What is Autism?
Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior. Parents usually notice signs in the first two years of their child’s life.
The causes of autism are attributed to genetics and environmental cues, but the exact causes are being investigated by researchers right now. Because autism is a spectrum disorder with many varying degrees of severity, there might be a slightly different cause for each person.
One symptom found in almost all cases of autism spectrum disorder is too many synapses in the brain.
Synaptic Pruning and Autism
During childhood and adolescence, the brain needs to prune many synapses so other areas of the brain can develop more specific functions and not be overloaded with stimuli.
Biologically, in autistic patients there is an oversupply of synapses in some parts of the brain. This means that there is something happening in their brains that is not allowing them to prune the neurons.
The increase in synapses can explain common symptoms like oversensitivity to noise and social experiences in addition to the epileptic seizures as there are more electrical signals being transmitted in the brain.
SIDENOTE: This biological problem seen in autistic patients is caused by interactions between their genes and the environment, NOT vaccines.
Some research studies have now shown the increase in dendritic spines in autistic adults in comparison to a normal adult brain.
They have found that in people with autism, their brains have a dysfunction in how they get rid of those extra synapses. Researchers have shown this in pictures looking at autophagy markers. Autophagy is a term for the process of getting rid of the extra synapses or unused cells in the brain.
Future medicinal options
Researchers have made rats that have autism to study different potential drugs for the disorder. One drug they looked at, rapamycin, was able to prune the brain of these extra synapses in the adult autistic rats. This drug would be too harsh to use on humans though.
These results give researchers hope that finding a drug that could help the pruning process in humans could make those with autism have less severe symptoms.
The Role of Synaptic Pruning in Autism
