Autism

[Buffy]

A pretty amazing story of an autistic woman is running on CNN today (I imagine CNN International too). She communicates through a keyboard and is absolutely lucid, but cannot speak and has poor motor control otherwise. She even has a presence on Second Life that she's built to mimic how she appears and acts in real life!

The linked page also has the video that's running today.

Differently abled,
Buffy

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Buffy

A pretty amazing story of an autistic woman is running on CNN today (I imagine CNN International too).

I saw it – with all he Autistic Ed folk and video recorders in my family, there was little chance I could miss it.

As I often am, I had misgivings about how the documentary was produced and edited. Clearly, many of the scenes had been audio edited to make Amanda appear more typically conversationally responsive – if you carefully watch her fingers you’ll notice that, in many of the shots, she is not typing enough to even trigger shorthand commands to produce the synthesizes speech responses to Sanjay Gupta’s questions – in one shot, he asks a question, and she “replies” without touching the keyboard at all!

I wish documentary makers would not do this sort of thing. In addition to being unrealistic, it engenders suspicions of a “man behind the curtain” among the observant and skeptical.

None the less, I was amazed by what I saw, and plan to learn as much as I can about this amazing, atypical woman. It had a big impact on the my autistic educator friends and family – they’re already planning to put keyboards in the hands of as many of their kids as possible. Hopefully, the kids, educators, and keyboards will survive the experience, and, maybe, some success come of it.

Amanda Baggs . CNN .

[Buffy]

I agree, but really, CNN is in the entertainment business, and it was "edited to fit the time allowed." Hopefully Nova or The Independent Lens (thank goodness for PBS!) or some other slightly more open venue will take this up and move it forward...

I too got the feeling that the communication wasn't exactly "interactive", but I think that gets at some of the nature of autism (which admittedly know almost nothing about). Communicating with her is probably nothing like talking to Stephen Hawking, but that's not easy either for different reasons. Hidden behind a forum like this one, it sounds like no one could tell the difference. That's where some of the most interesting information lies which CNN did not have the time or patience to pursue.

Lucidity is not intelligence,
Buffy

[Michaelangelica]

Concern over autism diagnosis

Mark Metherell
March 5, 2007

ONE IN every 120 school children in Australia suffers some form of autism, but many can go for years before getting the therapy and specialised schooling they need, a survey has found.

The new figures on the prevalence of autism, the mental affliction that is characterised by an inability to communicate or respond normally with others, have prompted calls for faster diagnosis and specialist schooling for the estimated 10,000 children with the condition.

It is estimated that 125,000 Australians, including adults, have an autism disorder.

Health - Life & Style Home - smh.com.au

[Michaelangelica]

Interesting that they are finding "gut' problems with autism.

I know there is a very high % of coeliacs among Down syndrome kids.
One psychiatrist told me that if Down's syndrome babies were put on a gluten free diet from birth there would be no intellectual retardation

“In spite of so many years of assumptions that a brain disorder like this is not treatable, we’re helping kids get better. So it can’t just be genetic, prenatal, hardwired, and hopeless,” says Harvard pediatric neurologist Martha Herbert, author of a 14,000-word paper in the journal Clinical Neuropsychiatry that reconceptualizes the universe of autism, pulling the brain down from its privileged perch as an organ isolated from the rest of the body. Herbert is well suited to this task, a synthetic thinker who wrote her dissertation on the developmental psychologist Jean Piaget and who then went to medical school late, in her early thirties.

“I no longer see autism as a disorder of the brain but as a disorder that affects the brain,” Herbert says. “It also affects the immune system and the gut. One very striking piece of evidence many of us have noticed is that when autistic children go in for certain diagnostic tests and are told not to eat or drink anything ahead of time, parents often report their child’s symptoms improve—until they start eating again after the procedure.

If symptoms can improve in such a short time frame simply by avoiding exposure to foods, then we’re looking at some kind of chemically driven ‘software’—perhaps immune system signals—that can change fast.
This means that at least some of autism probably comes from a kind of metabolic encephalopathy—a systemwide process that affects the brain, just like cirrhosis of the liver affects the brain.”

Quite a long detailed article
Autism: It’s Not Just in the Head | Health & Medicine | DISCOVER Magazine

[Monomer]

I remember reading about autistic kids having more harmful bacteria in their gut compared with non autistic kids.

Professor Gibson told the annual British Association Festival of Science in Norwich that autistic children often suffered with bowel problems such as diarrhoea and constipation, suggesting that they may not have a normal collection of microbes in their guts.

His team compared the bacteria in faeces samples taken from 50 autistic children with those taken from 50 non-autistic subjects, and found that the samples from autistic children had raised levels of the bacterium clostridium.

AutismConnect - British study links autism to gut bacteria

Clostridium tetani is an ubiquitous anaerobic bacillus that produces a potent neurotoxin. Intestinal colonization by C. tetani, and subsequent neurotoxin release, have been demonstrated in laboratory animals which were fed vegetative cells. The vagus nerve is capable of transporting tetanus neurotoxin (TeNT) and provides a route of ascent from the intestinal tract to the CNS. This route bypasses TeNT's normal preferential binding sites in the spinal cord, and therefore the symptoms of a typical tetanus infection are not evident. Once in the brain, TeNT disrupts the release of neurotransmitters by the proteolytic cleavage of synaptobrevin, a synaptic vesicle membrane protein. This inhibition of neurotransmitter release would explain a wide variety of behavioral deficits apparent in autism.

Entrez PubMed

[Michaelangelica]

Sorry missed I missed the show Buffy but thanks
is it still on the web?

Scary about gut bacteria and viruusus.
How can you test for that without an intrusive bi-opsy?

Owl's Ability to Link Sight and Sound Could Be Key to Treating Attention Disorders

From Scientific American:

SOwlights and sounds fill the world, presenting a panoply of possible foci for the brain. Yet most animals can hone in on whatever sight most demands interest. Then the sounds associated with that sight--be it a loved one talking or a tasty meal skittering through the undergrowth--become all the clearer. This is attention and new research shows how an owl's brain establishes the state. It also provides tantalizing evidence that brains from across the animal kingdom work the same way.

Neurologists Daniel Winkowski and Eric Knudsen of Stanford University wired 12 owls with electrodes in the areas of their brains that process either visual or auditory input. Each region literally maps the world of sound or sight, determining whether it comes from up or down, left or right. Sending a small electrical charge into the owl's visual brain region--the so-called arcopallial gaze fields--caused it to move its head and eyes in a particular direction. When a simultaneous audio stimulus matched that direction, the owl's brain responded more strongly to that noise. It also blocked out competing noises from other directions. Owls are already extremely gifted at tuning in a particular sound, the authors note in their paper published in the current issue of Nature, but pairing a sound with a sight enhanced that ability even further.

More here.

3quarksdaily: January 2006

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

Sorry missed I missed the show Buffy ... is it still on the web?

An article and the video story I was referring to can be found here.

Linkably newsworthy,
Buffy

[Michaelangelica]

Thanks Buffy
The web seems to be geting excited by this but it is a relativly small study

Writing in the journal Clinical Endocrinology, Dr. James Mills of the NICHD and colleagues said they compared the height, weight, head circumference and levels of growth-related hormones to growth and maturation in 71 boys with autism to a group of 59 healthy boys.

The boys with autism had higher levels of two hormones that directly regulate growth -- insulin-like growth factor-1 and IGF-2. The boys also had higher levels of hormones that indirectly affect growth.

Study links autism with growth hormones, big heads - Yahoo! News

Interesting that the Times gives this editorial space

Editorial
Autism in the Vaccine Court

A federal vaccine court in Washington is confronting the contentious and highly emotional issue of whether early childhood vaccinations might have caused autism in thousands of children. Virtually every major scientific study and organization that has weighed in on the issue has seen no link. But many parents of afflicted children remain unconvinced. Their lawyers will try to prove that some 4,800 children were harmed by the mass vaccination campaigns that protect the nation’s youngsters from potentially devastating childhood illnesses.

[Michaelangelica]

Glutamaic System in autism

Recently there is evidence that the glutamate system is affected in autism. Patients with autism have higher blood levels of glutamate than unaffected individuals. Abnormalities of the glutamate system are seen in studies of brains of deceased autistic patients. Genetic studies have shown mutations of glutamate genes in autistic individuals.


. . .Amantadine, a weak inhibitor of the NMDA glutamate receptor, has been tested in autism. The study showed some improvement in irritability and hyperactivity; however, amantadine has a very weak affinity for this receptor and therefore very high doses would be required to get an adequate effect.

Participate in Research - :: Cure Autism Now ::

It will be interesting to see these results

The largest search for autism genes to date, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has implicated components of the brain's glutamate chemical messenger system and a previously overlooked site on chromosome 11. Based on 1,168 families with at least two affected members, the genome scan adds to evidence that tiny, rare variations in genes may heighten risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASD).
. . .
Clues emerged adding to evidence that implicates components of the brain's glutamate neurotransmitter system in autism. Glutamate increases neuronal activity and plays an important role in wiring up the brain during early development. Since autism likely stems from faulty wiring, a genetic blueprint gone awry in this pivotal neurotransmitter system is a prime suspect. Some key genes associated with the glutamate system are located in chromosome regions previously associated with autism, note the researchers.
. . .
Previous studies have also linked abnormal glutamate functioning to disorders such as Fragile X syndrome and tuberous sclerosis, which share some symptoms with autism. It's not unusual for individuals with either syndrome to be diagnosed with autism.
Among the new clues is stronger evidence for an association between autism and sites of genes for neurexins, molecules that build glutamate synapses – the connection machinery by which brain cells communicate.
A site on chromosome 11 most strongly linked to autism in this study harbors genes for proteins that shuttle glutamate across the synapse. Although detected previously, the linkage signal at this site was regarded as less important until now.

Largest-ever search for autism genes reveals new clues


See also Hypography threads on schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, 'MSG Chain Letter meme, and Clinical depression.