J Neurol Res Rev Rep, 2023 Volume 5(4): 1-8 Review Article Autism Spectrum Disorder: History, Concept and Future Perspective Laboratory of Biochemistry and Biophysics Instituto Butantan- city of São Paulo, state of São Paulo, country Brazil Nádia Isaac da Silva and Ivo Lebrun* *Corresponding author Ivo Lebrun, Laboratory of Biochemistry and Biophysics Instituto Butantan- city of São Paulo, state of São Paulo, country Brazil. Tel: 55 11 26279745. Received: March 21, 2023; Accepted: March 29, 2023; Published: April 05, 2023 Journal of Neurology Research Reviews & Reports Open Access ISSN: 2754-4737 Keywords: Autism Spectrum Disorder, Concept, Etiology, Treatment, Research Historical Aspects In the psychiatric literature, since the beginning of the eighteenth century, descriptions of isolated cases of which are now recognized as autism are found. Although some descriptions are very rich and denote psychiatric disorders that shared autistic characteristics, no scholar has seen connections between individual cases until the last half of the 19th century [1,2]. Henry Maudsley in 1867 suggested that children with “very strange” behavior could be classifed as having some type of childhood psychosis. Initially, this idea was a shock to society at the time, however, several researchers began to describe and group children and adolescents with some type of “bizarre” behavior [1,2]. In 1906, Plouller introduced the adjective autism in psychiatric literature, when studying patients who were diagnosed with early dementia, but it was Bleuler, in 1911, the frst to spread the term autism, as a basic disorder of schizophrenia characterized by a limitation of personal relationships and with the external world, seeming to exclude everything that seemed to be the person’s “I” [3]. The term “autism”, applied to schizophrenia, has spread rapidly in european medical literature. In Germany, in 1920, Künkel referred to a group of schizophrenic children as “autistic”. These children in his description were restless, closed and lonely and with good intellectual development. Russian psychiatrist Grunja Jefmov Ssucharewa (1926) adopted the concept of “autistic attitude” to name the behavior observed in six children with schizoid personality disorder. This attitude was characterized by social isolation, accompanied by strange thoughts (perseverance, rumination and rationalization), preference for fantasy stories and fairy tales, emotional dysregulation, presence of echolalia, impulsivity and stereotyped behavior. Later, Potter (1933) and Despert (1938) described children with affective relationship problems and other traits of autistic behavior as more interested in the form of words than in their communicative function, restricted interest and repetitive movements [4,5]. In the year 1943, two descriptions of children with severe and unusual social defcits were published. The authors used the term “autistic” to designate a clinical condition that differed from schizophrenia and childhood psychosis. These publications are considered the frst relevant descriptions of autism. Psychiatrist Leo Kanner, in Baltimore, USA, systematized the careful observation of a group of eleven children aged between two and eight years, in his article “Autistic Disturbance of Affective Contact”. In his work, he claimed to have identifed a rare condition with symptoms present since early life. He described behavioral changes that were repeated and remained unchanged over time as: complete attachment to daily routines, extreme isolation and preference for inanimate objects over people. He also reported delay in language acquisition, non-communicative use of language after its development, tendency to repeat the speech of the other (echolalia), reverse use of pronouns, repetitive and stereotyped games, lack of imagination, good mechanical memory and appearance normal physics. All of the characteristics described were often associated with intellectual disability, or fragmented intellectual development. In the year 1944, Kanner called this ABSTRACT Te article narrates a brief history about the frst possible descriptions of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) until the publication of Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger, then reports the evolution of its defnition and concept, contextualizing its frst inclusion in the ICD (International Statistical Classifcation of Diseases and Health related problems) and DMS (Diagnostic and statistical Manual of mental disorders) up to its latest versions. It discusses the clinical picture characterized by heterogeneous manifestation and associated comorbidities. Tis article also presents the weight of the contribution of genetic and environmental factors in the etiology of the disorder, t he diagnosis based on clinical observation and absence of biomarkers, discussions th and efcacy and limitation of pharmacological treatment and pedagogical approaches, similarly exposes a possible research strand for ASD, developed from the production of biobanks as a source of investigation of symptoms, genetic alterations, physiological dysfunctions with the objective of identifying subgroups of individuals with ASD and thus enable the targeting of individualized and more efective interventions.