Cobbers on the Brain

What is Autism?
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by impaired social interaction. Other symptoms include restricted repetitive behaviors, interests and activities. These symptoms often lead to impairment in social and occupational functioning. The cause of ASD is still not completely understood, however a recent review article summed up much of what we know so far about the pathology of ASD. This article essentially tells us that there are a number of genes that are linked to ASD a number of them code for proteins that impact the growth and development of neurons and synapses. One way I like to think of what is going on with the neurons is that they are not communicating very well. Now the brain has multiple regions to it that each has a specific function and for each of these brain regions to work properly it must be connected to other parts of the brain. One symptom we see in ASD is over-connectivity of neurons within a certain region but under-connectivity between the brain regions. Because ASD is a  spectrum we see a wide array of symptoms and a wide array of severity of those functions.
Is there a diet suggested for people with ASD?
Many parents of children with ASD report that their child’s behavior improves when they eat a dairy and gluten free diet.
Does this diet actually work?
In 2009 a review of research concluded that there was not enough evidence to say empirically that a gluten and dairy free diet helped with autistic behaviors. However there has been more recent research into the topic and two different studies (One from Denmark and one from Penn state) both showed that if the diet was stuck to very strictly for at least 6 months or more, patients showed improvements in behavior. Improvements meaning less hyperactivity, temper tantrums and speech skills.
How hard is the diet to implement?
It can be difficult to very strictly watch the diet of any child and perhaps especially one with autism so the Autism Research Institute issued a couple helpful tips to parents about implementing this diet. The full article can be found here. But to sum up they essentially said that taking “cheat” days can be a bad idea and to really watch out for foods that could be hiding gluten or dairy.
 

Neurochemistry, or neurochem as we like to call it, has been single handedly the most interesting class I have ever taken. Neurochem has spiked my interest in numerous areas of study and educated me to a whole new level on various subjects. I have thoroughly enjoyed nearly all class periods and learned so much more than I initially thought I would. This class was the pinnacle of my chemistry major and neuroscience minor during my college career and I know that because of this class I will follow many of these topics as they become further researched. This class is the reason I have chosen neurodegenerative disease research as a possible career plan for myself.
In this class we delved into the most recent research on hot topics for diseases and disorders. We broke down what each main article had to say, answered any questions we had by doing research of our own , then had a class discussion on the big picture of the problems and what maybe we can do as scientists to help get closer to answers we don’t have. This class helped us as students understand what it means to learn in a liberal arts school and how we can help change the world.
The first goal for a liberal arts education was to instill a love for learning. In this class we learned about the most recent research there is and I found that fascinating. I love that I not only can understand the problem, but also what needs to be done to fix it and even give input of my own. Very rarely do I have classes that I actually enjoy going to, however, this class made me feel like I can make a difference and actually led me to decide on a possible career path.

The second goal is develop foundational skills and transferable intellectual capacities. In this class we first started out talking about a lot of basics that we need to know to understand the articles. Most of the information was not new to me for I have a background in neuroscience, however, it gave us a foundation needed to move on to bigger topics. We also read many scientific articles which, a less obviously, helps us understand scientific literature and will help us in the future when writing and reading may be essential to our careers.
The third goal of a liberal arts education is develop an understanding of disciplinary, interdisciplinary and intercultural perspectives and their connections. In neurochem we read about many different diseases, disorders, and conditions. It helped us understand that the brain is a very plastic organ and is extremely complex and fragile. We learned that when one area goes wrong it can trigger a number of different problems. Many diseases and disorders in the CNS are different, but in many ways they are all connected. This class challenged us to see these differences and similarities and explain why they might be. Much of the class was coming up with hypotheses as to why something might be happening the way it is.
The fourth goal is cultivate an examined cultural, ethical, physical and spiritual self-understanding. In this class we saw many different ways the human mind works. Using the knowledge we gained from the readings we are able to examine ourselves and maybe answer questions as to why we think a certain way or why we act a certain way. There is a lot we can learn about human behavior from observing the effects of diseases and disorders. This class helped us be able to execute many of these actions.
Finally, the last (but certainly not least) goal of a liberal arts education is to encourage responsible participation in the world. As I stated before, this class has spiked my interest on many topics and I have become quite passionate about many over the past few months. It has changed the way I think about food. It has changed the way I look at someone when they are acting out of the ordinary. It has even changed the way I think about certain topics like alcohol and marijuana. I have told many people what I have learned from the class and what they should know to live a smarter and healthier life. This class makes me want to research certain diseases because I really think I can help research in the field. One of the best classes I have ever taken.
Image citations:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aHp2hkue8RQ/maxresdefault.jpg
https://www.google.com/search?q=neurochemistry&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-9PKqqq_MAhWEND4KHV_7COAQ_AUICSgD&biw=1920&bih=929#q=neurochemistry+lab+work&tbm=isch&tbs=sur:fmc&imgrc=398aPFItkEwGgM%3A
 

Autism had dramatically grown in the past fifty years. The US documented that 19 out of 10,000 individuals had autism in 1992. This rose to 1 in 150 in 2002, followed by 1 in 110 in 2006. As it can be seen, the growth in individuals with autism is huge. The reasons why this number has increased so greatly is not well known. One known contributor is the expansion of the autism spectrum, but there has to be more to it. Some people think vaccines are the cause, and others think genetics or even stress. So with the great confusion, my class decided to look deeper into autism and tried to define the true cause of it.
After reading and analyzing our paper for the week, some potential areas were targeted for a likely cause of autism.
As a whole, we discovered that very simplistically, neurally there is too much glutamate, excitatory neurotransmitters, and not enough GABA, inhibitory neurotransmitters, in the brain. This is causing a myriad of problems. Generically abnormal neuron migration and synchronization is occurring.
Looking deeper into the actual signaling pathway, there are numerous problems that could be occurring. One of which is too much protein synthesis, which produces more than necessary mRNA through over activity of FMRP and eIF4E. Another area of concern is the miscommunication between receptors NRX and NLGN, which cannot dimerize properly and is causing the imbalance of excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters. SynGAP also can be a part of potentially causing autism by not being shut down because it assists in the production of protein. In individuals with autism, they also see a decreased amount of Reelin and dysfunctions with Shank. The image of the pathways is located in the paper on top of page nine.
As you can see, there are various problems that can occur with autism and there is not one specific area that has been discovered to cause it.
I was specifically interested in environmental factors that could induce or cause autism. From what I found, there is not one environmental factor that causes autism, but rather, there are many different items that can induce autism in individuals with a genetic predisposition.
Some of the factors I found were diet, heavy metals, pesticides, stress during birth, drugs, and medications. Vaccines are a factor many individuals believe is the cause for autism. In many recent findings, each of them said that vaccines do not cause autism and it is much safer to vaccinate children from deadly illnesses than to have fear that they could get autism.
Again, there is not one distinct reason for the cause of autism, but tons of research is being done to see if it can be narrowed down to a specific area of the brain or an environmental factor in order to prevent autism growth in the future.

It isn’t really possible to narrow autism down to one specific difference or symptom, really it is a combination of many different things. Every single case is unique, which is what makes it so difficult to treat.

In the 70s/80s it was estimated that 1 in every 2,000 kids had autism, the current numbers are 1 in every 150 8 year olds are diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). ASD would include subcategories such as Aspergers and pervasive development disorder. Since autism has been more recognized and diagnosed there was an initial spike in the number of cases, but even now with a pretty standard diagnosis there is gradual rise in ASD cases.

The common denominator of autism symptoms is misfiring of normal neuronal synapses. Many proteins, hormones, and genes that play a role in synapse are not working correctly in autism. It is difficult for them to connect longer synapses and shorter synapses tend to over fire

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This is where the overstimulation comes into play. Because there is so much firing going on in one place it is difficult to connect the other synapses correctly. Many autistic people have a sensitivity to outside stimulants such as lights, sound, and movements.

They also have difficulty handling social situations and other people’s emotions. It is found that autistic people have lower levels of oxytocin. Oxytocin is known as the “love” hormone. It is produced during sex, childbirth, and breast feeding. During the first 6 months of a relationship there are elevated levels of oxytocin, this is the honeymoon stage. 

Its emotional responses include trust, relaxation, and psychological stability. In response to stress oxytocin acts as an anxiolytic. People with higher levels of oxytocin are more extroverted and are more sensitive to other people’s emotions.

A small study was done on volunteers with mild ASD where they used oxytocin as a treatment. The oxytocin was taken as a nasal spray. The individuals were better able to handle social situations both at home, in public, and in a clinical setting.

After the success of that study they were given a grant to continue this research. Is this the new future for autistic people? Will they be able to change the social behavior of autistic people? How available will it be? Where do we draw the line, will people take oxytocin just to be more extroverted? Should everyone be more extroverted? With more research, who knows where this will lead us.