinstein
“Of all the parts of the body, the brain is probably the least understood organ,” say Dr. Dinstein. “Even though it weighs only three kilograms, it’s what makes you yourself. It’s all located in this small box that we know very little about.”
Dr. Dinstein has been trying to determine a way to biologically identify children with autism. “What we want to do in my lab is to develop techniques to identify autism at the age of one or two using biology. We want to look at the brains of children and be able to identify those who will later develop autism. The earlier you intervene, the better the outcome.”
His hopes are to pick up on natural markers in a brain using that are definitive proof of autism.
“The first goal is to better understand what are the biological mechanisms that underlie the emergence of the strange and unique cognitive and social behaviors that are exhibited by individuals with autism,” says Dr. Dinstein.
“The second goal is to identify objective biological measures that will enable early and accurate clinical diagnosis of autism, which would be able to replace or at least complement the subjective behavioral measures that are currently used for diagnosis.”
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