Autism: Research is pointing the way to understanding and treatment

According to a report on NPR's Morning Edition, April 8, 2009, Cyber Scout Puts Autism Studies On Faster Track, the Interactive Autism Network, IAN, is helping to recruit people with autism and their families for research. The Web site was created by the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore.

The inability to recruit people for autism studies has, in the past, held up research projects for months and years. IAN makes recruiting easier and allows large studies to proceed without delay. One such study was successful in linking high rates of depression in mothers with an increase in the likelihood of having a child born with autism.

Information needed to enroll in the database is given on the IAN Web site. It includes information on the eligible diagnoses considered for research.

Time Magazine, in its April 7, 2009 edition, features a story called Why Fever Helps Autism: A New Theory.

Parents of children with autism have been reporting for many years that their children's symptoms recede when they have a fever. Finally, the phenomenon was confirmed in a 2007 paper in the journal Pediatrics. Then two researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine tied the phenomenon to the locus coeruleus, a small knot of neurons located deep in the brain stem.

The locus coeruleus governs the release of the neurotransmitter noradrenaline which triggers the fight-or-flight response (alarm and arousal). It plays a role in the ability to pay attention to environmental cues, an ability that people with autism lack. It also regulates fever.

A malfunctioning locus coeruleus may be caused by genes damaged by environmental toxins and stress. A 2008 study showed that mothers who lived through a hurricane during pregnancy, had a greater likelihood of giving birth to an autistic child. Under extreme stress, the stress hormone cortisol from the mother may blast its way through the placenta and cause damage to this part of the brain. Yet another study shows a link between cortisol imbalance and Asperger's Syndrome.

As one step leads to another, the possibility of using medication to target noradrenalin receptors as a treatment for autism enters the realm of speculation.

See, it does pay to listen to parents.