A team of researchers at the University of California Santa Cruz will use a $12.3 million
award to fund the long-term goal of being able to produce a classification system for
different types of ASD based on genetic information.
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by
many symptoms, including differing social behaviors, learning behaviors, sensory aversions,
and repetitive patterns of behavior. ASD was found to have genetic causes in the 1980s,
but there continues to not be a definitive knowledge of why different people struggle with varying severities of the disorder.
The researcher’s plan for these topics is to investigate the biological processes that influence
the disorder. By using cell culture models of brain development obtained from pluripotent stem
cells, the biological influences can be understood and used towards treatments and testing for
ASD in the future.
I think this project as a whole will be very difficult as ASD truly is a spectrum. Many people diagnosed with ASD may have symptoms that overlap different classifications. While it is interesting that they plan to classify different forms of ASD using biological processes, I think what they will find is many of the different types will have very minimal biological differences from one another.
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