"Patients with tuberous sclerosis can be diagnosed at birth or potentially before birth, because of cardiac tumors that are visible on ultrasound, giving us the opportunity to understand the circuitry of the brain at an early age," explains Sahin. "Our ultimate goal is to use imaging in infancy to find which tuberous sclerosis patients are at high risk for autism so we can intervene early. This may have implications for autism in patients without tuberous sclerosis as well."

Patients with both tuberous sclerosis and ASDs not only had increased radial diffusivity -- compared with both non-ASD patients and controls -- but they also had clearly disorganized axon pathways.