Scientists have found a gene that autistic children possess that cause a lot of brain clusters in the frontal lobe. This part of the brain is vital for learning, but they had fewer connections to other parts of the brain and this may help scientist figure out how this gene rewires the brain.
Geschwind and some of this colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brains of 32 children as they were doing learning related tasks. Half of the children had autism and the other half didn't. The strength of the brain connections were measured. They found that the children who possessed the autism related gene, contactin, associated CNTNAP2 had strong connections in the frontal lobe but weaker connections in other parts of the brain. Children with this gene have frontal lobes that communicate with itself rather than communicating with other parts of the brain. The connections were weaker with other parts of the brain and lacked long range communication abilities.
This gene can also be found in children who are not autistic and because this gene can be found in autistic and non autistic children. The team also looked into how this gene affects non autistic children and they found the same results. These children had the same additional connections in the frontal lobe but of course were not autistic.
It seems that there is no definite cause of why some children have autism at the current moment although the Autism Society of America lists gene defect as a possible cause. This is because autism has been shown to be hereditary. Recently there has been controversy because some believe that autism is caused by certain vaccines, when given to children. This has caused many parents to refrain from having their children vaccinated. Right now according to the Autism Society of America, they believe that vaccines are important however more research needs to be done in this area. They do not state though that vaccines cause autism directly. This research in the CNTNAP2 gene seems to shed a light on a definite cause. If research can be focused on genetic defect more effective treatments could then follow. However since this gene is found in non autistic children as well I think it is premature to say that this is a cause and that much more research needs to be done.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_envirohealth_vaccines
No offense to the author of this post, but this article is really unnecessary. Why in the world did they even make a point to talk about a gene that they at first thought that it maybe, possibly, might just have something to do with autism, and then say, well it does the same thing in children that are not autistic. So.... the gene has nothing to do with autism. That's what the article should say. That should be it's title, actually. "We Found a Gene That Has Nothing to Do With Autism and Can Be Found in Both Autistic and Non-Autistic Children".
ReplyDeleteNow, if they found that it was dispersed UNEQUALLY between autistic and non-autistic children, then maybe it would have a little more meaning. But the article said its common in non-autistic people, so again, completely pointless to have even written this article.