Autism Likely Caused By Interplay of Immune, Genetic and Environmental factors

Following is the link to an abstract of an article, Antibodies against fetal brain in sera of mothers with autistic children, published in the February issue of the Journal of Neuroimmunology

and the media release translating it into ordinary language for us mortals which implicates the mother's immune system as a possible contributing factor in causing autism.

Lead investigator Harvey Singer, M.D., director of pediatric neurology at John Hopkins Children's Center, stresses that autism is a complex condition caused by an interplay of immune, genetics and environmental factors. Further studies are needed to confirm that particular antibodies do indeed cross the placenta and cause damage to the fetal brain.

Autism's Origins: Mother's Antibody Production May Affect Fetal Brain BALTIMORE, Feb. 25


(AScribe Newswire) -- The mothers of some autistic children may have made antibodies against their fetuses' brain tissue during pregnancy that crossed the placenta and caused changes that led to autism, suggests research led by Johns Hopkins Children's Center investigators and published in the February issue of the Journal of Neuroimmunology.

The causes of autism, a disorder manifesting itself with a range of brain problems and marked by impaired social interactions, communication disorders and repetitive behaviors, remain unknown for an estimated 90 percent of children diagnosed with it. Genetic, metabolic and environmental factors have been implicated in various studies of autism, a disorder affecting 1 in 150 U.S. children, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Now our research suggests that the mother's immune system may be yet another factor or a trigger in those already predisposed," says lead investigator Harvey Singer, M.D., director of pediatric neurology at Hopkins Children's.

Researchers caution that the findings needn't be cause for alarm, but should be viewed instead as a step forward in untangling the complex nature of autism.

Mostly anecdotal past evidence of immune system involvement has emerged from unusual antibody levels in some autistic children and from postmortem brain tissue studies showing immune abnormalities in areas of the brain. Antibodies are proteins the body makes in response to viruses and bacteria or sometimes mistakenly against its own tissues. Yet, the majority of children with autism have no clinical evidence of autoimmune diseases, which prompted researchers to wonder whether the antibodies transferred from mother to child during pregnancy could interfere with the fetal brain directly.

To test their hypothesis, the research team used a technique called immunoblotting (or Western blot technology), in which antibodies derived from blood samples are exposed to adult and fetal brain tissue to check whether the antibodies recognize and react against specific brain proteins.

Comparing the antibody-brain interaction in samples obtained from 100 mothers of autistic children and 100 mothers of children without autism, researchers found either stronger reactivity or more areas of reactivity between antibodies and brain proteins in about 40 percent of the samples obtained from the mothers of autistic children. Further, the presence of maternal antibodies was associated with so-called developmental regression in children, increasingly immature behaviors that are a hallmark of autism.

While the findings suggest an association between autism and the presence of fetal brain antibodies, the investigators say further studies are needed to confirm that particular antibodies do indeed cross the placenta and cause damage to the fetal brain.

"The mere fact that a pregnant woman has antibodies against the fetal brain doesn't mean she will have an autistic child," Singer says. "Autism is a complex condition and one that is likely caused by the interplay of immune, genetic and environmental factors."

Researchers are also studying the effect of maternal antibodies in pregnant mice. Preliminary results show that the offspring of mice injected with brain antibodies exhibit developmental and social behaviors consistent with autism.

Senior author on the study: Andrew W. Zimmerman, M.D., of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders at the Kennedy Krieger Institute.

Co-authors: Christina Morris and Colin Gause, both of Hopkins; Pam Gillin of the Kennedy Krieger Institute; and Stephen Crawford, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study was funded by the Alliance for Autism Research.

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CONTACT: Ekaterina Pesheva, Johns Hopkins Children's Center, 410-516-4996, pager 410-283-1966, epeshev1@jhmi.edu

autism

Autism Surging - Some Plain Truth From Dr. McCarton

With news of autism surge in the UK the response was swift. Vaccine causes autism believers claimed vindication. Simon Baron-Cohen, for reasons that aren't clear, went 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Not content to point out the current scientific consensus negating the existence of a causal relationship between vaccines and autism the Baron-Cohen went on to say that we should assume that the surge is simply a result of changing diagnostic criteria and increased awareness. On that assumption there is no scientific consensus.

From Cecelia McCarton, M.D. comes some common sense and some truth speaking: we simply don't know what is behind the staggering increases in reported cases of autism. The implication of that factual statement is that we should not as Baron-Cohen advocates assume that environmental factors play no role in the autism surge that the world is witnessing.

Dr. Cecelia McCarton is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She is the founder and director of the McCarton Center for Developmental Pediatrics and the Executive Director of the McCarton School for children with autism spectrum disorders.

Surge in Autism Cases Confounds Researchers, Expert Says

By Victor M. Inzunza

The nation is in the midst of an “explosion” in the number of children with autism and researchers are at a loss to explain the surge in cases, said an expert in the treatment of childhood developmental disorders at a conference at Fordham University.

Speaking at the Fordham Graduate School of Education’s fifth annual Early Childhood Conference on April 27, Cecelia McCarton, M.D., said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimate the prevalence of autism among American children at 1 in 150.

“These children are coming at us day after day after day,” said McCarton, a professor of clinical pediatrics at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine and founder of the McCarton School, which treats children with autism. “The numbers are staggering. I would say that 15 years ago, if I saw two children a month who … were classified as being autistic, that was a lot ... . Now, I probably see four or five cases a week that come to my office.

“We don’t know the reason for this. We simply don’t know the reason this is occurring.”

Autism is a spectrum of developmental disabilities that strike early in childhood that can interfere with the ability to communicate, learn and form relationships, locking some young people in a kind of mental prison.

The conference, which was co-sponsored by Los Niños Services, Autism Speaks and Riverside Publishing, drew more than a dozen scholars and healthcare professionals from throughout the country to discuss the latest research on and treatment of autism and developmental disabilities.

Autism is a particularly difficult disorder to treat, McCarton said, because of its pervasive nature. Unlike disorders that affect only motor skills or speech and language, she said, autism “cuts across every single developmental area.”

For McCarton, a key is to first get a comprehensive evaluation of the child that includes such things as a neurological exam, cognitive testing, speech and language assessments, and physical and occupational therapy evaluations.

This comprehensive exam should form the basis of a tailored and multidisciplinary plan to help the child overcome some of autism’s most ravaging effects.

“If you give a diagnosis [of autism], it is not a death sentence,” she said. “There is hope. What we are able to do now with children who are on the [autism] spectrum would have been inconceivable 50 years ago. So there is tremendous hope. Of course, it’s sad. Nobody wants that for their child…, but we can really do something about this.”

http://tinyurl.com/3asfx2