Sunday 24 August 2014 08.04
A new study on autism suggests that it may be possible to treat people who have autism.
Autistic people have too many synapses, which are the connectors through which brain cells send and receive signals.
The extra synapses in autistic brains are the result not of overproduction, but of a failure in the normal process of discarding old and degraded cells.
Researchers at New York's University of Columbia were able to re-establish the brain's "pruning mechanism" in mice genetically modified to simulate autism.
To do it, they used a drug called rapamycin to block a protein, mTOR, which in autistic patients goes hyperactive and blocks the brain's natural ability to cull synapses.
The researchers saw a reduction in typical autistic behaviours, such as avoiding contact with others, in the treated mice, according to findings published this week in the US journal "Neuron."
"We were able to treat the mice after the disease had appeared," said Columbia University neurobiologist David Sulzer, lead author of the study.
This is thought to be crucial because autism does not become apparent at birth but later in childhood, "so you need a treatment that works after diagnosis," he said.
"If we were correct we should be able to have quite effective treatment even after diagnosis."
Excerpt from:
Researchers say autism treatment may be possible