NOVEL STUDY SUGGESTS TREATMENT POSSIBILITIES FOR AUTISM

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WASHINGTON: People with autism have too many synapses -- the connectors by which brain cells send and pick up signals -- According to a novel study that may steer to a treatment for the complex disorder..



Autism:

Autism is a disorder of brain and affects the brain's normal development of social and communication sciences.  This disease is usually observed in young children and appears in the first three years of life. Autism occurs four to five times more frequently in boys than girls.
Some babies may show early signs while some don't. Autistic people have difficulties in social interaction and verbal and nonverbal communications.


Causes:

Genetics is the major factor that causes autism. The other factors that cause this disease are:

• Diet
• Mercury Poisoning
• Vaccine sensitivity

NOTE:  These causes have been suspected, but not proven.

The failure of normal operation of tossing away old and degraded cells results in extra synapses in autistic brains. 

STUDY:

A protein called mTOR, which in autistic patients goes very hyperactive and blocks the brain's natural ability to cull synapse. The researchers at New York´s University of Columbia used a drug called rapamycin to block this protein. By treating these mice, the researchers considered a reduction in autistic behaviors. 

"We were able to treat the mice after the disease had appeared," said Columbia University neurobiologist David Sulzer.

"This is crucial because autism does not become apparent at birth but later in childhood, so you need a treatment that works after diagnosis. If we were correct we should be able to have quite effective treatment even after diagnosis," he added.

This study analyzed tissues from the cerebral cortex, which is involved in speech and social behaviors.  From 48 cadavers of subjects ranging in age from two to 20 at their deaths. 26 had been diagnosed with autism, and 22 were not. The neurologists notices an amazing thing that early in childhood, both groups have equal number of synapses. In this study, they also noticed that a 19 year-old without autism had around 41 percent fewer synapses than a young child tyke. In this study, the neurologists noted also that excess of synapses increases the risk of epilepsy, since there were more electrical signals crossing through the brain.  

David Sulzer said, "it might be possible to adapt rapamycin to treat some autistic patients to help lessen the sometimes debilitating symptoms."

However, he also noted that rapamycin is not an ideal drug for the treatment of Autism as this drug is immuno-suppressant, which is not a long-term treatment, especially for those youngsters and teenagers whose bodies are still developing.