A multicenter research team that includes the University of Washington Autism Center has received a five-year, $9.5 million grant to determine whether brain imaging can help detect infants who are likely to go on to develop autism spectrum disorder.  Led by Washington University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the research network of eight institutions received the grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health.

The new grant supports the continued efforts of researchers in the Infant Brain Imaging Study, or IBIS, network. Scientists will scan the brains of 250 children who have an older sibling with autism, looking for differences that predict which high-risk children are more, and less, likely to develop the condition.