The way people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) gather information – not the judgement process itself – might explain why they gain different perceptions from peoples’ faces, according to a new study from Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies and the University of Montreal. "
NEWARK, NJ (November 20, 2014) – Navigating through the maze of health and medical services can be challenging for parents of children who have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). A new resource is now available for caregivers, health professionals and, especially, parents. A pediatric neurologist and pediatrician/geneticist at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School recognized a need for a comprehensive guide to help parents obtain quality medical care for each stage of their child’s development.
1) A Blood Pressure Hormone Implicated in Psychosis 2) Nutrient Deficiency Linked to Brain Wasting in Huntington’s Disease 3) Autistic Mice Become Social with Drug Treatment
In the early 1990s, autism awareness kicked into high gear, and Pennsylvania responded by developing programs and services to meet the needs of newly diagnosed children. Now, those children have become young adults, and the medical community faces its next challenge – how to serve adults with autism.
Pennsylvania’s Autism Services, Education, Resources & Training Collaborative (ASERT) has released the Pennsylvania Autism Census Update for 2014. The original Pennsylvania Autism Census released in 2009 identified almost 20,000 individuals with autism receiving services across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The 2014 Pennsylvania Autism Census Update now estimates that there are over 55,000 children and adults with autism receiving services, which is almost triple the number initially identified.
Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute reveal that physically moving forward actually trains the brain to perceive the world normally. The findings also show that, the order in which we see things could help the brain calibrate how we perceive time, as well as the objects around us.
Holidays with family can be dicey under the best of circumstances; but when children with special needs are involved, some care must be taken, said occupational therapy professor Dr. Varleisha Gibbs at University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.
With the help of mouse models, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and the “tooth fairy,” researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have implicated a new gene in idiopathic or non-syndromic autism.
The Burkhart Center at Texas Tech University teaches life skills to students with autism and provides education and support to teachers and families. It provides critical services for those affected with autism spectrum disorders in largely rural West Texas.
In a study published online this week by the journal Brain Structure and Function, the identification of neuroanatomical changes related to prematurity helps explain what brain structure and circuitry are affected, and may lead to designing effective prevention strategies and early interventional treatments for cognitive disabilities.
For the first time, toddlers with autism have demonstrated significant improvement after intensive intervention by parents rather than clinicians, according to a new Florida State University study published online in the journal Pediatrics.
Two major genetic studies of autism, led in part by UC San Francisco scientists and involving more than 50 laboratories worldwide, have newly implicated dozens of genes in the disorder. The research shows that rare mutations in these genes affect communication networks in the brain and compromise fundamental biological mechanisms that govern whether, when, and how genes are activated overall.
Newfound Genetic Differences Provide Many Hints at Causes
The National Institute of Mental Health has awarded a grant to University of Kentucky College of Education Professor Lisa Ruble and a team of co-investigators to find ways to help reduce or eliminate the disconnect from needed services that often occurs when students with autism complete school.
10-institution study seeks to pilot new treatment approaches
Study by Amy Kalkbrenner and colleagues shows that pollution's impact on autism rates in North Carolina is similar to results of previous pollution autism studies in California.
Results of a small clinical trial suggest that a chemical derived from broccoli sprouts — and best known for claims that it can help prevent certain cancers — may ease classic behavioral symptoms in those with autism spectrum disorders.
A UCLA study shows how, in pregnant mice, inflammation, a first line defense of the immune system, can trigger an excessive division of neural stem cells that can cause “overgrowth” in the offspring’s brain, and, ultimately, autistic behavior.
When young mice with the rodent equivalent of a rare autism spectrum disorder, called Rett syndrome, were fed a diet supplemented with the synthetic oil triheptanoin, they lived longer than mice on regular diets. Importantly, their physical and behavioral symptoms were also less severe after being on the diet.
The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia's Autism Roadmap is a comprehensive, one-stop web site to help families navigate accurate, up-to-date information about autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The web site provides families customized information based on what they need- whether their child has just been diagnosed, or they’ve hit an obstacle and are looking for new ideas and resources.
A parent coaching intervention brings meaningful benefits for preschool-aged children with autism-spectrum disorders (ASD), according to a clinical trial in the October Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, the official journal of the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
A new study by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University suggests that measuring how fast the brain responds to sights and sounds could help in objectively classifying people on the autism spectrum and may help diagnose the condition earlier. The paper was published today in the online edition of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
UNC scientists discover that knocking out the gene NrCAM increases the number of dendritic spines on excitatory pyramidal neurons. Other studies have confirmed that the overabundance of dendritic spines allows for too many synaptic connections – a phenomenon strongly linked to autism.
Over the past five years, several studies have focused on infertility treatment, partly because of the coincidental rise in both the diagnosis of autism and the use of assisted reproduction. A recent study in Infertility and Sterility examined a potential link.
Autism cases aren't up just because mental health professionals are overdiagnosing the disorder. A study by two researchers using market theory shows the disorder really is more prevalent.
SLU Researchers will help parents apply strategies that could improve their child’s behavioral problems
Children and adolescents with autism have a surplus of synapses in the brain, and this excess is due to a slowdown in a normal brain “pruning” process during development, according to a study by neuroscientists at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). Because synapses are the points where neurons connect and communicate with each other, the excessive synapses may have profound effects on how the brain functions. The study was published in the August 21 online issue of the journal Neuron.
“One of the consequences of our new model will be to focus early childhood intervention on developing the particular strengths of the child’s brain, rather than exclusively trying to correct missing behaviors, a practice that may be a waste of a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Laurent Mottron, University of Montreal
Vanderbilt researchers this week reported updated findings regarding the benefits of behavior-focused therapies for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The review, conducted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)-funded Vanderbilt Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC), updates a prior systematic review of interventions for children (up to age 12) with a focus on recent studies of behavioral interventions.
The New Jersey Governor’s Council for Medical Research and Treatment of Autism awarded a $394,200 two-year grant to Dr. MaryLouise Kerwin, the chairperson of the Department of Psychology at Rowan University, Glassboro, N.J., to research parent-implemented treatment for autism in young children. She is in the second year of the Rowan Autism Parent Program, working with co-investigator Dr. Michelle Soreth, an associate professor of psychology at Rowan, and 17 undergraduate and graduate students and graduate alumni on the pilot study.
Researchers at UC San Francisco have found that children with sensory processing disorders have decreased structural brain connections in specific sensory regions different than those in autism, further establishing SPD as a clinically important neurodevelopmental disorder.
Anthony-Samuel LaMantia, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and physiology at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, received a $739K grant from the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative to study the link between autism and disrupted brain development.
Peer-led interventions that target parental well-being can significantly reduce stress, depression and anxiety in mothers of children with disabilities, according to new findings released today in the journal Pediatrics.
Heritability trumps spontaneous glitches, environment
A UCLA-led study has found that the communication skills of minimally verbal children with autism can be greatly improved through personalized interventions that are combined with the use of computer tablets.
A researcher at Seattle Children’s Hospital and Research Institute has found a genetic identifier for autism that includes physical features that may eventually allow clinicians to identify babies who are at risk for autism before they are born. This is the first time a genetic mutation has been linked to autism.
Many families beat the summer heat with trips to swimming pools, beaches, and water parks; but water safety concerns are particularly heightened for families of children with autism, said Varleisha Gibbs, OTD, OTR/L, occupational therapy professor at University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. In fact, drowning remains a leading cause of death in children with autism because they often become overstimulated with crowds and escape to unsafe environments.
UC San Francisco researchers have completed the first Internet-based clinical trial for children with autism, establishing it as a viable and cost effective method of conducting high-quality and rapid clinical trials in this population.
Parents who have a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are about one third less likely to have more children than families without an affected child, according to a study led by a UC San Francisco researcher.
To promote greater understanding of autism, UT Southwestern Medical Center has launched a regional brain tissue collection program that will support research on this condition, which affects an estimated one in 68 children.
In a further test of a novel theory that suggests autism is the consequence of abnormal cell communication, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report that an almost century-old drug approved for treating sleeping sickness also restores normal cellular signaling in a mouse model of autism, reversing symptoms of the neurological disorder in animals that were the human biological age equivalent of 30 years old.
A new mouse model developed by researchers at Tufts University demonstrates that learning impairments and autistic-like behaviors can be caused by loss of the APC gene in the developing brain, demonstrating that APC regulates critical pathways that link to these disabilities.
Costs for a lifetime of support for each individual with autism spectrum disorder may reach $2.4 million, according to a new study from researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In a study published online today in JAMA Pediatrics, the team found that costs for a person with ASD and an intellectual disability reaches $2.4 million in the United States and $2.2 million in the United Kingdom; costs for those who have ASD without an intellectual disability are estimated to cost $1.4 million in both the U.S. and the U.K.
A new analysis of DNA from thousands of patients has uncovered several underlying gene networks with potentially important roles in autism. These networks may offer atractive targets for developing new autism drugs or repurposing drugs for other indications.
Research by scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine may help explain how some cases of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can result from environmental influences rather than gene mutations. The findings, published online today in PLOS Genetics, shed light on why older mothers are at increased risk for having children with ASD and could pave the way for more research into the role of environment on ASD.
“Aha” moments are rare in medical research, scientists say. As rare, they add, as finding mice with Mohawk-like hairstyles. But both events happened in a lab at NYU Langone Medical Center, months after an international team of neuroscientists bred hundreds of mice with a suspect genetic mutation tied to autism spectrum disorders.
In the largest family study on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to date, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, along with a research team from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm Sweden and King’s College in London found that individual risk of ASD and autistic disorder increased with greater genetic relatedness in families – that is, persons with a sibling, half-sibling or cousin diagnosed with autism have an increased likelihood of developing ASD themselves. Furthermore, the research findings showed that “environmental” factors unique to the individual (birth complications, maternal infections, etc.) were more of a determinant for ASD than previously believed.
Investigators from The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore will present findings from more than 40 research studies at the upcoming Pediatric Academic Societies and Asian Society for Pediatric Research Joint Meeting.
Scientists have known that abnormal brain growth is associated with autism spectrum disorder. However, the relationship between the two has not been well understood.
A substantial proportion of risk for developing autism spectrum disorders (ASD), resides in genes that are part of specific, interconnected biological pathways, according to researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who conducted a broad study of almost 2,500 families in the United States and throughout the world.
RSS
Medicine keyboard_arrow_right
Sciencekeyboard_arrow_right
Life keyboard_arrow_right
Business keyboard_arrow_right
Journal News keyboard_arrow_right
By Location keyboard_arrow_right
Meetings, Grants, and Events keyboard_arrow_right