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kpete

(71,898 posts)
Sat Mar 29, 2014, 09:57 AM Mar 2014

New Study-gives clear and direct new evidence that autism begins during pregnancy.

Patches of Cortical Layers Disrupted During Early Brain Development in Autism



Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Allen Institute for Brain Science have published a study that gives clear and direct new evidence that autism begins during pregnancy.

The study will be published in the March 27 online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The researchers – Eric Courchesne, PhD, professor of neurosciences and director of the Autism Center of Excellence at UC San Diego, Ed S. Lein, PhD, of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, and first author Rich Stoner, PhD, of the UC San Diego Autism Center of Excellence – analyzed 25 genes in post-mortem brain tissue of children with and without autism. These included genes that serve as biomarkers for brain cell types in different layers of the cortex, genes implicated in autism and several control genes.

“Building a baby’s brain during pregnancy involves creating a cortex that contains six layers,” Courchesne said. “We discovered focal patches of disrupted development of these cortical layers in the majority of children with autism.” Stoner created the first three-dimensional model visualizing brain locations where patches of cortex had failed to develop the normal cell-layering pattern.

http://health.ucsd.edu/news/releases/Pages/2014-03-26-cortical-layer-disruption-and-autism.aspx
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New Study-gives clear and direct new evidence that autism begins during pregnancy. (Original Post) kpete Mar 2014 OP
This vaguely reminds me of colony collapse disorder studies Erich Bloodaxe BSN Mar 2014 #1
+1 n/t lumberjack_jeff Mar 2014 #3
Wow! I hope your hypothesis is tested quickly. hedda_foil Mar 2014 #6
Time to start quarantining anti-vaxxers. GiveMeMorePIE Mar 2014 #2
I won't argue. Bonobo Mar 2014 #4
You mean it starts before children get vaccinated? Vashta Nerada Mar 2014 #5

Erich Bloodaxe BSN

(14,733 posts)
1. This vaguely reminds me of colony collapse disorder studies
Sat Mar 29, 2014, 10:16 AM
Mar 2014

There was one I read through a few months back in which the way in which the nicotinoids (sp?) from herbicides they tested in tiny, tiny amounts were being carried back to the colony by workers and winding up in the food for larvae and causing developmental problems in the midgut of the bees that left them exceptionally vulnerable to winding up with parasites.

Prior to that study, a lot of people had been thinking the chemicals couldn't be linked to CCD, because they weren't directly present in bees tested even down to the limits of testing.

To my mind, this suggests, more and more that autism and other developmental disorders are linked to environmental factors that are affecting the pregnant mother. I wonder what the anti-vaxxer crowd will say to the UCSD study.

hedda_foil

(16,368 posts)
6. Wow! I hope your hypothesis is tested quickly.
Sat Mar 29, 2014, 01:04 PM
Mar 2014

I believe the herbicide ingredient is called neonicitinoid. I wonder if the huge increase in autism tends to occur in clusters around areas where this stuff is used on crops.

 

GiveMeMorePIE

(54 posts)
2. Time to start quarantining anti-vaxxers.
Sat Mar 29, 2014, 10:41 AM
Mar 2014

They are a public health risk and shouldn't be allowed to interact with the rest of the population.

Bonobo

(29,257 posts)
4. I won't argue.
Sat Mar 29, 2014, 11:12 AM
Mar 2014

I'll just say that I would rather live near them than somebody that would say something as fascist sounding as what you just said.

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