An unusually gripping genetics paper from Biological Psychiatry: Pagnamenta et al.The authors discuss a family where two out of the three children were diagnosed with autism. In 2009, they detected a previously unknown copy number variant mutation in the two affected brothers: a 594 kb deletion knocking out two genes, called DOCK4 and IMMP2L.Yet this mutation was also carried by their non-autisti
16 Vote(s)
September 17, 2010
A Tale of Two Genes
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The first man with autism
The Atlantic has an amazing article about the first person ever diagnosed with autism, the now 77 year-old Donald Triplett, who plays a mean game of golf and seems to be doing just fine. The piece tracks the history of both Triplett and our understanding of autism which has changed radically since the diagnosis was [...]
20 Vote(s)
20 Vote(s)
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September 8, 2010
Interneurons are not all created equally: Some classes of interneurons may underlie distinct brain disorders
A type of neuron that, when malfunctioning, has been tied to epilepsy, autism and schizophrenia is much more complex than previously thought, researchers report.
17 Vote(s)
17 Vote(s)
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August 16, 2010
Is Your Brain Autistic?
There's been a lot of buzz and some scepticism about theNew brain scan to diagnose autismHere's a quick overview. Autism is believed to be a disorder of brain development. If so, it should be possible to diagnose it based on a brain scan. Unfortunately, it's not. You can't tell, from a scan, whether someone has autism or not. Not even if you're a world expert.There are reports of various differen
7 Vote(s)
7 Vote(s)
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August 8, 2010
Autism And Antidepressants, No Compelling Evidence That It Helps
Based on current evidence, the commonly practiced therapy of prescribing antidepressants to people with autistic spectrum disorders cannot be recommended, according to a new study by Cochrane researchers...
6 Vote(s)
6 Vote(s)
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July 29, 2010
Global vs Local Cognitive Style in Autism: Central Coherence
The cognitive style known as central coherence is receiving increased attention across a variety of clinical neuroscience disorders. I had not been familiar with this concept of central coherence. Essentially, central coherence describes a style of thinking on a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum, you have individuals who tend to think globally or using a gestalt perspective.
16 Vote(s)
16 Vote(s)
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July 14, 2010
Autism And Wealth
We live in societies where some people are richer than others - though the extent of wealth inequality varies greatly around the world.In general, it's sad but true that poor people suffer more diseases. Within a given country almost all physical and mental illnesses are more common amongst the poor, although this isn't always true between countries.So if a certain disease is more common in rich
17 Vote(s)
17 Vote(s)
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July 5, 2010
Parental Age as a Risk Factor for Bipolar Disorder
Advanced parental age appears to confer increased risk for a variety of clinical neuroscience disorders. First described in Down syndrome, advanced parental age at conception has now been linked to schizophrenia and autism. Effects of advanced parental age on risk have been found for both fathers and mothers. Some disorders appear to have more risk with paternal age while other appear to have
13 Vote(s)
13 Vote(s)
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June 25, 2010
Young People With Autism Are ‘lost In Transition’
Young people with autism are often "lost in transition" and not diagnosed or treated effectively as teenagers, an eminent neuropsychiatrist has said. They end up being excluded from school, or never going to school, and rarely come to the attention of psychiatrists...
5 Vote(s)
5 Vote(s)
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June 16, 2010
Once More into the Breach of Autism and Intellectual Disability (tweaked)
Written before the important Nature study by Pinto et al. (2010), this post takes several posts I've done in the past on autism and intellectual disability, as well as responses to an individual who is positing an 80% rate of ID in autistic disorder, and synthesizes them into one large post while hopefully streamlining it some slight bit.Citing Berkel et al. (2010) as proof that ID is present in
13 Vote(s)
13 Vote(s)
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