Scientists at King’s College Hospital, London, have reported the results of an initial trial of a brain scan that could be used to detect autism in adults.

The scan has been tested on 40 people and identified tiny but crucial signs of autism, although further research will be needed before the new technique can be widely used.

Conventional diagnosis involves a team of experts who analyse behaviour and make a complex series of assessments.

The study enrolled 20 non-autistic adults and 20 adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Patients were initially diagnosed using traditional methods, and then given a 15 minute brain MRI scan. The images were reconstructed into 3D and were fed into a computer, which looked for tiny but significant differences, with the result that autism was detected with over 90% accuracy, according to the report.