Early-onset dementia in autism spectrum disorder

Abstract: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with an increased risk of early-onset dementia, new research has shown. Vivanti et al. used US medical insurance records for >1.2 million individuals aged 30–64 years to examine the prevalence of dementia over 5 years among people with a diagnosis of ASD, ASD with intellectual disability, intellectual disability alone or neither. The prevalence was highest among people with intellectual disability alone (7.10%), but was also considerably higher among people with ASD (4.04%) and people with ASD and intellectual disability (5.22%) than among the healthy population (0.97%). More research will be needed to understand the mechanisms that underlie this association.

Source: Fyfe, I. Early-onset dementia in autism spectrum disorder. Nat Rev Neu 17, 595 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-021-00564-y