Autism linked to genetic glitches

[Guest guest]

No duh its genetic! Only now they are figuring it out?! Someones elevator

doesnt go all the way to the top! But they had better NOT fix it...or they

will destroy the future geniuses of the world.

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Autism linked to genetic glitches

By M. Krieger

lkrieger@...

Posted: 06/09/2010 05:55:15 PM PDT

Updated: 06/09/2010 07:08:59 PM PDT

By M. Krieger

lkrieger@...

New research reveals that genetic glitches are linked to autism, a finding

that might eventually lead to strategies to treat one of the most mysterious

maladies in medical science.

An international team of researchers, coordinated by a Stanford scientist,

announced Wednesday that it has identified dozens of genetic errors linked

to 5 to 10 percent of autism cases. Those errors — caused by missing or

duplicated pieces of DNA — are believed to interfere with the brain's

messaging system.

" Autism can be devastating to families, and we need better treatments, " said

Dr. Joachim Hallmayer of the Stanford Autism Center at Packard Children's

Hospital. " The hope is that if we know which genes and genetic pathways are

implicated in autism, then we can target them more specifically with

treatment. "

Hallmayer organized the 120-member collaborative Autism Genome Project,

which studied the genetic data of 1,000 autistics from 11 different nations.

The quest for genes that underlie autism, a major disorder of cognition, has

been long and frustrating.

Twin and familial studies have shown the condition to be highly genetic —

yet no one has identified a single culprit. Scientists have debunked

theories that autism is caused by vaccines or bad parenting.

Autism is one of the more urgent health problems of the 21st century. In

California, from 1987 to 1998, he number of children getting services for

autism tripled. Then between 1998 and 2002 the number doubled.

Scientists with the Autism Genome Project performed gene scans of

individuals with autistic spectrum disorder, a condition marked by social

isolation, speech problems and strange, repetitive movements. Those scans

were analyzed and compared to those of nonautistic individuals.

They found that individuals with autism carry about 1.7 times more

microscopic errors, also known as deletions or " insertions " in their genome.

Some of the errors seem to be inherited from parents. Others are new, found

only in affected offspring but not parents.

The genes affected by the errors are known to be linked to intellectual

disability.

Funded by the Autism Speaks advocacy group and reported Wednesday in the

journal Nature, the findings support an emerging consensus among scientists

that the condition — like human cognition itself — is extremely complicated.

While some cases of autism are caused by multiple and varied genetic

disruptions, other could be caused by simple one-letter DNA " typos. " Still

others may be influenced by a tangle of environmental circumstances.

" It is much more complex than we thought, " said Hallmayer.

But even if the causes are vast and varied, they may all disrupt just a few

critical biochemical or physiological pathways, he said. Those pathways —

affecting speech, behavior and cognition — could be targets of therapy.

A complete understanding of autism will require an even larger analysis of

affected individuals, Hallmayer added.

" Piece by piece, we are discovering genetic mutations that can cause autism,

said Andy Shih, Autism Speaks vice president for scientific affairs. " These

genetic findings help us understand the underlying biology of autism. "

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