Injury to the Cerebellum Equals Autism

The cerebellum, located in the very back of the human brain, has long been thought to mostly be involved with coordination and smooth movement of the human body. More recently, some connections to memory were surprisingly found. Now, a recent study (Wang SSH, et al. 2014) has shown that early injury to the cerebellum in human infants can lead to autism. The breakdown in normal brain development occurs when injury to the cerebellum puts into motion an abnormal course of development of a child’s brain. It was found that infants with cerebellum injury have a 36 times greater likelihood of developing autism than an uninjured child. This, of course, would include prenatal injuries as well.