Wednesday, November 26, 2014

How Many Different Forms of Autism Are There?

“'If you’ve seen one kid with autism, you’ve seen one kid with autism,’ meaning that it’s impossible to draw conclusions by looking at just a few people.” This article states that there are hundreds or even thousands of different types of autism based on genetic evidence. The range of symptoms of autism can be anywhere from high functioning to constant assistance. This study focuses on categorizing the different types of autism by the genes from which they originate, rather than the previous way of generalizing based on phenotypes.

The Simons Variation in Individuals Project (Simons VIP) characterized almost 200 people with variations on the 16p11.2 chromosomal region. “About 20 percent of individuals with deletions in this region and 10 percent with duplications have autism.” In the past couple of years it has been observed that a much larger study would need to be completed with more people. It has also become easier to look more closely at DNA by analyzing the protein-coding sequences of genomes (about 1% of close to 3 billion base pairs). Through this type of analysis it became clear that even with more than 2500 participants more would be needed. They never say the same sequence twice which makes it hard to categorize autism into distinct types.

The objective of this study, and many like it, is to not only distinguish between the different types of autism but to also find commonalities with in all of them. When this is done it would be easier to diagnose and find a potential treatment plan on an individual basis.




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