Biological Psychology Links

By Katherine Harmon Children with autism often focus intently on a single activity or feature of their environment. New research might help to explain this behavioral trend, providing evidence that the brains of young people with autism are slower to integrate input coming from more than one sense at the same time. During study of the disorder decades ago, research into these basic tendencies was common. But in subsequent years, scientists have tended to focus more on complex issues, ranging from communication troubles to underlying genetic patterns. Recently, however, more studies have set their sights back on some of the simple processes that most people take for granted, such as sensory intake, as a way to better understand more high-level manifestations, such as social interaction issues. "We believe that these things interact in very significant ways," says Sophie Molholm, an associate professor of neuroscience at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and co-author of a new study about multi-sensory processing. The research, published online August 19 in Autism Research, used electroencephalograms (EEGs) to measure electrical activity in the brain through the scalp of subjects as they encountered various stimuli. Seventeen children (ages six to 16 years) with autism—and 17 age- and IQ-matched normally developing kids—watched a silent video of their choice throughout the testing. Meanwhile, tones and vibrations were administered in random order, sometimes separately, sometimes at the same time. The EEG readings were time-stamped to the stimuli and compared across all of the children to assess brain activity trends during single- and multi-sensory stimulation. Although the video presented visual stimuli, Molholm points out that because it was a consistent exposure throughout the experiments and the EEG readings were set to pick up on the sound and somatosensory stimuli and averaged out over so many tests, it becomes akin to "background brain activity that will sum to zero," she notes. "It's really just something to keep them busy." © 2010 Scientific American,

Regions of the brain are known to differ in people with autism. Red and orange show areas that are thicker or larger, while the blue shows a reduction in size compared with a non-autistic brain. Regions of the brain are known to differ in people with autism. Red and orange show areas that are thicker or larger, while the blue shows a reduction in size compared with a non-autistic brain. (MRC) Autism in adults can be diagnosed using MRI brain scans, British scientists have found. The 15-minute scans were used to identify autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with an accuracy of 90 per cent in 20 people who were previously diagnosed. "Our study offers a 'proof of concept' for describing the complex multidimensional grey matter differences in ASD," Dr. Christine Ecker, a lecturer in forensic and neurodevelopmental sciences at London's Institute of Psychiatry and her co-authors concluded in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. In the experiment, magnetic resonance imaging scans were reconstructed into 3-D images and analyzed using computer software programmed to spot structural changes in the brain's grey matter by measuring areas that relate to behaviour, language and vision. Changes in shape and thickness point to the disorder. A capability to diagnose ASD based on objective biological tests rather than the current method of relying on personality traits could help identify patients more quickly who need treatment, Ecker said. © CBC 2010

By Katherine Harmon The tangled web of autism symptoms and genetic markers has left researchers searching for patterns and trends in unusual places. New work examining the subtle symptoms shared by close relatives has underscored the disease's heritability. Findings published online August 2 in Archives of General Psychiatry add to the growing list of familial clues about the disease: shared eye-movement deficits. Researchers working at the University of Illinois at Chicago's (U.I.C.) Center for Cognitive Medicine have found a striking trend: those with autistic relatives are more likely to show disrupted eye movement similar to their afflicted relation. Large-scale genetic studies have turned up nuanced and conflicting results about the genetic basis of autism and its myriad symptoms. Other research has discovered that many people with an autistic relative or child might themselves have some subtle behavior variant as well, such as obsessive-compulsive tendencies or communication problems. Eye movement is easier to study neurologically than complex social and behavioral patterns—in large part because "we know a lot about what parts of the brain are involved," says Matthew Mosconi, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the U.I.C. and lead author of the new study. And the new findings examine basic deficits unclouded by social tendencies, such as the aversion many people with autism spectrum disorder have to looking at faces. © 2010 Scientific American

Infants who will eventually be diagnosed with autism may be slower to eat solid foods and be fussier eaters, but their growth doesn't seem to be impaired compared with children without the disorders, a new British study suggests. Parents often describe infants diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) as "slow feeders," and children with ASDs are often reported to eat a limited range of foods. Compared with 12,901 children without ASDs, 79 children ultimately diagnosed with an ASD were more likely to be slow eaters by six months, Dr. Pauline Emmett of the University of Bristol in England and her colleagues reported in Monday's online issue of the journal Pediatrics. Compared to the control group, children with ASD ate fewer vegetables, salads, and fresh fruit, but also consumed fewer sweets and carbonated drinks, the researchers said. About eight per cent of parents of autistic children reported that, as their kids reached 15 months, they were "very difficult to feed." That compared to about three per cent of kids without autism. Even though children with ASD consumed less of some vitamins and ate a more limited variety of foods, their intake of carbohydrates, protein, fats and total energy were similar to controls. No major differences in weight, height or body mass index were found up to age seven. © CBC 2010

Janelle Weaver A tool that automatically assesses young children's vocalizations should enable faster and more objective measures of language learning in natural environments than current methods allow. And its developers claim that the new tool may also help the early detection of autism by detecting speech abnormalities associated with it. The new method will allow scientists to assess more quickly how children develop speech and language in response to the talk they hear around them, says Kim Oller of the University of Memphis in Tennessee, whose team published its work today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1. Because past investigations of language development in natural settings have been hindered by the time-consuming transcription of audio recordings, "their approach could change the field of language development research," says Dorothy Bishop, an expert in developmental language disorders at the University of Oxford, UK. The objective measure of vocal quality could also help to detect speech abnormalities and autism in children, the authors suggest. Previous research has shown that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder have unusual articulation and prosody (patterns of rhythm and sound), but standard diagnostic tests do not cite specific vocal deficiencies. Quantifying vocal abnormalities in autistic children and translating them into a diagnostic procedure has been challenging, says Gordon Ramsay, a speech scientist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. "One of the great goals for years now has been to find objective measures of characteristics or behaviours that can be used to diagnose autism," he says. "This study is the first application of objective measures to detect autism based on speech." © 2010 Nature Publishing Group,

By DAVID WILLIAMSON UNC News Services CHAPEL HILL – By age 2, children with the often-devastating neurological condition physicians call autism show a generalized enlargement of their brains, a new University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University medical schools study concludes. Exactly why this roughly 5 percent greater brain growth occurs and what it means are not yet clear, scientists said. Indirect evidence suggested that the increased brain growth probably began during the later months of the children’s first year of life. A report on the finding appears in the December issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. UNC authors are Dr. Heather Cody Hazlett, assistant professor of psychiatry; Dr. Michele Poe, a statistician with the FPG Child Development Institute; Dr. Guido Gerig, professor of computer science; imaging technician Rachel Gimpel Smith; and Drs. John Gilmore and Joseph Piven, professors of psychiatry. At UNC, Piven, the senior author, directs both its Study to Advance Autism Research and Treatment (STAART) Center and its Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center. Duke authors are Drs. James Provenzale and Allison Ross, professor of radiology and associate professor of anesthesiology, respectively.

Max Planck scientists have decoded the molecular details of a genetic defect that disrupts signal transmission in the brain and causes autism Using an animal model, brain researchers in Göttingen have examined the effects of mutations that cause autism in humans. These are mutations in the genes which carry the building instructions for proteins in the neuroligin family. The study published in the scientific journal Neuron (September 21, 2006) shows that neuroligins ensure that signal transmission between nerve cells functions. In the brain of genetically altered mice without neuroligins, the contact points at which the nerve cells communicate, the synapses, do not mature. The researchers assume that similar malfunctions are experienced by autistic patients. Autism is one of the most common psychiatric illnesses. Around 0.5 percent of all young children have a syndrome belonging to the "autistic spectrum". The main symptoms of this developmental malfunction are delayed language development or no language development at all, disturbed social behaviour and repetitive behaviour patterns. In many patients, the disease is accompanied by mental disability. Autistic individuals exhibiting high intelligence or outstanding skills in a particular area, called "savants", such as the main character in the film "Rain Man", are rare. Even up to the middle of the last century, exceptionally cold emotional behaviour on the part of the mother was given as the cause for autism. However, the "refrigerator mom" theory has now been refuted.

By MIKE STOBBE ATLANTA - A few decades ago, people probably would have said kids like Ryan Massey and Eddie Scheuplein were just odd. Or difficult. Both boys are bright. But Ryan, 11, is hyper and prone to angry outbursts, sometimes trying to strangle another kid in his class who annoys him. Eddie, 7, has a strange habit of sticking his shirt in his mouth and sucking on it. Both were diagnosed with a form of autism. And it's partly because of children like them that autism appears to be skyrocketing: In the latest estimate, as many as one in 150 children have some form of this disorder. Groups advocating more research money call autism "the fastest-growing developmental disability in the United States." Indeed, doctors are concerned there are even more cases out there, unrecognized: The American Academy of Pediatrics last week stressed the importance of screening every kid — twice — for autism by age 2. But many experts believe these unsociable behaviors were just about as common 30 or 40 years ago. The recent explosion of cases appears to be mostly caused by a surge in special education services for autistic children, and by a corresponding shift in what doctors call autism. Autism has always been diagnosed by making judgments about a child's behavior; there are no blood or biologic tests. For decades, the diagnosis was given only to kids with severe language and social impairments and unusual, repetitious behaviors. © 2007 MSNBC.com © 2007 Microsoft

By TARA PARKER-POPE Heather Kuzmich has the neurological disorder known as Asperger’s syndrome. She is socially awkward, has trouble making eye contact and is sometimes the target of her roommates’ jokes. But what makes the 21-year-old Ms. Kuzmich different from others with Asperger’s is that for the past 11 weeks, her struggle to cope with her disability has played out on national television. She is one of 13 young women selected by the supermodel Tyra Banks to compete on the popular reality television show “America’s Next Top Model.” The addition of Heather Kuzmich to an otherwise superficial show has given millions of viewers an unusual and compelling glimpse into the little-understood world of Asperger’s. The disorder, considered a form of autism, is characterized by unusual social interaction and communication skills. Aspies, as people with the condition like to call themselves, often have normal or above-average intelligence, but they have trouble making friends and lack the intuitive ability to gauge social situations. They fail to make eye contact and often exhibit a single-minded fixation that can be both bizarre and brilliant. By definition, people with Asperger’s are outside the mainstream. Even so, in recent months the syndrome has been cast into the limelight. “Look Me in the Eye,” a memoir about living with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison, who once created special effects for the rock band Kiss, has been a best-seller. In August, the Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic Tim Page wrote a poignant article for The New Yorker about life with undiagnosed Asperger’s. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

By BENEDICT CAREY BY age 2 it was clear that the boy had a sensibility all his own, affectionate and distant at the same time, often more focused on patterns and objects than the people around him. He was neither naturally social like his mother, nor an early and gifted reader like his father. Quirky, curious, exuberant, he would leap up and dance across the floor after solving a problem or winning a game, duck walking like an N.F.L. receiver posing for a highlight film. Yet after Phil and Susan Schwarz received a diagnosis for their son, Jeremy, of high functioning autism, they began to think carefully about their own behaviors and histories. Mr. Schwarz, a software developer in Framingham, Mass., found in his son’s diagnosis a new language to understand his own life. His sensitivities when growing up to loud noises and bright light, his own diffidence through school, his parents’ and grandparents’ special intellectual skills — all echoed through his and Jeremy’s behavior, like some ancient rhythm. His son’s diagnosis, Mr. Schwarz said, “provided a frame in which a whole bunch of seemingly unrelated aspects of my own life growing up fit together for the first time.” Researchers have long known that many psychiatric disorders and developmental problems run in families. Children born to parents with bipolar disorder, in which moods cycle between euphoria and depression, run about eight times the normal risk for developing a mood problem. Those born to parents with depression run three times the usual risk. Attention and developmental disorders like autism also have a genetic component. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

By BENEDICT CAREY Two scientists, drawing on their own powers of observation and a creative reading of recent genetic findings, have published a sweeping theory of brain development that would change the way mental disorders like autism and schizophrenia are understood. The theory emerged in part from thinking about events other than mutations that can change gene behavior. And it suggests entirely new avenues of research, which, even if they prove the theory to be flawed, are likely to provide new insights into the biology of mental disease. At a time when the search for the genetic glitches behind brain disorders has become mired in uncertain and complex findings, the new idea provides psychiatry with perhaps its grandest working theory since Freud, and one that is grounded in work at the forefront of science. The two researchers — Bernard Crespi, a biologist at Simon Fraser University in Canada, and Christopher Badcock, a sociologist at the London School of Economics, who are both outsiders to the field of behavior genetics — have spelled out their theory in a series of recent journal articles. “The reality, and I think both of the authors would agree, is that many of the details of their theory are going to be wrong; and it is, at this point, just a theory,” said Dr. Matthew Belmonte, a neuroscientist at Cornell University. “But the idea is plausible. And it gives researchers a great opportunity for hypothesis generation, which I think can shake up the field in good ways.” Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

By ANNIE LUBLINER LEHMANN When my husband and I were told that our son Jonah’s autism was “untreatable,” we made up our minds to prove the experts wrong. We were young and energetic, and the developmental gap between 3-year-old Jonah and his peers, while obvious, was not glaring. With no other children to care for at the time, we made helping Jonah the focus of our lives. Every exchange would become a lesson, every experience a tutorial. Jonah cared most about food (and still does), so I’d go to the grocery store with a list and an agenda, hoping to use that passion to teach him essential concepts. I would follow his gaze and point out colors (red apple) and shapes (round cookie). When he turned away from such lessons, despite our most animated efforts, we tried everything else we could think of. Nothing was too difficult or too expensive. We gave him vitamins and restricted his diet. We introduced communication boards and arranged sensory integration therapy. We had him wear headphones to normalize his hearing and tried other snake-oil treatments no thinking person would consider. But each hope was followed by disappointment. We might as well have been chasing butterflies with a torn net. By the time Jonah reached his teens, we were worn out and frustrated, not very far from where we’d started. We faced the specter of hopelessness and a plethora of unanswerable questions. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

CHICAGO - Leo Lytel was diagnosed with autism as a toddler. But by age 9 he had overcome the disorder. His progress is part of a growing body of research that suggests at least 10 percent of children with autism can “recover” from it — most of them after undergoing years of intensive behavioral therapy. Skeptics question the phenomenon, but University of Connecticut psychology professor Deborah Fein is among those convinced it’s real. Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here She presented research this week at an autism conference in Chicago that included 20 children who, according to rigorous analysis, got a correct diagnosis but years later were no longer considered autistic. Among them was Leo, a boy in Washington, D.C., who once made no eye contact, who echoed words said to him and often spun around in circles — all classic autism symptoms. Now he is an articulate, social third-grader. His mother, Jayne Lytel, says his teachers call Leo a leader. The study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, involves children ages 9 to 18. Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer of the advocacy group Autism Speaks, called Fein’s research a breakthrough. Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

By NEIL AMDUR The three new movies would seem to have little in common: a romantic comedy about Upper West Side singles, a biopic about a noted animal science professor, and an animated film about an extended pen-pal relationship. But all three revolve around Asperger’s syndrome, the complex and mysterious neurological disorder linked to autism. Their nearly simultaneous appearance — two open this summer, and the third is planned for next year — underscores how much Asperger’s and high-functioning autism have expanded in the public consciousness since Dustin Hoffman’s portrayal of an autistic savant in “Rain Man” 21 years ago. “The more I learned about Asperger’s,” said Max Mayer, the writer and director of the romance, “Adam,” which opened last week, “the better metaphor it felt like for the condition of all of us in terms of a desire for connection to other people.” People with Asperger’s may have superior intelligence and verbal skills, and they often have an obsessive interest in a particular topic (astronomy, in the case of the title character in “Adam,” played by Hugh Dancy). But they tend to be self-defeatingly awkward in social situations, and romantic relationships can leave them at sea. The syndrome is generally considered a high-functioning form of autism, which in recent years has been diagnosed in more and more children. While the reasons for the explosion in diagnoses are unclear, increased awareness may be part of the explanation, and one reason for the growth in awareness is the rise of online parent communities. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

By RONI CARYN RABIN Older mothers are more likely than younger ones to have a child with autism, and older fathers significantly contribute to the risk of the disorder when their partners are under 30, researchers are reporting. In a study published online on Monday in the journal Autism Research, the researchers analyzed almost five million births in California during the 1990s, and 12,159 cases of autism diagnosed in those children — a sample large enough to examine how the risk of autism was affected when one parent was a specific age and the other was the same age or considerably older or younger. Previous research found that the risk of autism grew with the age of the father. The new study suggested that when the father was over 40 and the mother under 30, the increased risk was especially pronounced — 59 percent greater than for younger men. By contrast, for women 30 and older, the risk of autism rose 13 percent when the father was over 40. Every five-year increase in a mother’s age raised her risk of having a child with autism by 18 percent; a 40-year-old woman’s risk was 50 percent greater than that of a woman who became a mother in her late 20s, and 77 percent higher than that of a woman under 25. But while the number of California women giving birth in their 40s rose sharply in the 1990s, the researchers said that could not account for the sevenfold rise in autism during the decade. Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

WASHINGTON - A hormone thought to encourage bonding between mothers and their babies may foster social behavior in some adults with autism, French researchers said on Monday. They found patients who inhaled the hormone oxytocin paid more attention to expressions when looking at pictures of faces and were more likely to understand social cues in a game simulation, the researchers said in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Angela Sirigu of the Center of Cognitive Neuroscience in Lyon, who led the study, said the hormone has a therapeutic potential in adults as well as in children with autism. "For instance, if oxytocin is administered early when the diagnosis is made, we can perhaps change very early the impaired social development of autistic patients," Sirigu said in an email. Sirigu said the study focused on oxytocin because it was known to help breast-feeding mothers bond with their infants and because earlier research has shown that some children with autism have low levels of the hormone. People with Asperger's syndrome and other autism spectrum disorders often have problems with social interaction. Sirigu said oxytocin could help autism patients who have normal intellectual functions and fairly good language abilities because it improves eye contact. Copyright 2010 Reuters

Ian Hacking Autism is devastating – to the family. Children can be born with all manner of problems. Some begin life in great pain that can never be relieved, but at least there is a child there. An autistic child – and here I am talking about what’s known as core autism – is somehow not there. ‘Nobody Nowhere’, as the title of Donna Williams’s autobiography (1992) has it. Very often physically healthy (though there is a high incidence of other problems) he – and it is usually he – just does not respond. It is not merely that he does not learn to speak until years after his peers, and then inadequately. He has no affect; he never snuggles. He is obsessed with things and order, but does not play with toys in any recognisable way, and certainly does not play with other children. He mercilessly repeats a few things you say. With no comprehension. He has violent tantrums, not the usual sort of thing, but screaming, hitting, biting, smashing. This alternates with a placid gentleness, maybe even a smile – but not really for you. Serious Down’s syndrome is pretty bad too, but despite all the difficulties, physical and mental, there is a loving little child there. That is what is so dreadful about core autism: your child is an alien. Parents who guide their autistic infant through to adulthood, who create a human being who can be loving, who can to some extent compensate for his deficits, who can find some dignity and maybe a modest type of respected work – they are, in my opinion, heroes. Many parents will be angry with what I have just said. ‘It is not like that at all. Peter is the most lovable little boy. copyright © LRB Ltd, 1997-2006

Meredith Wadman Some parents blame their children’s autism on mercury in vaccines.R. Faris/CorbisThe leading US government funder of autism research is drawing fire over its proposal to run a randomized clinical trial of a treatment widely viewed by experts to be useless and potentially harmful, but that is broadly used for autism. Chelation therapy, in which agents such as dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) are used to bind metal ions in the blood so that they can be excreted easily, is an approved treatment for heavy-metal poisoning. Parents are using such therapy on children with autism because of their belief — which has been scientifically discredited — that mercury from vaccinations caused their children’s condition. In May, investigators at the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Maryland, won approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to use DMSA in a trial of children with autism who are aged four to ten years and have detectable, but not toxic, levels of mercury or lead in their blood. The trial, ‘Mercury Chelation to Treat Autism’, is now under ethics review and has not enrolled any patients. Critics say the trial will put children at risk for what is certain to be no medical gain. The American Academy of Pediatrics has concluded that there is no justification for giving children DMSA in the absence of very high levels of heavy-metal exposure, notes epidemiologist Ellen Silbergeld of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. “I don’t know why we have to do this experiment again on children.”

By Benjamin Radford Earlier this week, research published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Pediatrics found no evidence that special diets have any influence on autistic children. This was a blow to some parents of autistic children who had hoped for a cure, but things took a more tragic twist when Diane Sawyer of "ABC Nightly News" followed a report of the autism study with,"We asked Jenny McCarthy, the actress and activist for a response." Um, okay. The news directors at ABC News presumably have some of the world's top experts on hand to provide context and commentary to the new study by scientists and researchers who have spent decades studying autism. Instead, they asked McCarthy, a former model and actress who has no formal education in medicine or autism. Her expertise comes from being the mother of an autistic child -- a sort of “Mommy Doctorate” M.D., which is sort of like saying that owning a car qualifies a person as a mechanic. McCarthy has managed to tap into a strong anti-science, anti-medicine conspiracy theory sentiment that made convicted felon Kevin Trudeau (best-selling author of "Natural Cures ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know About") a rich man. You might think that I'm too harsh on McCarthy. But who knows how many parents buy her best-selling books or see her on "Larry King Live" or ABC News and decide she must be right, and refuse to vaccinate their children for measles, chicken pox, mumps, influenza, polio, hepatitis and more, fearing the vaccine will make them autistic? © 2009 Discovery Communications, LLC

DURHAM, N.C. – A new genetic study, conducted by Duke University Medical Center researchers, has shown that two similar neurodevelopmental disorders – Rett disorder (RD) and autism – once considered to be clinically distinct, may not be as different as previously believed. The researchers' findings suggest that female patients who have been diagnosed with autism should be considered for genetic screening to detect the presence of a mutation in the MeCP2 gene, which is known to cause RD.

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