Autism, experienced by around one-in-50 people, is caused by extreme levels of socially valued personality traits.
It is a myth that people with autism cannot read emotions, however there is one they have difficulty with.
Scientists think the problematic social behaviour of people with autism is related to this vitamin deficiency.
One surprising trait that is linked to good social psychological knowledge.
The test could make it easier to detect autism in young children.
This strange autism symptom may provide a clue to better treatments.
This vitamin is central to the development of health neuronal connections.
Almost one in 50 children are diagnosed with autism.
The drug had no obvious side-effects.
The drug had no obvious side-effects.
A drug used to treat cancer could reverse the symptoms of autism in three days, new research finds.
Mice with autism given the drug showed a reversal in the social symptoms of autism.
The drug’s effects lasted three weeks, which in human terms is several years — so the drug appears long-lasting.
The drug — called romidepsin — is approved for fighting cancer by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Professor Zhen Yan, who led the study, said:
“We have discovered a small molecule compound that shows a profound and prolonged effect on autism-like social deficits without obvious side effects, while many currently used compounds for treating a variety of psychiatric diseases have failed to exhibit the therapeutic efficacy for this core symptom of autism.”
Previous studies have shown that autism suppresses the effects of over 200 genes and romidepsin restores most of these.
Professor Yan said:
“Autism involves the loss of so many genes.
To rescue the social deficits, a compound has to affect a number of genes that are involved in neuronal communication.”
The discovery relies on the fact that risk genes for autism and cancer overlap.
Professor Yan said:
“The extensive overlap in risk genes for autism and cancer, many of which are chromatin remodeling factors, supports the idea of repurposing epigenetic drugs used in cancer treatment as targeted treatments for autism.”
The study was published in the journal Nature Neuroscience (Qin et al., 2018).
The compound is found in over 600 different drugs.
The compound is found in over 600 different drugs.
Acetaminophen — commonly known as Tylenol in the US and paracetamol elsewhere — has been newly linked to autism and hyperactivity.
It is the first study ever to find a link between mothers taking acetaminophen during pregnancy and autism spectrum disorders in their children.
The Spanish research followed 2,644 pairs of mothers and children over five years.
It found that 41% had been exposed to acetaminophen in the first 32 weeks of pregnancy.
The tests five years later found that children who were persistently exposed to acetaminophen during pregnancy had:
Boys in particular who were exposed to acetaminophen in the womb showed more autism spectrum symptoms.
Girls, though, were more prone to attention-related and hyperactivity problems.
Dr. Jordi Júlvez, one of the study’s authors, said:
“Paracetamol could be harmful to neurodevelopment for several reasons.
First of all, it relieves pain by acting on cannabinoid receptors in the brain.
Since these receptors normally help determine how neurons mature and connect with one another, paracetamol could alter these important processes.
It can also affect the development of the immune system, or be directly toxic to some fetuses that may not have the same capacity as an adult to metabolize this drug, or by creating oxidative stress.”
The study did not measure autism diagnoses, Dr Claudia Avella-Garcia, the study’s first author, explained:
“…although we measured symptoms and not diagnoses, an increase in the number of symptoms that a child has, can affect him or her, even if they are not severe enough to warrant a clinical diagnosis of a neurodevelopmental disorder.”
The different effects of acetaminophen on boys and girls could be vital, Dr Avella-Garcia said:
“The male brain may be more vulnerable to harmful influences during early life.
Our differing gender results suggest that androgenic endocrine disruption, to which male brains could be more sensitive, may explain the association.”
It is not yet known what the exact balance of risks and benefits is from using acetaminophen.
Further studies will be required to examine the link.
The study was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology (Avella-Garcia et al., 2016).
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