Older adults with autism are at higher dementia risk. Brain donation could help find why

When we think of autism, we might think about younger people. Autism wasn’t formally recognized as a diagnosable condition until 1980 — leaving many older adults without a diagnosis or much research until recently.

Blair Braden is an associate professor in the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University. Her lab is among the first to study age-related changes in older adults with autism spectrum disorder using MRI and cognitive assessments.

"We definitely see some autistic adults who are middle-age or early, elderly years who are showing memory decline at a faster rate than their non-autistic peers," Braden said.

And about a third of her older patients are also self-reporting Parkinson’s symptoms. It’s unclear why, and that’s where brain donation could help.

"And what I think our call to action is for autistic adults themselves to start thinking about this as they plan their end-of-life care," Braden said.

Braden said brain donation among this population is new territory. She said studying postmortem brain tissue could help determine if the signs of dementia or Parkinson’s — think tangles and plaques — are similar or different from people who don't have autism.