Figure 1.

Relationship between mitochondrial disease, ASD, and autism. Mitochondrial disease in most children with ASD is of the non-classical variety. Up to 5% of children with autism have classical mitochondrial disease while 10–20% of patients with classic mitochondrial disease demonstrate ASD features. The co-existence of ASD with mitochondrial disease is higher than the prevalence of either ASD or mitochondrial disease in the general population, suggesting a link between mitochondrial dysfunction and autism. Reprinted from [9].