Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Evidence Maternal Antibodies can Trigger Autism - What starts with V and can Trigger Maternal Antibodies?

As reported in the following excerpt from a EurekaAlert news release, recent mice studies add to previous research indicating that maternal antibodies can trigger autism. Can anyone think of a word starting with the letter V that can trigger antibodies .... and therefore autism?

New studies in pregnant mice using antibodies against fetal brains made by the mothers of autistic children show that immune cells can cross the placenta and trigger neurobehavioral changes similar to autism in the mouse pups.

A report on the research from investigators at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center published online in the Journal of Neuroimmunology expands on a 2008 report from the same team showing that mothers of autistic children tested positive for fetal brain antibodies. Antibodies are proteins the body naturally makes to attack foreign tissues, viruses or bacteria. Because a growing fetus is not "rejected" by the mother's immune system even though some of its DNA is "foreign" (from the father), scientists have long suspected that some combination of maternal and fetal biological protection is at work.

The new research from Hopkins, however, suggests that the protective system is not perfect and that antibodies are not only made but are re-circulated back to the fetus through the placenta, possibly triggering inflammation in the brain and leading to a cascade of neurological changes resulting in neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism.







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3 comments:

farmwifetwo said...

Really...

Looks at youngest son... High B/P, heart rate crash while in antenatal triage, 3 ultrasounds during antenatal stay, stops moving day 4, had to wait until day 5 for non-stress test (YET, in antenatal), Induction, Heart rate crash while in labour, c-section, child sent back b/c of poor colour.....

Let's see... high bp causes protiens.....

Really... Had no idea it was possible...(eye-roll)

Had I known then... what I know now... He would have been 18 days early not 13.

S.

Anonymous said...

Here's one for you Harold. I heard it on CBC news this morning and was shocked. Although I do not know the circumstances around the apprehension, it is another example of our police not understanding autism.

Dawn




ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - Police in Newfoundland are probing a complaint by a mother who says her son was wrongfully jailed by officers who mistook his autistic behaviour for intoxication.

Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Insp. Barry Constantine says the 18-year-old man was apprehended by police while he was walking Saturday night along a road in Mount Pearl, a suburb of St. John's.

Diane Spurrell says her son was returning home from a video store when police approached him and told him to get onto the sidewalk.

Spurrell said that after her son told officers there was no sidewalk in that area, they asked to smell his breath, and he resisted.

Spurrell says police did not give him a chance to explain himself and denied him an opportunity to phone her.

Constantine says the police are investigating the incident.

Mayfly said...

What starts with a V and triggers antibodies? Are you saying that vaccines given to a mother will trigger antibodies against fetal brain tissue? How would antibodies developed as a result of a vaccine attack fetal tissue?

Are not the antibodies in question though to be produced by the mother in response to fetal proteins crossing the placenta?

I'm no expert and not well-educated in this area, but I've e picked up the notion that antibodies were more specific than that. If not why not have one vaccine that targets all viral diseases.