What is Autism Anyway?

What is Autism? We are about people being diagnosed with this disease all the time but what is it really? Most people know the autism is a mental disorder in which the person has social problems. Normally they don’t interact or deal with certain social situations as others would and tend to be isolated. They also tend to develop intense interest in objects or subjects. Autism can also present it self in varying degrees, which is why there is an autism-spectrum used for diagnosis. Autism is a neurological disorder but it is not a straightforward one.
From the article we read there are a few issues in the brain that cause autism. One of the simpler ones is synapse dysfunction. Basically there are 2 proteins that help structure your synapses. Neuroexins and neuroligins form in the presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons and bind to line up the neurons. In autism the neuroligins don’t function correctly affecting the neurons ability to transmit signals. Whats interesting about this is that it can be fixed. Just as learning involved synapses being created, we can essentially teach these neurons to fire correctly. Through therapy autistic people can learn to overcome their social issues.
Another interesting link this article presented was that of PUFAs or polyunsaturated fatty acids and autism. PUFAs in general are a good fat, if you are going to eat fat this is the kind you want. People diagnosed with autism show a decrease in PUFAs in their red blood cell membranes. PUFAs promote BDNF, which promotes neuron health and growth. PUFAs, such as arachadonic acid, also promote formation of SNARE complexes, which help in neuron outgrowth, and anti-inflammatory lipids, So your diet does play a role in autism. It has been shown that children with autism that change their diet to include more PUFAs show a decrease in symptoms. Autism can’t simply be cured with a better diet but it is interesting that something like that can help.
One topic we discussed as a group is the increase in autism diagnosis. As with a lot of neurological diseases, I believe that part of this has to do with awareness and better diagnostic processes. We are aware that autism exists and what the symptoms are so we can better find it. Although the procedure for testing for autism isn’t exact. There is no blood test or imaging we can due to find autism, it is solely a behavior examination. So both awareness and perhaps a little misdiagnosis may play a role in the increase. It may also have to due with diet. A lot of foods we eat today contain saturated fats. Since we generally have diets low in polyunsaturated fats and high in saturated, we arent getting the neuroprotection we normally would and this is causing autism. While this isn’t the only problem, I do think that pregnant and nursing mothers could eat a diet high in PUFAs to help prevent the development of autism.
Overall autism isn’t a disease that we fully understand. We have some idea on what causes it and some ways to help treat it but nothing is perfect yet. Hopefully with awareness and continued research some day we can crack this disease.