________________________________________________________________
Sunday
December 6,
2009
Vol. 13 No. 131
RESEARCH
Thimerosal Cause Neurological Damage Like Autism in Rats
Baby Face -- Harvard Experts Hope Facial Recognition Studies Benefit Autism Research
Research Sheds New Light On Epilepsy
Polyphenols and Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Boost The Birth Of New Neurons
New Brain Findings On Dyslexic Children
TREATMENT
Mom Says Training Helped Son Overcome Autism
PEOPLE
Ottawa Crews Search For Autistic Boy
Autism Mom Wins "Brand New Car!" in Virginia
FINANCES
NJ Looks To Expands Services For Those With Autism
Time Waning for MI Autism Insurance Measure
PUBLIC HEALTH
Mercury Spill Shuts Down Clinic Offering H1N1 Vaccine with Mercury in It
EVENTS
Autism2009, the Unique Awares International Online Autism Conference
MEDIA
SAR in the ARI Newsletter
COMMENTARY
Seeking the Cause Of Autism
RESEARCH
Thimerosal Cause Neurological Damage Like Autism in Rats
By Lourdes Salvador. americanchronicle.com is.gd/5ecgs
Autism is a neurodevelopmental disability characterized by social withdrawal, communication deficits, and repetitive behaviors. Both genetic and environmental factors have been implicated as causes of autism, moreover a high body burden of mercury and other toxic metals from vaccinations and environmental exposures has been increasingly given more attention.
Thimerosal is mercury containing vaccine preservative added to many childhood vaccines. It is widely suspected as a cause of an increasing widespread epidemic of childhood neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.
Now, a new study shows that administration of thimerosal leads to long lasting neurological impairment in rats, specifically by altering the neural process of handling noxious stimuli.
Analysis also shows that significant amounts of mercury from thimerosal accumulates in the rat brain and remains long term. The mercury is not readily cleared, as was previously believed. Though mercury readily leaves the blood stream, it does not leave the body. It is now recognized to accumulate in brain tissue.
Additionally, this research is supported by various prior studies which show that children with autism suffer from a weak ability to excrete mercury and that the weaker the ability, the more severe the symptoms of autism.
Now, two new research studies investigating the effects of chelation therapy on the health and behavior of children with autism spectrum disorders have discovered that children receiving chelation to reduce mercury levels had significant improvements.
It appears that mercury may produce they symptom set recognized in the autism spectrum disorders as a form of autism.
+ Read more and references: is.gd/5ecgs
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. . . Read, then Forward
the Schafer Autism Report.
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www.sarnet.org
Baby Face -- Harvard Experts Hope Facial Recognition Studies Benefit Autism Research
ABC News' Dr. Richard Besser Urges Parents to Make Faces At Their Children
By Lauren Cox is.gd/5e8EY
Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston studying the science of how babies read facial expressions say they're hoping their results will prove useful for autism and developmental research. Scientists at Harvard believe emotion detection is so crucial in everyday life that they're willing to cajole babies into an electrode "net" to see how to see how humans first learn to read faces.
Even in the home, ABC News' senior health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser told "Good Morning America" that parents can play games and make faces with their babies to see that recognition in action.
"Does their face change, do they react? If they don't that's something you need to bring to your doctor," he said. "That can be a clue that something is wrong."
In his office, Besser said he often tries to get his littlest patients to turn their heads and follow his facial cues.
"As a pediatrician, when I'm with a mother and a young baby I'm looking to see if there's a connection," he said.
At Charles Nelson's lab at Children's Hospital Boston, babies help him determine when humans begin to recognize faces not by pushing buttons or pointing but simply by looking at pictures on a screen.
Cameras embedded in the screen track the baby's eye movements within a millimeter of accuracy as they examine the faces as a computer logs the child's brain activity.
By comparing changes in eye movement and brain activity for each picture, Nelson can determine when and for how long a child recognizes a difference in a face -- such as in a happy face or a frightened face -- and when a child misses those subtleties.
"There are individual differences to sensitivity to faces, and our hypothesis is they have the origins early at life," said Nelson, a professor of pediatrics and neuroscience at Harvard Medical School.
Nelson said children may start distinguishing faces by species, gender, race and age by their first birthday. However, there's a tradeoff: The more specialized humans become in recognizing some faces, the more they sacrifice their ability to recognize other faces.
"If I showed you [an adult] two different monkeys, you would have a difficult time distinguishing the two faces. You could do it, but it would take time," said Nelson, who has a doctorate in developmental and child psychology.
However, "at 6 months of age, a baby can easily discriminate two monkey faces, but at 9 months, it's difficult for them," he said.
Nelson's work has shown that infants are capable of distinguishing happiness, fear, anger, sadness and disgust even before they can speak. Humans are especially good at recognizing fear.
Babies are More Fixated on Fear One baby in the study, 8-month-old Emmett, was shown images depicting three different facial emotions.
He seemed more interested on the one showing fear.
"Babies like to look more at fear, and they show more brain activity to fear," Nelson said. "And we've been puzzled by this. They don't seem ... at all upset or alarmed looking at it, they just look at it more."
He isn't sure why babies pay more attention to fearful faces, but Nelson hypothesizes it is hardwired into children's brains to protect them. The faster a child picks up on mom and dad's fear, the faster the child realizes there's danger.
"It's critically important, long before you can fend for yourself, to say, 'That's a face that I need to be concerned about. I don't know why, but, at some point, I'm going to know that I should run away from a face like that,'" Nelson said.
The amygdala, an almond-shaped structure deep in the brain, provides the ability to read emotions, and it gets better at it with experience. A baby's brain is wide open to learning -- unlike an adult's brain -- so if a baby doesn't get the kind of exposure to the various expressions, the child's ability to differentiate between facial expressions may not develop as strongly.
Skill is Important for Survival "There's actually some evidence to suggest that you can't make up for it," Nelson said.
The skill for reading expressions is valuable. A skilled face-reader will have a better chance at relationships, getting a job and interacting with others, he said.
"Even as adults, we depend heavily on reading faces, and it's because the verbal channel can't always be depended on, because people can disguise that," he added. "They have a harder time disguising their face."
Nelson hopes the research will lead to early diagnoses for autism.
+ Read more: is.gd/5e8EY
Research Sheds New Light On Epilepsy
Source: Newcastle University is.gd/5e7MH
Pioneering research using human brain tissue removed from people suffering from epilepsy has opened the door to new treatments for the disease.
Scientists at Newcastle University have for the first time been able to record spontaneous epileptic activity in brain tissue that has been removed from patients undergoing neurosurgery.
Led by Newcastle University's Dr Mark Cunningham, the research has revealed that a particular type of brain wave pattern associated with epilepsy is caused by electrical connections between nerve cells in the brain rather than chemical ones. This means the traditional drugs are useless to them.
Published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Dr Cunningham said the findings marked a huge step forward in our understanding of a disease which affects an estimated 45 million people worldwide.
"Until now we have only been able to mimic epilepsy using experimental animal models but this can never give you a true picture of what is actually going on inside the human brain in epilepsy," explained Dr Cunningham who is based in Newcastle University's Institute of Neuroscience.
"Our findings help us to understand what is going wrong and are an important step towards finding new epilepsy treatments in the future."
The study The first line of treatment for patients with epilepsy uses anti-epileptic drugs to control seizures.
However, in almost 30 per cent of patients the drugs don't work. In this case, one course of action available to them is a neurosurgical procedure in which the brain tissue responsible for the epilepsy is removed from the patient.
Working in collaboration with the Epilepsy Surgery Group at Newcastle General Hospital and IBM Watson Research Centre in New York, the team with permission from the patients have taken this epileptic tissue into the lab and 'fooled' it into thinking it is still part of the living brain.
+ Read more: is.gd/5e7MH
Polyphenols and Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Boost The Birth Of New Neurons
New study in mice by UAB researchers confirm
Source: Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona is.gd/5e6Fa
Universitat Autςnoma de Barcelona (UAB) researchers have confirmed that a diet rich in polyphenols and polyunsaturated fatty acids, patented as an LMN diet, helps boost the production of the brain's stem cells -neurogenesis- and strengthens their differentiation in different types of neuron cells. The research revealed that mice fed an LMN diet, when compared to those fed a control diet, have more cell proliferation in the two areas of the brain where neurogenesis is produced, the olfactory bulb and the hippocampus, both of which are greatly damaged in patients with Alzheimer's disease. These results give support to the hypothesis that a diet made up of foods rich in these antioxidant substances could delay the onset of this disease or even slow down its evolution.
The study will be published in the December issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and was directed by Mercedes Unzeta, professor of the UAB Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Participating in the study were researchers from this department and from the departments of Cell Biology, Physiology and Immunology, and of Psychiatry and Legal Medicine, all of which are affiliated centres of the Institute of Neuroscience of Universitat Autςnoma de Barcelona. The company La Morella Nuts from Reus and the ACE Foundation of the Catalan Institute of Applied Neurosciences also collaborated in the study.
Polyphenols can be found in tea, beer, grapes, wine, olive oil, cocoa, nuts and other fruits and vegetables. Polyunsaturated fatty acids can be found in blue fish and vegetables such as corn, soya beans, sunflowers and pumpkins.
+ Read more: is.gd/5e6Fa
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New Brain Findings On Dyslexic Children
Good readers learn from repeating auditory signals, poor readers do not
Source: Northwestern University is.gd/5e6Mp
The vast majority of school-aged children can focus on the voice of a teacher amid the cacophony of the typical classroom thanks to a brain that automatically focuses on relevant, predictable and repeating auditory information, according to new research from Northwestern University.
But for children with developmental dyslexia, the teacher's voice may get lost in the background noise of banging lockers, whispering children, playground screams and scraping chairs, the researchers say. Their study appears in the Nov. 12 issue of Neuron.
Recent scientific studies suggest that children with developmental dyslexia -- a neurological disorder affecting reading and spelling skills in 5 to 10 percent of school aged children -- have difficulties separating relevant auditory information from competing noise.
The research from Northwestern University's Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory not only confirms those findings but presents biological evidence that children who report problems hearing speech in noise also suffer from a measurable neural impairment that adversely affects their ability to make use of regularities in the sound environment.
"The ability to sharpen or fine-tune repeating elements is crucial to hearing speech in noise because it allows for superior 'tagging' of voice pitch, an important cue in picking out a particular voice within background noise," said Nina Kraus, Hugh Knowles Professor of Communication Sciences and Neurobiology and director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory.
+ Read more: is.gd/5e6Mp
TREATMENT
Mom Says Training Helped Son
Overcome Autism
By Debbie Denmon / WFAA-TV is.gd/5edsM
Dallas It's fascinating to see just how far Roman Scott has progressed at age eight after he was diagnosed with autism as a toddler.
As a baby, Roman would get fixated on ceiling fans and stare for hours.
"He couldn't talk [at age 2]," said his mother, Elizabeth Scott. "He couldn't sit still. He ran 60 laps a day around our family room and we would have to stop him. He would cry because he wanted to keep running."
Roman appeared to be running off fear.
He was also afraid to touch things with different textures such as Play-Doh, bubbles, and finger foods.
"Every day I was so afraid," Scott added, "and I prayed and I asked God, 'What do I have to do to help this child?' I took suggestions from speech therapists and occupational therapists and then I created my own program for him."
Scott eventually quit her job as teacher and scheduled therapy sessions designed to retrain Roman's brain, starting with meaningful play.
She said they did 78 drills and skills slowly and methodically to build his confidence.
"He was afraid of the rain," Scott said, "so he was afraid to take a shower. So we had to desensitize his head. I would take handfuls of water and sprinkle it over his head, allowing him to get used to the water coming down on his face."
Last summer's family video showing him swimming is a huge accomplishment.
Scott worked with Roman 10 hours a day for three years, and it turned out to be a success 45 autistic symptoms have vanished, she said.
"I know a lot of parents say '10 hours a day? Oh, that is so much time.' But I say I would do it all again. I would say it is worth it. And now I have my child back," Scott said.
Roman's ability to complete tough puzzles even amazes his former teacher, Paige Garza.
The child was once enrolled in special education classes.
"I would have to say I've never seen a person recover from autism," Garza said. "This is the first one."
Garza is especially surprised to see him playing with others. Roman used to cry and scream if another child so much as touched him.
"When I think back of how he was when he was in my class. And now? It could be two different children you are talking about," Garza said.
Roman is now a normal second grader in a traditional classroom.
He has a best friend, excels academically, and plays two sports.
Scott wrote a book titled Raindrops on Roman, detailing exactly what she did to help her son recover.
"I do believe its a miracle," Scott said, "but, I want the miracle for everyone."
The 160-page book is for sale on-line by Robert D. Reed Publishers for $14.95. E-mail ddenmon@wfaa.com
PEOPLE
Ottawa Crews Search For Autistic Boy
cbc.ca is.gd/5edIF
Search crews were back on the ground and in the air Sunday at first light, looking for a seven-year-old autistic boy from Cape Breton who went missing Saturday about 2 p.m.
James Delorey, who doesn't speak, wandered into the woods near South Bar, apparently following the family's dog.
Police say the boy is not dressed for the winter weather. He was wearing dark jeans, a blue plaid shirt and a grey vest, police said.
The temperature was hovering just about freezing late Saturday and Environment Canada has issued a weather warning for the Cape Breton region Sunday, with up to 15 centimetres of snow expected.
James has brown hair and weighs about 60 pounds.
A military search-and-rescue helicopter equipped with night vision gear joined the search late Saturday from Canadian Forces Base Greenwood.
Local ground crews consisting of volunteers, family members and police dogs are also involved in the search.
"We have other ground searches form mainland Nova Scotia coming to assist," said Staff Sgt. Ken O'Neil of the Cape Breton Regional Police service.
Police have also called in some special help, he said. "What we were able to do is we have with us the mother of an autistic child herself in our command centre to assist us with any challenges in that regard."
A water search of the shoreline has also been conducted.
Autism Mom Wins "Brand New Car!" in Virginia
See video of Lavada Ann Robertson tearful win here:
is.gd/5dqzG
FINANCES
NJ Looks To Expands Services For Those With Autism
By Bruce Shipkowski, Associated Press is.gd/5edQq
Trenton, N.J. (AP) ― New Jersey Assembly members are poised to vote on legislation that would provide more assistance for people with autism.
The Garden State has the nation's highest autism rate, and officials have moved in recent years to raise awareness about the disorder and encourage early diagnosis and early intervention. New Jersey recently became the 15th state to require expanded health insurance coverage for autism, and also has established a centralized statewide autism registry and trains teachers in autism awareness.
The two measures scheduled for a vote Monday mostly target adults with autism.
One bill (A-4225) would permit them to voluntarily place their names on a new state registry that officials say would help improve planning and other services for those with autism spectrum disorders. Adults could register themselves or be listed by a health care or service provider.
The other (A-4226) would revise the state's discrimination laws to specifically prohibit discriminatory acts against people with autism.
+ Read more: is.gd/5edQq
Time Waning for MI Autism Insurance Measure
By Rina Miller. is.gd/5edW2
Ann Arbor, MI (Michigan Radio) - Legislation that would require insurance providers to cover autism treatments is stalled in the state Senate.
Jim and Amy Youngblood's son, Ben, is four. He was diagnosed with autism at a year and a half. Ben's doctor-recommended treatment costs the couple 50 thousand dollars a year.
Jim Youngblood says their insurance claim was denied on the grounds that the treatment was education-based, rather than medical.
"You know, Michigan needs to do their part, and show that if you set up shop as an insurance company in Michigan, you're not going to be allowed to arbitrarily exclude treatments -- especially those that would have a profound impact on a person's life," Youngblood says.
According to a spokesman for State Senator Alan Sanborn, the Senate bill has not yet been scheduled for hearings as this year's session comes to a close.
Youngblood says studies show it costs about three million dollars more over a lifetime to take care of a person with autism who's not been treated.
PUBLIC HEALTH
Mercury Spill Shuts Down Clinic Offering H1N1 Vaccine with Mercury in It.
By Jeremy Brown is.gd/5eaQz
West Warwick, R.I. (WPRI) - A chemical spill causes a hazmat scare at a local H1N1 clinic.
A thermometer accidentally broke Friday afternoon spilling mercury onto the floor of the gym at the Greenbush School in West Warwick.
The gym had to be evacuated.
It took crews hours to clean up that spill.
EVENTS
Autism2009, the Unique Awares International Online Autism Conference
Extended until December 11, 2020
www.awares.org/conferences
Just to let you know that, due to popular demand, I have decided to extend Autism2009 the Awares annual international online autism conference for another week, until Friday December 11, 2009. I hope this will allow as many people as possible time to read the papers and put their questions to the more than sixty top world autism experts taking part.
This event which Professor Simon Baron-Cohen has called the finest online conference of its type on the planet is being run once again by Adam Feinstein, editor of Awares, the pioneering website of Autism Cymru, Waless national charity for autism.
Yet again, you have the unique opportunity to put your questions directly to the autism experts, as well as to exchange views with thousands of delegates. Among the experts participating are: Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor Susan Leekam, Dr Gary Mesibov, Donna Williams, Dr Wendy Lawson, Dr Susan Folstein, Merry Barua, Dr Darold Treffert, Professor Stuart Murray, Stephen Shore, Thorkil Sonne, Dr Manuel Casanova, Dr Connie Kasari Dr Pamela Heaton, Dr Dirk Dossche, Dr Wendy Kates, Dr George Anderson and Dr Amanda Ludlow. I will try to persuade as many experts as possible to stay on for the second week.
Topics of discussion include: education, behavioural issues, language impairments, voices from the spectrum, neurology, genetics, immunology, Aspergers syndrome, autism in adolescents and adults, employment, sensory issues, socialising difficulties, biomedical issues and approaches, related conditions and concepts of autism.
This conference is open to anyone with an interest in autism: parents, carers, teachers, clinicians and other professionals, as well as individuals with autism themselves.
Dont this miss this unique opportunity to put your questions directly to some of the worlds top autism authorities. You can register for Autism2009 right now at www.awares.org/conferences where you will find the speakers' papers and a lively discussion forum.
MEDIA
SAR in the ARI Newsletter
The current edition of the emailed Autism Research Institute newsletter has an item about the SAR: "Schafer Report Launches 14th Year , Volunteer, non-profit news service started in 1996." You can read a little history of the SAR, plus check out the rest of the ARI report here: is.gd/5e9A6
COMMENTARY
Seeking the Cause Of Autism
By Steven Higgs bloomingtonalternative.com is.gd/5e663
The dogged pursuit of the unanswerable question, "What causes autism?" could be considered a health hazard. It requires poring over reams of studies, most of whose contents could reasonably be expected to induce paranoia. Mental fatigue from considering the studies' considerable contradictions is a distinct possibility, for sure. And the energy with which the proponents of these competing conclusions defend the arguments could lead to high blood pressure for all concerned.
The most emotional dimension of the autism debate, the proposition that mercury in childhood vaccines is linked to the increasing diagnosis rates of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs), is a case in point. Jenny McCarthy and Amanda Peet have offered point-counterpoints all over the Web and on mainstream media, like National Public Radio's Morning Edition.
The vaccine debate swirls around a preservative called thimerosal, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) calls a "mercury-containing organic compound" that was widely used in biological and drug products, "including many vaccines." And, as a Feb. 2, 2002, National Academies news release makes clear, American children's exposure to thimerosal increased dramatically between the early 1980s and late 1990s, when the U.S. Public Health Service, American Academy of Pediatrics and drug manufacturers moved to stop using thimerosal in childhood vaccines.
"In 1980, infants were vaccinated against four diseases -- diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, and polio. Today, most healthy infants get up to 15 shots of five vaccines by the time they are six months old."- National Academies news release "The immunization schedule in this country has grown complex over the last 20 years," the National Academies release says. "In 1980, infants were vaccinated against four diseases -- diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, and polio. Today, most healthy infants get up to 15 shots of five vaccines by the time they are six months old, and up to five additional shots of seven more vaccines by age two."
Vaccination against hepatitis B was and is routinely administered to newborns at birth, at the urging of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Among those who have argued that thimerosal caused their loved ones' ASDs is U.S. Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., whose grandson developed the condition after being vaccinated. "Based upon my own research, I believe that the mercury-based preservative thimerosal - contained in seven of the nine vaccines that my grandson received in one day shortly before he was diagnosed with autism - may have been a contributing cause of his condition," Burton says on his congressional Web page.
But in 2003 the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a Danish study that refuted a connection. Titled "Association Between Thimerosal-Containing Vaccine and Autism," the study analyzed 467,450 children who had and had not been exposed. Its conclusion: "The results do not support a causal relationship between childhood vaccination with thimerosal-containing vaccines and development of autistic-spectrum disorders."
But J.B. Handley, founder of what is now known as McCarthy and husband Jim Carrey's Generation Rescue, says thimerosal is but one of dozens of vaccine-based substances that could contribute to the upward trend of ASD diagnoses.
"In the 1980s, we gave a max of 10 shots to youngsters, today 36," Handley wrote in a Nov. 15, 2009, e-mail. "With this 'simultaneity' of layering on shots, how do we figure out what thing about shots is causing the trouble? Yes, mercury is particularly bad, but we're giving 36 shots with 81 separate ingredients, all thrown onto the schedule rapidly since 1990, which just happens to parallel the rise in autism."
+ Read more: is.gd/5e663
Note: The opinions expressed in COMMENTARY are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Schafer Autism Report.
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