SFARI News

On the right track

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:00:00 -0800

Moving a drug from the lab bench to the pharmacy's shelves takes about 10 years. But for one controversial autism treatment, the process might be much quicker.

Studies challenge link between premature birth and autism

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:00:00 -0800

The proposed connection between premature birth and autism may be more complicated than it seems, according to a new report. Early birth may not cause classically defined autism but, rather, may predispose children to autism-like symptoms that are part of a larger syndrome, the researchers say.

Postmortem brains point to impaired inhibition in autism

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 06:00:00 -0800

Researchers have found a higher density of several types of interneurons — nerve cells that connect sensory and motor neurons in the brain— in postmortem brain tissue from individuals with autism, compared with healthy controls. The findings appear in the February issue of Acta Neurologica Scandinavica.

Tried and trusted

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:00:00 -0800

The latest findings on oxytocin — a.k.a. the 'trust hormone' — secure its position as a frontrunner among emerging treatments for autism.

Clinical, animal studies probe DISC1's role in autism

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:00:00 -0800

Several genetic and animal studies in the past year have found intriguing ties between autism and DISC1, one of the oldest candidate genes for psychiatric disorders.

People with autism stumble on self-other distinctions

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0800

When thinking about themselves, adults with autism have lower activity in two specific brain regions than do healthy controls, according to an imaging study published in the February issue of Brain.

Class struggles

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:45:00 -0800

The psychiatrists who literally write the book on the definitions of mental illness have announced their plan to group all autism spectrum disorders, including Asperger's syndrome, under a single category.

Dog pedigrees unearth genes for psychiatric disease

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0800

Researchers are using dogs as models of psychiatric and behavioral conditions, including obsessive-compulsive disorder and autism.

Pregnancy drugs increase baby's autism risk, group claims

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:00:00 -0800

A class of medications widely used during pregnancy to treat asthma and prevent early labor increases the baby's risk of autism and other psychiatric disorders, according to a controversial review in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Culture shock

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:22:00 -0800

Here's a remarkable statistic you may not have heard: white children are two to three times more likely to be diagnosed with the disorder than are their Hispanic peers.

Rare deletions on chromosome 16 tie autism to obesity

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0800

Individuals who carry a large and rare deletion on chromosome 16 that is associated with autism are likely to have developmental delays, be obese or both, according to two studies published last week in Nature.

Budget boom

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0800

There's good news for autism research tucked into President Obama's 2011 budget proposal: $222 million of it, to be exact.

Tuberous sclerosis linked to brain cell migration

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0800

The TSC2 gene, mutations in which cause tuberous sclerosis complex, is needed for budding nerve fibers to find their proper targets in the brain, according to a mouse study published in Nature Neuroscience.

Variants in trust hormone receptor up the risk for autism

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 07:00:00 -0800

Genetic variations that tweak the brain's release of oxytocin — a hormone involved in social bonding and establishing trust — may increase the risk of developing autism or autistic traits, according to three new studies published in the past few months.

First drug for autism enters final stage of testing

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:02:00 -0800

A large clinical trial to test the first drug specifically designed to treat autism is under way at 12 sites across the United States.

Workshop Report - Sequencing

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:32:00 -0800

As the number of available DNA samples continues to increase and the cost of sequencing continues to drop, one can't help but want to capture all of the genetic variation that might be contributing to autism susceptibility in these families. Toward this end, SFARI organized a one-day workshop on the prospects for sequencing samples from the Simons Simplex Collection.

MEGa marker

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:03:00 -0800

The brains of children with autism show a delayed response to sound, which may lead to their language problems.

Food for thought

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:07:00 -0800

There is no evidence to support the idea of autism-specific gut problems, according to a review published Monday in Pediatrics.

Guoping Feng: Unearthing the roots of compulsive behavior

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 06:00:00 -0800

Guoping Feng's perseverance has proven a boon to the hundreds of neuroscientists who rely on his most celebrated scientific achievement: two dozen mouse strains engineered to have brightly colored brain cells. By creating the first robust mouse model of obsessive-compulsive disorder, Feng has also found a way to study repetitive behaviors, one of the three core characteristics of autism.

Approving news

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:13:00 -0800

In the spirit of Thanks-giving, those dealing with autism received some welcome news last week: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Abilify (aripiprazole) as a treatment for autism-related irritability.

The entire spectrum

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:28:00 -0800

A newer version of the psychiatric manual may expand the definition of autism, folding in Asperger's syndrome and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified or P.D.D.-N.O.S.

Lessons from an obscure tumor

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:40:00 -0700

There are well- established paternal age effects in diseases less common than autism. A new paper in Nature Genetics explains how the effects might arise, and it involves a kind of tumor you’ve probably never heard of.

Michael Wigler: Applying simple logic to complex genetics

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:28:00 -0700

Interested more in ideas than in dominating a crowded field, Michael Wigler decided to apply his expertise in cancer genetics to studying poorly understood features of autism.

The 2003 paper linking neuroligins to autism: Commentary by Elaine Budreck and Peter Scheiffele

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 04:15:00 -0800

Unraveling the etiology of autism has been one of the most puzzling challenges in medicine over the past decades. Although in his first description in 1943, Leo Kanner referred to autism as an innate disorder, prevailing views in the years that followed focused on environmental influences ― ranging from cold, unfit mothers to vaccines ― as the primary causative agents of the disorder.

Workshop report - The cognitive phenotype in autism

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 03:36:00 -0700

Autism is a developmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior. Because there are no biological markers for the disorder, it is defined and diagnosed purely behaviorally. But the precise cognitive phenotype is not well understood.

Papers that defined diagnostic tools for autism research: by Isabelle Rapin and Sylvie Goldman

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:10:00 -0700

It took 50 years for scientists to develop instruments reliable enough to be considered the gold standards for diagnosing autism. Autism has always been around, but it was not until the mid-1940s that Leo Kanner in the United States and Hans Asperger in Austria, both physicians, independently described children with what we now recognize as autism.

1985 paper on the Theory of Mind: Commentary by Rebecca Saxe

Fri, 09 May 2008 02:39:00 -0700

Most people are vastly more interested in the invisible aspects of other peopleʼs actions than in the visible ones. What we generally want to know about others is their “interior workings and invisible aims” ― that is, their beliefs, desires and intentions.

1977 paper on the first autism twin study: Commentary by Angelica Ronald and Robert Plomin

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:38:00 -0700

Autism is caused by poor parenting, particularly by ‘frigidʼ mothers who reject their children. Such a statement would seem bizarre today. But 30 years ago parents, especially mothers, were blamed for their childrenʼs autism. Imagine what it must have felt like to be the parent of a child with autism and then to be told it was all your fault. This environment prevailed even after Leo Kanner, who first characterized autism in 1943, assumed it was caused ‘constitutionallyʼ.

Huda Zoghbi's 1999 Rett syndrome paper: Commentary by Stephen Warren

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 08:06:00 -0800

n 1997 I took part in a workshop convened by the US National Institutes of Health to sift through the conflicting literature surrounding a rare and then poorly understood disorder known as Rett syndrome (RTT). Although the disorder was first described in Germany as early as the mid-1960s by Andreas Rett, it was not widely appreciated until 1983, when Bengt Hagberg and colleagues reported on a series of similar patients2.

Leo Kanner's 1943 paper on autism: Commentary by Gerald Fischbach

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 07:04:00 -0800

Donald T. was not like other five-year-old boys. Leo Kanner knew that the moment he read the 33-page letter from Donaldʼs father that described the boy in obsessive detail as “happiest when he was alone... drawing into a shell and living within himself... oblivious to everything around him.”