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Highlights from the last year in autism research
April is Autism Awareness Month and, in fact, president Obama declared April 2nd World Autism Awareness Day, recognizing that autism affects nearly one percent of children in the U.S. (1 in 70 boys) and proclaiming it a public health emergency.
This month is dedicated to learning more about children and adults with autism and throwing more weight behind initiatives like early intervention and research into its root causes.
So what have we learned recently about the biological steps that lead to autism? A lot, actually. Here is a look at 5 highlights from the last year in autism research:
Serotonin's role in autism symptoms
Scientists at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio suggest that up to 30 percent of autism cases may involve a disruption in how the brain processes the neurotransmitter serotonin.
The team has been studying strains of mice that exhibit some of the behaviors characteristic of autism, such as difficulty with social interaction and repetitive behaviors.
In the current experiment, the researchers treated these mice with a drug called Buspirone, which increases the action of serotonin in the brain. With this treatment, the mice became more social and interacted with stranger mice more easily.
Here’s what that means for our understanding of autism’s causes and possible treatments: Continue reading »
The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, Subcommittee on Children’s Health met yesterday to discuss the role environmental factors play in the surging autism epidemic.
Autism Speaks’ Chief Science Officer Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D. emphasized the importance of research on environmental risk factors for autism spectrum disorders, saying, “Although genetic factors clearly contribute to the causes of autism, we also need to understand environmental factors and their interactions with genetic susceptibility.”
This is good news for parents who feel the recent genetic study doesn’t entirely explain the root of their child’s autism. As you know, many parents still consider vaccines to be the culprit, and paying express attention to other environmental factors will be key in helping them let go of that now disproved theory. Continue reading »
A study published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that voice recordings of children with autism spectrum disorders are significantly different than those of typically developing kids.
The scientists processed the voices of 232 children, ages 10 months to 4 years (from recordings made all day at home with parents), and analyzed them using a new digital language software technology. According to the study, the babble of even the youngest children showed a distinct verbal signature – different acoustic patterns depending on whether the child was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder or not. How could the researchers tell the difference? Continue reading »
Last week I told you about a report published in the scientific journal Nature about “autism susceptibility genes,” suggesting autism is caused by genetic factors and not environmental ones.
But for parents of autistic children holding on to the theory that vaccines cause autism, there are problems with these new findings. John Stone, UK Editor for Age of Autism, a blog with an anti-vaccine slant, posted Sunday about a possible conflict of interest held by one of the authors of the Nature study.
Stone says, “Prof Stephen Scherer who is the senior author of the autism gene study launched in Nature last week holds the ‘GlaxoSmithKline-CIHR Pathfinder Chair in Genetics and Genomics at the Hospital for Sick Children and University of Toronto. The title used to be ‘GlaxoSmithKline-CIHR Endowed Chair”, GSK being one of the defendant companies in the UK MMR litigation.” Continue reading »
Autistic children carry more copy number variants in their genome than children without autism. Some of these variants appear to be inherited, while others are considered new, because they are found “only in affected offspring and not in the parents” of autistic children.
That’s what Autism Speaks and “an international consortium of researchers, along with participating families,” announced while unveiling the second phase of the Autism Genome Project. The results of this phase of study were published today in the scientific journal Nature and sent in a press release by Autism Speaks.
The study also identified new autism susceptibility genes which “may lead to the development of new treatment approaches.”
People such as Andrew Wakefield and Jenny McCarthy who are convinced autism is caused by vaccines will be dismayed that according to Autism Speaks vice president for scientific affairs Andy Shih, “Piece by piece, we are discovering genetic mutations that can cause autism.” His plan is to provide families with concrete reasons their children have developed autism, not more speculation. Continue reading »
Turn on a film dubbed in a language that you’ve never actually learned and watch and listen. Gobbledygook…nonsense…just a blare of unintelligible noise spewing out from the screen, a la Charlie Brown’s teacher. That’s exactly how a kid with autism feels every time their mom coos, “I love you,” or their dad laughs at their sibling’s antics. The autistic child’s lack of understanding of speech, sound and expression ultimately hinders their ability to communicate at all. If you can’t understand Chinese, no way will you be able to speak it.
The Susan Gray School for special needs kids at Vanderbilt University has undertaken a research project using sensory integration therapy that they hope may ultimately help autistic children gain a voice.
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Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
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Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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