The deluge of genetic and brain-imaging research over the past couple of years has tied autism to many other brain diseases — epilepsy, schizophrenia, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, just to name a few.
A behavioral study published earlier this month suggests a curious addition to the list: anorexia nervosa.
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The molecular defects that cause some cases of autism may arise during the development of neuronal stem cells, according to a new theory bolstered by several independent animal and human studies.
The hypothesis originated in a study published last July in which scientists deleted a specific transcription factor — a protein that controls how other genes are expressed — from mouse neuronal stem cells. Adult mice missing that factor, called myocyte enhancer factor 2 (MEF2), develop smaller neurons and fewer synapses, the junctions between neurons, compared with healthy controls.
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But on a less well-known test of general intelligence, people with autism perform surprisingly well — with accuracy equal to and speeds up to 40 percent faster than those of healthy controls, says a study published this week.
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The trouble is, for now these hypotheses leave us with more questions than answers. At what stage of pregnancy does a flu infection confer the most risk? Do these prenatal conditions lead to a range of developmental disorders, or specifically autism? How much does genetic predisposition come into play?
On Tuesday, researchers from four U.S. institutions launched a huge study that sets out to unpack some of this complexity. The Early Autism Risk Longitudinal Investigation (EARLI) will follow 1,200 pregnant women who already have a child with autism.
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The provocative question of whether autism is a disease to be cured or an identity to be preserved is addressed in a review of two new books in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
The author of the review, Jeffrey Munson, uses the vivid metaphor of an “archipelago of autism” to describe the books’ contrasting approaches.
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Five months after 19-year-old Anwari Begum’s wedding, her body was found charred beside two empty kerosene cans near her home in South Delhi, India. Years later, a court found Begum’s husband and mother-in-law guilty of her murder. Their motive: The young bride had not paid a large enough dowry.
Fire accounts for 2 percent of all deaths in India, according to a report published recently in The Lancet by Veena Das, chair of the Krieger School’s Department of Anthropology, and colleagues from Harvard University. Women, most between the ages of 15 and 34, account for nearly two-thirds of those deaths, the study found. Indian women usually cook family meals, leaving them more vulnerable to kitchen accidents. But experts attribute most of the gender skew in fire deaths to dowry disputes and other forms of domestic violence. Although outlawed in 1961, demanding a dowry — even several years into a marriage — remains common practice throughout India. Some Indian women also practice hypergamy, or “marrying up” to a higher caste, which may breed resentment from the groom’s family and result in demands for a heftier dowry.
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Such observation is standard for epilepsy patients, because it allows doctors to pinpoint the part of a patient’s brain where the seizures originate. But the data that neurologists gleaned from Hearn’s brain was anything but standard. While at Columbia, Hearn was the first to have a new kind of brain-wave recording device implanted, a device that neurologists hope will lead to a way to predict seizures—and someday, a way to prevent them.
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